Actress. She made Hollywood history as the first African American to receive, in any category, an Academy Award. In her role as "Mammy" in the 1939 film "Gone With the Wind," she was awarded the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Born one of 13 children of former enslaved parents, she was the daughter of an American Civil War veteran from Wichita, Kansas. She began her career as a band vocalist and made her screen debut in 1932. Stout and matronly, with a deep and slightly gravelly voice, she was sadly typecast from the beginning as a maid or mammy. Yet she strove to bring dignity, intelligence, and even hints of dissent to those parts and, through her sheer presence, managed to steal every scene she was in. As Mammy in "Gone With the Wind," she was a genius of common sense, providing the film with its voice of reason. "She's one person whose respect I'd like to have," muses Clark Gable's Rhett Butler, and the moral authority McDaniel gave the character leaves us no reason to doubt him. She richly deserved the Oscar she received for her performance. Playing both dramatic and comedic roles, her nearly 100 other films include "Blonde Venus" in 1932, "I'm No Angel" in 1933, "Judge Priest" and "Babbitt" both 1934, "The Little Colonel" and "Alice Adams" both in 1935, "Show Boat" in 1936, "Stella Dallas" and "Nothing Sacred" both in 1937, "They Died with Their Boots On" in 1941, "In This Our Life" in 1942, "Since You Went Away" in 1944, and "Song of the South" in 1946. McDaniel's fame made her a lightning rod for controversy. Some black critics felt her superior acting ability transcended the role she had to play again and again, while others, notably the NAACP, accused her of reinforcing negative stereotypes. Not that she had many options in the matter. As McDaniel ruefully quipped, "I'd rather play a maid for $700 a week than be one for $7 a week." And her "Gone With the Wind" triumph did nothing to shield her from the segregationist attitudes of her time. She was not allowed to attend the film's Atlanta premiere, and at the Academy Award ceremony, she and her husband had to sit isolated in the back of the room, at a table just for them. Despite the sinful limits placed on her life and her talent, McDaniel did blaze a few trails. In 1945, she helped organize a class-action lawsuit against housing discrimination in her Los Angeles neighborhood; the case went to the U. S. Supreme Court, and race-based restrictions on owning property were ruled unconstitutional. As a pioneer, she was the first black woman to sing on American radio in 1931 and the first to star in her own radio and television series, "Beulah" form 1947 to 1952. When McDaniel died of breast cancer at 59, 3000 mourners attended the funeral and 125 limousines accompanied her body to Rosedale Cemetery. Racism literally dogged her to the grave. McDaniel's dying wish, to be buried at Hollywood Memorial Park, was denied because at the time that cemetery did not permit burials for African Americans. In 1999, a memorial cenotaph for the actress was finally placed there by McDaniel's relatives and by Tyler Cassity, owner of the now-renamed Hollywood Forever Cemetery. She received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for radio and the other for film. In 1975, she was inducted posthumously into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. After being made a widow in 1922, she married four more times. She never had children.

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