Biography
Although Hattie McDaniel earned lasting fame through her Academy Award-winning portrayal of Mammy in Gone with the Wind, her professional life began in music. As a teenager she traveled with her family's Baptist tent show and the vaudeville troupe the Spikes Brothers Comedy Stars. Her breakthrough arrived in 1920 when "Professor" George Morrison, a prominent Denver musician, recruited her to headline his touring ensemble, the Melody Hounds. She next joined tours on the Pantages vaudeville circuit and made her recording debut in 1926. From 1929 to 1930 McDaniel performed onstage and traveled with the Showboat company. At a later point she worked as a bathroom attendant in a Milwaukee nightclub, where the owner began featuring her as a singer. After moving to Los Angeles she took the lead in the radio series The Optimistic Do-Nuts. She then entered films and ultimately appeared in more than seventy pictures. In 1947 she began starring on radio in The Beulah Show. When the program shifted to television in 1951, McDaniel completed only three episodes before learning she had cancer. She died in 1952.