I will lick Hattie McDaniel if given the chance...

Post by **robfharris** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 4:08 am

1st Black Oscar Winner Honored With Stamp
Thu Jan 26, 1:40 AM ET

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Hattie McDaniel, the first black actress to win an Academy Award, was honored Wednesday with a U.S. Postal Service commemorative stamp.

McDaniel is the 29th person honored in the Postal Service's long-running Black Heritage stamp series.

The 39-cent stamp depicts the plump-faced McDaniel in a 1941 photograph in the blue dress she wore when she received the Oscar for best supporting actress in "Gone with the Wind" in February 1940.

McDaniel played Scarlett O'Hara's maid in the 1939 movie about the Civil War.

"She was a most special lady," McDaniel's "Gone with the Wind" co-star Ann Rutherford told AP Television News.

Rutherford recalled how McDaniel thought some of her friends looked down on her for playing a maid.

"But (McDaniel) said, 'I'd rather play a maid than be a maid,'" Rutherford said.

Rutherford, who portrayed Scarlett O'Hara's sister "Carreen," was joined at the ceremony by fellow "Gone with the Wind" cast members Cammie King Conlon ("Bonnie Blue Butler") and Mickey Kuhn ("Beau Wilkes").

McDaniel was born in 1895 in Kansas and arrived in Hollywood in 1931 after starting her career in vaudeville and on radio. She died in 1952.

The ceremony took place at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where the Hattie McDaniel collection includes photographs of McDaniel and other family members, as well as scripts and other documents.

The collection also contains a large number of recordings from her radio program, "Beulah," which was broadcast on national radio and the first to feature a black star.

The new stamp was made available Wednesday in Beverly Hills and will be sold nationwide Thursday.

Post by **tamra** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 6:28 am

robfharris,

that is an awesome recognition.

can you believe I've never saw Gone With The Wind? just some movies I just can't bring myself to watch. like time travel movies, I can't get into the going back in time thing.

wait except for that Jean Claude Van Damme TimeCop thing but forgot it was a time travel movie for a few splitting reasons.

sad that in all the years of Oscars only so many black, spanish or asian performers/producers have been awarded Oscars. I think Angela Bassett and Lawrence Fishburne were robbed from Oscars for What's Love Got To Do With It. not to mention The Color Purple and Whoopi and Danny Glover's incredible performances. those 2 movies alone will get me through the next day.

shoot, even just a line from one at the right moment will resolve a situation: "I'm tryna help Ike" to some crazy mofo, "chile you need to bash Mista's head in and think about heaven lata", or "maybe God is trying to tell something"