The nominees were ...
- Olivia de Havilland in Gone With the Wind
- Geraldine Fitzgerald in Wuthering Heights
- Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind
- Edna May Oliver in Drums Along the Mohawk
- Maria Ouspenskaya in Love Affair
... when they should have been ...
- Olivia de Havilland in Gone With the Wind
- Geraldine Fitzgerald in Dark Victory
- Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz
- Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind
- Edna May Oliver in Drums Along the Mohawk
And the Oscar went to ...
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| Hattie McDaniel with the plaque that supporting players were given instead of statuettes. Shortly before her death in 1952, it was presented to Howard University in Washington, D.C., but it has disappeared. |
Whatever one may say about the racial attitudes embodied in the character of Mammy, the role provided McDaniel with acting opportunities and screen time rarely granted to black performers of the era. Born in Kansas, she had to be trained in the dialect needed for the part. She began her career as a singer, a talent she rarely had a chance to use on screen, except in the 1936 Show Boat. Otherwise, both before and after Gone With the Wind, she was stuck playing maids, often, as in Alice Adams, making even those stereotypical parts memorable. She was the first black performer to be nominated for an Oscar, and for more than half a century, until Whoopi Goldberg won for Ghost, the only black woman to win an Academy Award for acting. On the other hand, McDaniel was not allowed to attend the premiere of GWTW in Atlanta, and her photograph did not appear in the souvenir program.
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| Clark Gable and Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind |
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