Butterfly McQueen
1911 - 1995She also played an uncredited bit part as a sales assistant in The Women (1939), filmed after Gone with the Wind but released before it. She also played Butterfly, Rochester's niece and Mary Livingstone's maid in the Jack Benny radio program for a time during World War II. She appeared in an uncredited role in Mildred Pierce (1945) (where she had a good amount of screen time) and played a supporting role in Duel in the Sun (1946). By 1947, she had grown tired of the ethnic stereotypes she was required to play and ended her film career.
During World War II, McQueen frequently appeared as a comedian on the Armed Forces Radio Service broadcast Jubilee. Many of these broadcasts are available on the Internet Archive.
From 1950 until 1952 she was featured in another racially stereotyped role on the television series Beulah. She played Beulah's friend Oriole, a character originated on radio by Ruby Dandridge, who would then take over the TV role from McQueen in 1952-53. In a lighter moment, she appeared in a 1969 episode of The Dating Game.
Offers for acting roles began to dry up around this time, and she devoted herself to other pursuits including political study. She received a bachelor's degree in political science from City College of New York in 1975.[1] McQueen played the character of Aunt Thelma, a fairy godmother, in the ABC Weekend Special episode "The Seven Wishes of Joanna Peabody" (1978) and the ABC Afterschool Special episode "Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid" (1979); her performance in the latter earned her a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Children's Programming. She had one more role of substance in the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast.
Black History: Lost Stolen, or Strayed
Bill Cosby, Andrew Rooney
A documentary that reviews the numerous contributions of African-Americans to the development of the United States. From the perspective of the turbulent late 1960s, the fact that their positive roles had not generally been taught as part of American history, coupled with the pervasiveness of derogatory stereotypes, was evidence of how Black people had long been victims of negative attitudes and ignorance.
Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed
Since You Went Away
John Cromwell
Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones
While husband Tim is away during World War II, Anne Hilton copes with problems on the homefront. Taking in a lodger, Colonel Smollett, to help make ends meet and dealing with shortages and rationing are minor inconveniences compared to the love affair daughter Jane and the Colonel's grandson conduct.
Since You Went Away
Cabin in the Sky
Vincente Minnelli
Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson
When compulsive gambler Little Joe Jackson dies in a drunken fight, he awakens in purgatory, where he learns that he will be sent back to Earth for six months to prove that he deserves to be in heaven. He awakens, remembering nothing and struggles to do right by his devout wife, Petunia, while an angel known as the General and the devil's son, Lucifer Jr., fight for his soul.
Cabin in the Sky
The Mosquito Coast
Peter Weir
Харрисон Форд, Хелен Миррен
Allie Fox, an American inventor exhausted by the perceived danger and degradation of modern society, decides to escape with his wife and children to Belize. In the jungle, he tries with mad determination to create a utopian community with disastrous results.
The Mosquito Coast
Flame of Barbary Coast
Joseph Kane
John Wayne, Ann Dvorak
Duke Fergus falls for Ann 'Flaxen' Tarry in the Barbary Coast in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. He loses money to crooked gambler Boss Tito Morell, goes home, learns to gamble, and returns. After he makes a fortune, he opens his own place with Flaxen as the entertainer; but the 1906 quake destroys his place.
Flame of Barbary Coast
I Dood It
Vincente Minnelli
Red Skelton, Eleanor Powell
Constance Shaw, a Broadway dance star, and Joseph Rivington Reynolds, a keen fan of hers, marry after she breaks up with her fiancé. Connie thinks Joseph owns a gold mine, but he actually works as a presser at a hotel valet shop. When everyone learns what he really is, Joseph is banned from the theater. When he sneaks in again, he learns of a plot to set off a bomb in the adjoining munitions warehouse.
I Dood It
Amazing Grace
Stan Lathan
Slappy White, Moms Mabley
Amazing Grace is a 1974 light comedy featuring black comedienne Moms Mabley as a widow who tries to influence the local mayoral election in Baltimore, Maryland, after she discovers that a black candidate is being used by the incumbent mayor to further his own reelection efforts. Mabley appeared in the film, along with veteran actors Butterfly McQueen and Stepin Fetchit, only a year before her death at the age of 81. The film does not deal with the popular Christian hymn (with words by John Newton) but is a play on Mabley's character, who happens to be named Grace. It has been released on home video.
Amazing Grace
