1 9 2 7–1 94 6

 Oscar winners Van Heflin, Garson,

James Cagney, and Teresa Wright

a soundstage, and the home is comically CHANGED HISTORY WITH HER

large for a so-called “middle-class” family— OSCAR FOR GONE WITH THE WIND. IT ELEVATED HER TO
Mrs. Miniver remains timeless in the way it A SYMBOL OF RACIAL PROGRESS—BUT MADE HER A
PARIAH TO MUCH OF BLACK AMERICA. BY DEVAN COGGAN
depicts the erosion of safety and tradition.
For half of the movie, we see the communi-
ty’s normal lives. And then, as fascism creeps
closer, we see that normalcy shatter.
When Hattie McDaniel hair, was seated at a separate
1939

Mrs. Miniver’s son, Vin (played by Rich-

took the stage at the table with her date. After her
ard Ney, who—scandal!—was having an 12th Academy Awards name was announced as Best
affair with Garson and would later marry in 1940, she was the Supporting Actress, she rose to
her), is in constant danger as he flies RAF only black woman in the room. receive the plaque given to all
The 46-year-old actress from supporting-actor winners at the
missions over Europe, while his sweet- Gone With the Wind was the first time, eschewed the speech
heart, Carol (Teresa Wright), awaits his African-American nominated Selznick had prepared for her,
return. He does, but when they are on their for an Oscar, but with the cere- and delivered one she’d written
honeymoon, an air raid devastates the mony held at the segregated with the help of black writer
Ambassador Hotel, producer Ruby Berkley Goodwin, a close
town, and, in a harrowing sequence, Mrs. David O. Selznick had to petition friend. “It has made me feel
Miniver and her family cower in a bomb for McDaniel to be allowed into very, very humble, and I shall
shelter as their home is demolished. the hotel’s glitzy Cocoanut always hold it as a beacon for
Grove nightclub. While costars anything I may be able to do in
“They’re scared for their own safety, and
Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable sat the future,” she told the crowd.
they’re really scared about their kids,” Har- together, McDaniel, wearing a “I sincerely hope I shall always
ris says. “The crampedness of it, the way blue gown and gardenias in her be a credit to my race and to
they’re in a sort of parental crouch—you feel
trapped in there with them.”
 McDaniel and Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind
In the final scene, survivors gather in
the ruins of a local church for an inspiring
speech, one that President Franklin D. Roo-
sevelt later had printed and air-dropped
over occupied Europe to inspire the resis-
tance. By the movie’s end, some have given
their lives, but not necessarily the ones we
expect. That’s another message of the film:
There are no sidelines, no safe zones.
There’s no hiding, only fighting back. “It’s
still all about the importance of doing
one’s little bit,” Maxtone Graham says.
Mrs. Miniver persists. Always.

34 E W.C O M O S C A R 9 0 T H A N N I V E R SA R Y S P E C I A L

the motion picture industry.”
It was a historic moment, but
COURTESY OF AMPAS; SPENCER: JASON MERRIT T/GET T Y IMAGES; DAVIS: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/GET T Y IMAGES;
it would take nearly a quarter
WITH OSCARS: EVERET T COLLECTION; GONE WITH THE WIND: AL AMY STOCK PHOTO; MCDANIEL AND BAINTER:
century before Oscar crowned
another black actor, when
Sidney Poitier won for 1963’s
Lilies of the Field. McDaniel’s
own career floundered. Black
audiences criticized her for
perpetuating negative stereo-
types, and white filmmakers cast
her only in domestic-servant
roles. “I’d rather play a maid
than be a maid,” she famously
told her critics, but by the time
of her death in 1952, she was a
polarizing figure, forever associ-
ated with Mammy, Scarlett
O’Hara’s feisty house slave.
BERRY: JOHN MCCOY/L ADN/WIREIMAGE
In reality, McDaniel was far
more complex. Born in 1893 to
two former slaves (her father
fought as a Union soldier in the
Civil War), she grew up in pov-
erty and followed her brothers
onto the stage. Throughout the
1920s, she toured with vaude-
ville and minstrel shows, and
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poked fun at stereotypes by
performing in whiteface. She
moved to Los Angeles in 1931,
where she traded her provoca-
tive stage persona for uncred-
ited film roles as maids and
slaves. While some black actors
refused to play such characters
(and were ostracized by the
major studios for it), McDaniel
pushed back in more subtle
ways. Her domestics were more
opinionated and defiant than
most at the time. “She’s an artist
who’s been resisting white
domination with performance—
up until she becomes involved
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McDaniel and presenter Fay Bainter, who
had won Best Supporting Actress the
previous year, at the 12th Academy Awards.
McDaniel called it “one of the happiest
moments of my life.”
After McDaniel’s
win, it would
take five decades
in white show business,” says before another
black actress took
historian Jill Watts, author of the
home an Oscar
biography Hattie McDaniel:
Black Ambition, White Holly-
wood, which was recently
optioned to be made into a film.
“If you watch those perfor-
mances, she’s straitjacketed [by
the writing], but she’s trying to Best Supporting Actress
move her way out of that.”
It was that brashness that
made McDaniel a long shot
for the role of Mammy, but
after a recommendation from Best Actress
Bing Crosby, Selznick cast
her. Winning her biggest role
to date also brought a slew
of new problems: The NAACP
denounced Gone With the
Wind, and some black theaters Best Supporting Actress
refused to show it. The actress
was also banned from attend-
ing the film’s Atlanta premiere,
although Gone With the Wind
author Margaret Mitchell later Best Supporting Actress
sent McDaniel a congratulatory
telegram that read: “Wish you
could have heard the applause.”
McDaniel never again
reached that level of success, Best Supporting Actress
but she made history in 1947
when she became the first
black actor to star in her own
American radio program, The
Beulah Show. Within a few Best Supporting Actress
years, she was diagnosed with
breast cancer, and died at 59.
She bequeathed her Oscar
plaque to Howard University,
but by the early ’70s it had
gone missing. In 2011, historian Best Supporting Actress
W. Burlette Carter published
the results of her year-and-
a-half search for it, concluding
that the Oscar was likely put
into storage and never recov-
ered. “We hold the hope,”
Carter says, “that we’ll find it
someday.”

( Clockwise from left )
Octavia Spencer, Halle
Berry, and Viola Davis
 ACT R E S S E S
W H O' V E E A R N E D OS CA RS
FO R M U S I CA L S

H AY L E Y M I L L S A N D Julie Andrews
OT H E R J U V E N I L E- lost the battle but
OS CA R W I N N E RS won the Oscar

38

Miyoshi Umeki is
still the only
Asian actress to
win an Oscar

48
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COURTESY OF AMPAS

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A year after she won Best Actress for The Country Girl, Grace Kelly returned to the RKO Pantages Theatre, where she and
Audrey Hepburn waited backstage to present awards to the night’s big winners: Ernest Borgnine and his film, Marty.
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