The first-ever Academy Award won by a Black actor, Hattie McDaniel, is being replaced after having been missing for decades.
Kansas-born McDaniel won for her supporting actress performance as Mammy in 1939’s iconic “Gone with the Wind”, and at the time she won, a plaque (not a statuette) was handed out to all actors who won for supporting roles.
The plaque was bequeathed to Howard University upon her death from breast cancer in 1952, but it disappeared in the 1960s/70s and was never recovered.
Now a new plaque replica will be issued by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to replace it and will be donated to Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts.
Said university will host a ceremony commemorating the award’s return on October 1st. The ceremony will include opening remarks by actress Phylicia Rashad, who serves as dean.
McDaniel was the only Black woman to have won an Oscar for five decades until Whoopi Goldberg won Best Supporting Actress for 1990’s “Ghost”.
Source: CNN
