Butterfly McQueen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Butterfly McQueen (January 7, 1911 – December 22, 1995) was a Daytime Emmy Award winning American film and television actress.
Contents |
[edit] Life and career
Born Thelma McQueen in Tampa, Florida, she trained as a dancer and took her stage name from the "Butterfly Dance" after performing it in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. She performed with the dance troupes of Katherine Dunham and Janet Collins before making her professional debut in George Abbott's Brown Sugar.
McQueen made her first film in 1939 in what would become her most identifiable role—as Prissy, the young maid in Gone with the Wind, uttering the famous words: "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" She also played an uncredited bit part as a sales assistant in The Women, filmed after Gone with the Wind but released before it. Around this time McQueen also modeled for the Mrs. Butterworth bottle. She also played Butterfly, Mary Livingstone's maid in the Jack Benny radio program, for a time during World War II. But by 1947 she had grown tired of the ethnic stereotypes she was required to play and ended her film career.
By 1950 she had played another racially-stereotyped role for two years on the television series Beulah, which reunited her with her Gone with the Wind co-star Hattie McDaniel.
Her acting roles after this were very few, and she devoted herself to other pursuits including study, and received a bachelor's degree in political science in 1975. In 1979 McQueen won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as Aunt Thelma, a fairy godmother in the ABC After school special, 'Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid'. She had one more role of some substance in the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast.
McQueen lived in New York in the summer months and lived in Augusta, Georgia in the winter months. She died in Augusta, Georgia as a result of burns received when a kerosene heater she was attempting to light malfunctioned and burst into flames. A lifelong atheist, she donated her body to medical science and remembered the Freedom From Religion Foundation in her will.
[edit] Quotes
- "As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion."
- "Now I am happy I did Gone With the Wind. I wasn't when I was 28, but it's part of black history. You have no idea how hard it is for black actors, but things change, things blossom in time."
[edit] Filmography
- The Women (1939)
- Gone with the Wind (1939)
- Affectionately Yours (1941)
- Cabin in the Sky (1943)
- I Dood It (1943)
- Flame of Barbary Coast (1945)
- Mildred Pierce (1945)
- Duel in the Sun (1946)
- Killer Diller (1948)
- The Phynx (1970)
- Amazing Grace (1974)
- The Mosquito Coast (1986)
Mildred Pierce (1947)
[edit] External links
- Butterfly McQueen at the Internet Movie Databasede:Butterfly McQueen
fi:Butterfly McQueen
