Hattie McDaniel’s historic Oscar has been replaced by the Academy.
The group announced Tuesday its plans to issue a replacement for the trophy McDaniel won for Best Supporting Actress at the 1940 Academy Awards for her performance in Gone with the wind. The honor made McDaniel the first black man to win an Oscar.
“The Academy will present the Howard Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actress to actress Hattie McDaniel,” the official statement said. “Howard University will host a ‘Hattie’s Come Home’ ceremony at its Ira Aldridge Theater in Washington, DC on October 1, 2023.”
In a statement, the Academy said the “whereabouts” of the late McDaniel’s original trophy is “unknown” and that she originally “received not a statuette but a plaque, as was customary to support winners in the 1936-1942 performance.”
“McDaniel’s award stands out in Academy history; it will be 51 years before another black woman wins an acting Oscar®,” the post added. (The 1991 honoree was Whoopi Goldberg, who also won Best Supporting Actress, for her role in The ghost.)
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According to the statement, “McDaniel bequeathed her Academy Award to Howard University upon her death in 1952. The award was displayed in the university’s drama department until the late 1960s.”
McDaniel beat out actress Olivia de Havilland to win Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Scarlett O’Hara’s (Vivien Leigh) maid Mammy in the 1939 Civil War epic. After McDaniel died of breast cancer in 1952 at the age of 59, the award was to be donated to Howard University according to her will.
There are several theories as to what happened to the McDaniel plaque, which George Washington Law School Professor W. Burlette Carter previously outlined in a detailed paper on the subject. Carter conducted an 18-month investigation and largely dismissed the most common theory that he was thrown into the Potomac River by student activists as part of protests in the late 1960s.
Over the years, Howard University and other groups have pushed for a replacement Oscar, which has historically been against Academy rules.
“We do not create substitutes for heirs or anyone who may have come into possession of the award after the winner’s death,” Leslie Unger, a spokesman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said earlier. The The Washington Post.
From L: Oscar Polk, Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel enter Gone with the wind (1939).
FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty
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During her emotional speech at the 12th Academy Awards in 1940, McDaniel called her win “one of the happiest moments of my life.”
“I want to thank each of you who participated in selecting me for one of the awards for your kindness,” she continued. “It made me feel very, very humbled, and I’ll always hold him up as a beacon for whatever I might do in the future.”
McDaniel concluded, “I sincerely hope that I will always be a credit to my race and to the film industry. My heart is too full to tell you how I feel. And may I say thank you and God bless you.”
In a statement announcing the alternate award, Dr. Jacqueline Stewart, director and president of the Academy Museum, and Academy Chief Executive Officer Bill Kramer praised McDaniel as “a revolutionary artist who changed the course of cinema and influenced generations of performers who followed her.”
“We are thrilled to introduce Oscar replacement Hattie McDaniel to Howard University,” they added in their joint statement. “This momentous occasion will celebrate the extraordinary artistry and historic victory of Hattie McDaniel.”
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Source: HIS Education