black actresses — New Episodes & Show Notes

Hattie McDaniel (Six Degrees of Song of the South, Episode 2) / October 29, 2019 by Karina Longworth

In 1940 Hattie McDaniel became the first black performer to be nominated for and win an Oscar, for her role in Gone with the Wind. — In 1940 Hattie McDaniel became the first black performer to be nominated for and win an Oscar, for her role in *Gone with the Wind*.

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

Song of the South co-stars Hattie McDaniel, the first black performer to win an Oscar, for her supporting role as “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind. By the time Song of the South was released, McDaniel was the subject of much criticism in the black community for propagating outdated stereotypes in her roles. But McDaniel actually began her career subverting those same stereotypes, first in black minstrel shows and then in Hollywood movies.

Hattie McDaniel, Gone with the Wind (1939)

SHOW NOTES:

Sources:

Sources for the whole season:

Walt Disney by Neal Gabler

Disney's Most Notorious Film: Race, Convergence, and the Hidden Histories of Song of the South By Jason Sperb

Birth of an Industry by Nicholas Sammond

Stony the Road by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

White Screens/Black Images by James Snead

Slow Fade to Black by Thomas Cripps

Making Movies Black by Thomas Cripps

Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood by Donald Bogle

Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films by Donald Bogle

Joel Chandler Harris: A Biography and Critical Study by Bruce R. Bickley Jr.

Sources specific to this episode:

Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood by Jill Watts

Hattie: The Life of Hattie McDaniel by Carlton Jackson

Music:

The music used in this episode, with the exception of the intro and outro, was sourced from royalty-free music libraries and licensed music collections. The intro includes a clip from the film Casablanca. The outro song this week is “Boo Hoo Blues” sung by Hattie McDaniel.

Excerpts from the following songs were used throughout the episode:

Manuel Galvin, Jean-Jacques Marcel, Maurice Milteau - Memphis Mistrels

Manuel Galvin - No More Baby Please

Paul Martin Pritchard - Gumshoe Blues

Geoffrey Peter Gascoyne - Stripper

Manuel Galvin - Cotton Flower

Manuel Galvin - Keep The Blues On

Johnny Pearson - Disney Land

Daniel Horacio Diaz - Fancy Footwork

John Denis Hawksworth - The Depression Years

Jahzzar - Railroad's Whiskey Co

Eric John LaBrosse, Jason Michael Carter, Joshua Phillip Cass,Matthew Robert Danbeck, Adam Patrick Tremel - Ain't No Money In The Blues

Jules Ruben - Early Morning Blues

Didier Francois Dani Goret - Eyes Only For You

Hattie McDaniel - Boo Hoo Blues

Credits:

This episode was written, narrated and produced by Karina Longworth.

Editor: Jared O'Connell.

Research and production assistant: Lindsey D. Schoenholtz.

Social media assistant: Brendan Whalen.

Logo design: Teddy Blanks.

Star Wars Episode VII: Lena Horne / February 17, 2015 by Karina Longworth

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

Signed to a contract by MGM in 1942, stunning singer/actress Lena Horne was the first black performer to be given the full glamour girl star-making treatment. But as the years went on and her studio failed to make much use of her, Horne started feeling like a token — and she wasn’t just being paranoid. A tireless USO performer during World War II, Horne and MGM were deluged with fan mail from African-American soldiers, an outpouring of support which still didn’t change the fundamentally racist institutional attitudes holding Horne back. We’ll trace her journey from the stage of The Cotton Club to the Hollywood Hills; her two marriages and her relationships with Vincente Minnelli, Orson Welles and Ava Gardner; her triumphs and disappointments on screen and off throughout the war era; the final insult which soured LenaHorne on Hollywood for good, and her remarkable late-in-life comeback.

Show Notes:

Before even listening to this episode, you might have noticed that there’s something a little different about it: it’s loooonnnng. This is not because I’ve suddenly fallen in love with the sound of my voice; it’s because I’ve fallen in love with the sound of LenaHorne’s voice. In the middle of my research for this episode, I discovered this public radio interview with Horne originally broadcast in 1966 and distributed by the Black Media Archive, and I thought it was so great that I immediately devoted the next couple of days to listening to all of the LenaHorne interview audio I could find. The episode is long because I included Lena’s version of her own story whenever possible, whether spoken or sung.

There are several excerpts in this episode from the autobiographical stage show Lena mounted in the early 1980s, “LenaHorne: The Lady and Her Music.” Some of these excerpts come from a television version of the show that’s been posted on YouTube; others are from the official soundtrack album.

Other audio-video sources used in this episode, not including music:

LenaHorne on the Tonight Show

LenaHorne on Good Morning America, 1981

Clip from Cabin in the Sky

Jubilee! Episode #89, from Armed Forces Radio Service, July 24, 1944

Other sources include Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne by James Gavin; Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood by Donald Bogle; A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli by Mark Griffin; and the book that got me started on the idea of including an episode on Lena into our Star Wars series, Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen by Sherrie Tucker.