BUTTERFLY MCQUEEN
Name: Butterfly McQueen
Born: 7 January 1911
Died: 22 December 1995
Butterfly McQueen (January 7, 1911 – December 22, 1995) was a American film and
television actress best known for the role of "Prissy" in Gone With the Wind.
Born Thelma McQueen in Tampa, Florida, she trained as a dancer and took her
stage name from the "Butterfly Dance" after performing it in a production of A
Midsummer Night's Dream. She performed with the dance troupes of Katherine
Dunham and Janet Collins before making her professional debut in George Abbott's
Brown Sugar.
McQueen made her first film in 1939 in what would become her most identifiable
role—as Prissy, the young maid in Gone with the Wind, uttering the famous words:
"I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" She also played an uncredited bit
part as a sales assistant in The Women, filmed after Gone with the Wind but
released before it. Around this time McQueen also modeled for the Mrs.
Butterworth bottle. She also played Butterfly, Mary Livingstone's maid in the
Jack Benny radio program, for a time during World War II. But by 1947 she had
grown tired of the ethnic stereotypes she was required to play and ended her
film career.
By 1950 she had played another racially-stereotyped role for two years on the
television series Beulah, which reunited her with her Gone with the Wind co-star
Hattie McDaniel.
Her acting roles, one of them in 1970 was the Shady Grove Music Fair post
Broadway production of THE FRONT PAGE, after this were very few, and she devoted
herself to other pursuits including study, and received a bachelor's degree in
political science in 1975. In 1979 McQueen won a Daytime Emmy award for her
performance as Aunt Thelma, a fairy godmother in the ABC After school special, 'Seven
Wishes of a Rich Kid'. She had one more role of some substance in the 1986 film
The Mosquito Coast.
McQueen lived in New York in the summer months and lived in Augusta, Georgia in
the winter months. She died in Augusta, Georgia as a result of burns received
when a kerosene heater she was attempting to light malfunctioned and burst into
flames. A lifelong atheist, she donated her body to medical science and
remembered the Freedom From Religion Foundation in her will.
Name: Butterfly McQueen
Born: 7 January 1911
Died: 22 December 1995
Butterfly McQueen (January 7, 1911 – December 22, 1995) was a American film and
television actress best known for the role of "Prissy" in Gone With the Wind.
Born Thelma McQueen in Tampa, Florida, she trained as a dancer and took her
stage name from the "Butterfly Dance" after performing it in a production of A
Midsummer Night's Dream. She performed with the dance troupes of Katherine
Dunham and Janet Collins before making her professional debut in George Abbott's
Brown Sugar.
McQueen made her first film in 1939 in what would become her most identifiable
role—as Prissy, the young maid in Gone with the Wind, uttering the famous words:
"I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" She also played an uncredited bit
part as a sales assistant in The Women, filmed after Gone with the Wind but
released before it. Around this time McQueen also modeled for the Mrs.
Butterworth bottle. She also played Butterfly, Mary Livingstone's maid in the
Jack Benny radio program, for a time during World War II. But by 1947 she had
grown tired of the ethnic stereotypes she was required to play and ended her
film career.
By 1950 she had played another racially-stereotyped role for two years on the
television series Beulah, which reunited her with her Gone with the Wind co-star
Hattie McDaniel.
Her acting roles, one of them in 1970 was the Shady Grove Music Fair post
Broadway production of THE FRONT PAGE, after this were very few, and she devoted
herself to other pursuits including study, and received a bachelor's degree in
political science in 1975. In 1979 McQueen won a Daytime Emmy award for her
performance as Aunt Thelma, a fairy godmother in the ABC After school special, 'Seven
Wishes of a Rich Kid'. She had one more role of some substance in the 1986 film
The Mosquito Coast.
McQueen lived in New York in the summer months and lived in Augusta, Georgia in
the winter months. She died in Augusta, Georgia as a result of burns received
when a kerosene heater she was attempting to light malfunctioned and burst into
flames. A lifelong atheist, she donated her body to medical science and
remembered the Freedom From Religion Foundation in her will.