Butterfly McQueen

Often typecast as a maid, she said: "I didn't mind playing a maid the first time, because I thought that was how you got into the business. But after I did the same thing over and over, I resented it. I didn't mind being funny, but I didn't like being stupid." She continued as an actress in film in the 1940s, and then moved to television acting in the 1950s. She won a 1980 Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in the ABC Afterschool Special episode "Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid".
Born January 8, 1911[citation needed] in Tampa, Florida, Thelma McQueen was the daughter of Wallace McQueen, a stevedore/dockworker, and Mary McQueen, who worked as a maid. After her parents separated, Thelma lived with her mother in Augusta, Georgia, where she was educated by nuns at a convent. She had planned to become a nurse until a high-school teacher suggested that she try acting. McQueen initially studied…