Hattie McDaniel | Biography, Movies, Oscar, & Facts
McDaniel was raised in Denver, Colorado, where she early exhibited her musical and dramatic talent. She left school in 1910 to become a performer in several traveling minstrel groups and later became one of the first Black women to be broadcast over American radio. With the onset of the Great Depression, however, little work was to be found for minstrel or vaudeville players, and to support herself McDaniel went to work as a bathroom attendant at Sam Pick’s club in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although the club as a rule hired only white performers, some of its patrons became aware of McDaniel’s...