who is the actress that opened doors for african american women?

Answer 1

Hattie McDaniel - her great performance as Mammy in Gone With The Wind (1939) won her an Oscar, the first one awarded to an African American woman.

While criticised by some for playing stereotype roles like maids (all that was offered at the time) she said "Why should I complain about making seven hundred dollars a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making seven dollars a week actually being one."

Link below.

The first black actress as a sex symbol was Nina Mae McKinney - dubbed "the black Garbo" (link below) but Hollywood's first black sex symbol was Lena Horne, who made her debut in 1942.

Answer 2

Hattie McDaniel, movie actress, singer, radio and television personality, and the first African American to win an Academy Award.

Answer 3

Diahann Carroll ! She was the first african American actress to star in her own television series where and she did not play the role of a domestic worker (maid) !. She opened the door for black actresses on television. Her show "Julia" won her a golden globe in 1968 and she was nominated for an emmy award for her role.

Answer 4

Hattie MacDonald in Gone with the Wind, Lena Horne and Miss Josephine Baker

Answer 5

Whoopi Goldberg (among comedic actresses)
Halle Berry (among character actresses)

Answer 6

I would also think that Michelle Nichols who played Uhuru in Star Trek was also a big influence. And she got to snog Captain Kirk.

Answer 7

Many can claim credit but a big shout has to go out for Hattie McDaniel snagging an Oscar in 1939 and then Lena Horne in Stormy Weather simply for giving millions of GI's (soldiers and sailors etc) hard-ons and alerting them to the sheer beauty & talent all races can provide ;; trust me, lots of Americans find it hard to harbor prejudice against someone they view as talented and talented African Americas did more to break down barriers than the loudest activists.



Here is a Wikipedia article on Lena Horne... & Hattie McDaniel
Early career
Lena Horne was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1917. Her father, Edwin "Teddy" Horne, who worked in the gambling trade, left the family when Lena was three. Her mother, Edna Scottron, was the daughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron; she was an actress with an African American theater troupe and traveled extensively. Both her parents are of Black, White and Native American ancestry. Horne was mainly raised by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.


Lena Horne made her film debut starring as "the Bronze Venus" in The Duke is Tops, a 1938 musical.After a false start headlining a 1938 musical race movie called The Duke is Tops, Horne became the first African American performer to sign a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio, namely Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She made her debut with MGM in 1942's Panama Hattie and became famous in 1943 for her rendition of Stormy Weather in the movie of the same name (which she made while on loan to 20th Century Fox from MGM).

She appeared in a number of MGM musicals, most notably Cabin in the Sky (also 1943), but was never featured in a leading role due to her race and the fact that films featuring her had to be reedited for showing in southern states where theatres could not show films with African American performers. As a result, most of Horne's film appearances were standalone sequences that had no bearing on the rest of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline; a notable exception was the all-black musical Cabin in the Sky, though even then one of her numbers had to be cut because it was considered too suggestive by the censors.

Stormy Weather did feature Horne in a major acting role, with a more substantial part than what she had in Cabin in the Sky, but as noted, this was not an MGM musical. She was originally considered for the role of Julie LaVerne in MGM's 1951 version of Show Boat (having already played the role when a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till the Clouds Roll By) but Ava Gardner was given the role instead (the production code office had banned interracial relationships in films). In the documentary That's Entertainment! III Horne stated that MGM executives required Gardner to practice her singing using recordings of Horne performing the songs, which offended both Horne and Gardner (ultimately, Gardner ended up having her singing voice overdubbed by another actress for the threatrical release, though her own voice was heard on the soundtrack album).


[edit] Changes of direction
Disenchanted with Hollywood by the mid-1950s, and increasingly focused on her nightclub career, she only made two major appearances in MGM films during the decade, 1950's Duchess of Idaho (which was also Eleanor Powell's film swan song), and the 1956 musical Meet Me in Las Vegas. She returned to the screen three more times, playing chanteuse Claire Quintana in the 1969 film Death of a Gunfighter, Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz (1978), with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, and co-hosting the aforementioned 1994 MGM retrospective That's Entertainment! III in which she was candid about her treatment by the studio. During the mid 70's, she made an appearance on The Muppet Show where she sang with Kermit the Frog.


Lena Horne photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1941She appeared in Broadway musicals several times and in 1958 was nominated for the Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical" (for her part in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica) In 1981 she received a Special Tony Award for her show, Lena Horne: "The Lady and Her Music". She also made occasional TV appearances, such as a guest appearance as herself on Sanford and Son in the 70s and a mid-1980s performance on The Cosby Show. In 1989, she recieved the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1994, she released the album We'll Be Together Again featuring many songs written by her friends Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington. Included in this project is Day Follows Day a duet with the incomparable Johnny Mathis which is rare treat for her fans. Horne has never been a singer to record duets and this is a special exception.


[edit] Tributes and re-releases
In 2003, ABC announced that Janet Jackson would star as Horne in a television biopic (after it was rumored for years that Whitney Houston would take the job). In the weeks following Jackson's so-called "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the 2004 Super Bowl, however, Variety reported that Horne demanded Jackson be dropped from the project. "ABC executives resisted Horne’s demand," according to the Associated Press report, "but Jackson representatives told the trade newspaper that she left willingly after Horne and her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she might possibly consider producing the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.

In 2006 According to Hollywood Sources Lena Horne has indeed blessed Whitney Houston's offer for Houston to play her in the ABC biopic of Lena Horne, citing "This could be a wonderful chance for Whitney to get back into acting she been out since 1996,that's 10 years ago. Whitney Houston is on the road for a big comeback and this would be the perfect incentive. Whitney Houston is beautiful, talented, strong-minded black woman that reminds me of myself. She is now currently my first and only choice to portray me in this upcoming biopic".

In January 2005, Blue Note Records, her label for more than a decade, announced that "the finishing touches have been put on a collection of rare and unreleased recordings by the legendary Horne made during her time on Blue Note. Remixed by her longtime producer Rodney Jones, the recordings sound wonderful and include versions of such signature songs as 'Something To Live For', 'Chelsea Bridge' and 'Stormy Weather'." The album, originally titled Soul but renamed Seasons of a Life, was recorded in 1999 but remained unreleased for six years. The album was released on January 24, 2006.
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"Hattie McDaniel
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Hattie McDaniel

Hattie McDaniel (right) with Vivien Leigh in
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Born June 10, 1895
Wichita, Kansas, USA
Died October 26, 1952
Woodland Hills, California, USA
Academy Awards

Best Supporting Actress
1939 Gone with the Wind
Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1895 – October 26, 1952) was an African-American actress. She was the first performer of African descent to win an Academy Award. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). McDaniel was also a professional singer, stage actress, radio performer and television star. Often criticized for playing stereotypical roles, McDaniel responded "I'd rather play a maid than be one." She was one of the most respected and highly paid performers in the African-American show business community.