who?

I mentioned Ethel Waters yesterday. If anyone reading this is (almost) as old as I am, you might remember that Ethel Waters played Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939) . If you did, you were wrong, as I was. The person whose name I failed to remember was Hattie McDaniel (1893-1952), the first African-American to be nominated for and to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the film, GWTW. I was right about the role and the film, but that’s no good without the player’s name. Thank goodness for Google.

BTW, Ethel Waters was the second African American to be nominated for supporting actress, but she didn’t win. Fifty years after McDaniel was honored an African American was nominated for the Award—and won. Whoopie Goldberg got it it for Ghost.

If you want to see proof and evidence of the reasons for diversity in the arts today take a look at McDaniel’s career. She played in over 300 films but was credited for only 83 and constantly criticized for performing as maids or housekeepers, the only roles she was offered. She and the other black actors in the film were not allowed to attend the premiere because it was held in a whites-only theatre. She was permitted to go to the Awards Ceremony because she was a nominee but she was seated in a remote back corner. She said she was paid $700 a week for playing a maid whereas the real job would earn her $7 a week. This expression wasn’t current then, but I’ll say it: Do the math. Her wish to be buried in the Hollywood Cemetery with the other actors/stars was denied because it was restricted to white (bones). This is not what I intended to write about.

Sciatica. Noun, pain affecting the back, hip, and outer side of the leg, caused by compression of a spinal nerve root in the lower back, often owing to degeneration of an intervertebral disk.

I had never heard of it—I was nine years old when I first saw the movie—but I remember Rhett Butler bought Mammy a red taffeta petticoat that rustled when she walked, and she giggled, even though she was suffering from sciatica. Clark Gable, by the way, attended all her parties when she was alive and fought to get her into the Hollywood Cemetery.

Eighty years later I have sciatica, but no red taffeta petticoat and I don’t giggle.

Tomorrow: some new year’s resolutions.

Tomorrow I shall giggle.