Hattie McDaniel (Actress) – The Petition

Since You Went Away(1944)

Hattie McDaniel in Since You Went Away (1944)

Hattie McDaniel, Jennifer Jones, and Claudette Colbert in Since You Went Away 1944

“Starting her own entertainment troupe wasn’t the only thing Hattie did at a young age; she also fell deeply in love. At just 18 years old, the bright-eyed girl tied the knot with her beloved beau, Howard Hickman. Sadly, after four blissful years of marriage, her husband died unexpectedly, leaving Hattie a widow at the age of 22.”

The 1920s Only Got Worse
“By 1922, Hattie was optimistic that her heartache was in the past. She allowed herself to fall in love and walked down the aisle once again with a man named George Langford. As newlyweds, life was good. Hattie was making progress in her career, and the couple discussed having a child. Tragically, in their third year of marriage, her second husband became the victim of a fatal gunshot wound.” Though most frequently happy and easy-going on-screen, Hattie’s personal life was often anything but. Her four marriages were all short, the first ended by the tragic shooting death of her husband in 1922, and the next three ending in divorce. She had no children.Photograph of actress Hattie McDaniel and her husband, Lloyd Crawford, on the couple’s wedding day.
Spouse(s) George Langford (1922–1922) (his death) Howard Hickman (1938–1938) (divorced) James Lloyd Crawford (1941–1945) (divorced) Larry Williams (1949–1950) (divorced)“Hattie McDaniel’s first husband, George Langford, died in 1922, soon after she married him and while her career was on the rise, and her father died the same year. She married Howard Hickman in 1938 but divorced him later that year. In 1941, she married James Lloyd Crawford, a real estate salesman. According to the book, Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams by Donald Bogle, McDaniel happily confided to gossip columnist Hedda Hopper in 1945 that she was pregnant. McDaniel began buying baby clothes and set up a nursery in her house. Her plans were shattered when she suffered a false pregnancy, and McDaniel fell into a depression. She never had any children and divorced Crawford in 1945 after four and a half years of marriage. Crawford had been jealous of her career success, she said, and once threatened to kill her.
Then on June 11, 1949, in Yuma, Arizona, she married Larry Williams, an interior decorator, but divorced him in 1950 after testifying that their five months together had been marred by “arguing and fussing”. McDaniel broke down in tears when she testified that her husband tried to provoke dissension in the cast of her radio show and otherwise interfered with her work.“I haven’t gotten over it yet,” she said. “I got so I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t concentrate on my lines.” (Wikipedia)”

All Rights Reserved – iforcolor.org

Pages:

iforcolor

ARCHIVIST, EDUCATOR, HISTORIAN, and ARTiST
Dale Ricardo Shields is a 2017 winner of The Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award®, 2017 and 2015 Tony® award nominee for the Excellence in Theatre Education Award, the 2017 AUDELCO/"VIV" Special Achievement Award, 2020, 2021, and 2022 ENCORE AWARD / The Actors Fund and winner of the 2022. Recently, he won the 2022 Legend Award from his alma mater Ohio University. He is the 2021 winner of the Paul Robeson Award, presented (jointly) by the Actors Equity Association and the Actors Equity Foundation.

Research Accomplishments:
His extensive professional credits as a Director, Stage manager, and Actor (Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and Regional) As an actor he has appeared on Saturday Night Live, Another World, Guiding Light, The Cosby Show, and the ITV television series "Special Needs" and commercials and film.

Professor Shields is a member of the Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the American Guild of Musical Artists performance unions and an associate member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

He began his artistic academic career in New York City at Playwrights Horizon, The South Bronx Action Theatre, and Mind Builders, and then was invited to join the teaching staff at the Joseph Papp Public Theatre (New York Shakespeare Festival). He represented the United States for Theatre Young Audiences at the ASSITEJ Theatre Festival in London, England.

He has taught and been a visiting artist at Ohio University, The College of Wooster, Denison University, Macalester College, Susquehanna University, and SUNY Potsdam.

He holds B.F.A and M.F.A, Degrees from Ohio University.

Website(s)

Iforcolor.org [Research]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Ricardo_Shields [Career]