When was butterfly mcqueen born

On the night of Dec. She said her clothes caught fire while she was trying to light a kerosene heater in her cottage, which was destroyed by the fire. She was taken to Augusta Regional Medical Center, where she died at age Sign In. Edit Butterfly McQueen. Showing all 24 items. At the time of her passing, she was living in a modest one-bedroom cottage just outside Augusta, GA. Her neighbors told the media that they knew her as "Thelma" McQueen because she did not want the public to know who she was.

She told firefighters her clothes caught fire while she was trying to light one of two kerosene heaters in her cottage, which was destroyed by the fire. Received a bachelor's degree in political science from New York City College in she was Frustrated with racial type-casting, she quit acting in films in , but appeared in the TV series Beulah , where she played a maid.

When not appearing on Broadway, she worked as a taxi dispatcher, a real-life maid, a companion to an elderly white woman, a seamstress, and a department store salesperson. McQueen appeared in several more films, including The Women and Mildred Pierce , and was often cast as a servant.

Frustrated by being typecast, McQueen turned away from film acting. She did radio work on the Jack Benny Show and was a main character on the TV series Beulah from —once again cast as a domestic worker. In , in what she later said was the most embarrassing experience of her life, McQueen was mistaken as a pickpocket by security guards at a Greyhound bus terminal in Washington, DC. Her performance earned her the praise of a New York Times critic, who described her as a "piping-voiced Puck whose travesty is genuinely comic…representing her peculiar artistry in finest fettle.

Some critics described her performance in Affectionately Yours as the best in the film, but she was humiliated by the role she played.

At one point her character is forced to deliver what has been considered the most demeaning line ever uttered by a black performer in the movies. Turning to Hattie McDaniel, she croons, "Who dat say who dat when you say dat.

During the early s McQueen appeared in a handful of other films, including Vincente Minnelli's Cabin in the Sky , featuring Duke Ellington's Orchestra and an all-black, all-star cast, and the musical comedy I Dood It.

Minor roles followed in Mildred Pierce —here she still played a servant, but a more dignified one— Flame of Barbary Coast , and Duel in the Sun. By , however, she'd had her fill of servant roles, and since Hollywood had little else to offer black actors, she returned to New York in hopes of finding work in the musical theater.

In McQueen mounted her own one-woman show at Carnegie Hall, during the process of which she lost most of her Hollywood earnings. This was followed by an appearance in a mediocre adaptation of Moliere's School for Wives and, in the mids, a tedious production called The Athenian Touch , in which she again played a maid and cook. Three years later she appeared in the movie Stiff. Then, in , she played Prissy yet again, signing autographs and quoting her most famous line at the widely publicized celebrations commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Gone With the Wind.

When not acting, she accepted a series of casual jobs, ranging from taxi dispatcher to sales clerk to factory worker, in order to survive.

At one point she moved back to Augusta, Georgia, where she gave music lessons, appeared on her own radio show, opened a restaurant, and served as a hostess at the Stone Mountain Memorial Museum of Confederate Times. Although the role of Prissy brought her instant fame in , it did little to help her one night some 40 years later when she was passing through the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Washington, D.

Stopping to eat some peanuts in the ladies' lounge, she was instantly accosted by a security guard who mistook her for a pickpocket. During the scuffle that ensued, she was wrestled to the ground and thrown against a metal bench, injuring several ribs. Throughout her life, Butterfly McQueen made education a top priority. In June of , at the age of 64, she was one of 3, students to receive a bachelor's degree during commencement ceremonies at New York's City College.

McQueen, who had never completed college, graduated with a degree in political science from City College in at the age of McQueen never married and never had children. She lived in New York in the summer months, and in Augusta, Georgia during the winter. At age 84, Ms. McQueen was critically burned when a kerosene heater in her one-bedroom cottage just outside Augusta, Ga.

We got to have a doctor, I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies," took Hollywood by storm. See a wonderful video of a interview with this delightful lady, containing classic footage and her comments at a 50th anniversary screening of Gone With the Wind, where she embraces her role with warmth and dignity, and reveals her lines in GWTW that were cut from the movie.