Hattie McDaniel
Actress
Actress and radio performer Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar in 1940, for her supporting role as Mammy in 'Gone With the Wind.'
By the mid-1920s, Hattie McDaniel became one of the first African American women to perform on radio. In 1934, she landed her on-screen break in the film Judge Priest. She then became the first African American to win an Oscar in 1940, for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind. In 1947, after her career took a downturn, she began starring on CBS radio's The Beulah Show.
Book 1936
Movie 1939
Margaret Mitchell
Author
Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in November 1900. After a broken ankle immobilized her in 1926, Mitchell started writing a novel that would become Gone With the Wind. Published in 1936, Gone With the Wind made Mitchell an instant celebrity and earned her the Pulitzer Prize. The film version, also lauded far and wide, came out just three years later. More than 30 million copies of Mitchell’s Civil War masterpiece have been sold worldwide, and it has been translated into 27 languages. Mitchell was struck by a car and died in 1949, leaving behind Gone With the Wind as her only novel.