Butterfly McQueen
Butterfly McQueen ( born January 7, 1911 in Tampa, Florida, † December 22, 1995 in Atlanta, Georgia; actually Thelma McQueen ) was an American actress.
Life and career
Butterfly McQueen began her career as a dancer. In a Midsummer Night's Dream -enactment she danced the Butterfly Dance and made then the artist name Butterfly McQueen as its own. Your first minor role she received in 1939 in The Women of George Cukor. In the same year she received her first speaking role, which should be equal to the most famous of her career: her squeaky voice, she embodied the whiny maid Prissy in Gone With the Wind. In the years to McQueen received similar supporting roles in which she played silly black servants. In a radio show they occurred during the Second World War on the side of Jack Benny as a colored maid.
From the late 1940s, she appeared only sporadically on television because she felt too much set on stereotypes. In 1950, she starred with Hattie McDaniel, with whom she was in Gone with the Wind to see in the television series Beulah. Only in 1970 they turned back a movie.
At the age of 64 years, she received a bachelor 's degree in political science. McQueen was an atheist and for decades a member of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which gave her even in her will. Butterfly McQueen died in 1995 at the age of 84 years from the consequences of a fire accident. From her quip among other things remained: "As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion. " ( As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion ).