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 When she finally did get an acting gig, it wasn't on the big screen but in radio. Her brother Sam was a performer on The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour, a local program sponsored by a bakery. He finagled a spot for her on the show, playing the cook in a sketch called "Miss Ann's Kitchen." She was an instant hit and soon had her own show. Thousands of listeners tuned in every Friday morning to hear The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour now "starring Hi-Hat Hattie McDaniel." Her popular on-air nickname was earned after she showed up for her first broadcast dressed in a formal gown. The other cast members teased her about trying to act high-hat, and the name stuck. Still,the five dollars she got for her weekly performance weren't enough to live on, so she had to continue working as a domestic. But no matter how dejected she felt, McDaniel never discussed her troubles. A friend had counseled her, "Look breezy and people will think you are!" She followed that advice to the letter and passed it on to other struggling hopefuls. With the country staggering
under the weight of the Depression, 1930s moviegoers flocked to theaters for
escapist fare. Lavish musicals, screwball comedies, and dramatic tearjerkers
captivated audiences whose nickel and dime admission fees added up to millions
in profits for the studios. What few roles there were for black actresses
mostly mirrored those available to them in real life -as cooks, maids, and
mammies. A pool of talented women owned these parts, including Hazel Scott,Ruby
Dandridge, Theresa Harris, Lillian Randolph, and Ethel Waters. McDaniel joined
the group when she landed her first bit appearances in 1932 and 1933, in films
such as Hypnotized, The Golden West, Erich von Stroheim's Blonde Venus, with
Marlene Dietrich, and Mae West's I'm No Angel.In each one she played a
maid, house servant, or cook and received no screen credit at all. Her first
credited role wasn't until 1934, as Aunt Dilsey in the Will Rogers movie Judge
Priest. As the decade progressed,
she became a regular screen presence, often alongside some of Hollywood's
biggest stars: Shirley Temple and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (The
Little Colonel ,1935), Katharine Hepburn and Fred MacMurray (Alice Adams
,1935), and Irene Dunne and Paul Robeson (Show Boat ,1936). Although she was
cast as subservient, she did not present herself that way. Her sassy, offhand
delivery, rolling eyes, and exasperated expressions often made it seem that
she, instead of her white mistress or master, was in charge. In Alice Adams she
plays a hired maid whose couldn't-care-less attitude and shoddy table service
make a mockery of the Adamses' fancy dinner party. The film's director, George
Stevens, recognized her gift and gave her free rein. Her slouching entrances
into the dining room, punctuated by vigorous gum chewing and a haphazardly
donned maid's cap that keeps falling over her eyes, are hilarious. She brought
a more subtle humor to her role of Isabel McCarthy in MGM's China Seas (1935),
with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. In one scene, Harlow, who plays a spurned
girlfriend, asks her maid,"What's that snotty English dame got that I
ain't?" McDaniel's Isabel, reclined on a divan, replies coolly:"She's
more refined-like. She would never wear that dress with all them shiny beads,
like you got. That dress is more my type. "The grin that accompanies the
line lets her mistress know that she's not the only woman in the room with a
love life. McDaniel's brashness caused some white moviegoers to complain to the
studios that the actress was too uppity.
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