She was born in Wichita, Kansas, USA. She lived in a middle class African American section of Los Angeles coined "Sugar Hill". She willed her Oscar to Howard University, but the Oscar was lost during the race riots at Howard during the 1960s. It has never been found. Her father was a slave, who was eventually freed. After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West (1932). Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest (1934) and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams (1935).
In this one, directed by George Stevens and aided and abetted by star Katharine Hepburn, she makes it clear she has little use for her employers' pretentious status seeking. By The Mad Miss Manton (1938) she actually tells off her socialite employer Barbara Stanwyck and her snooty friends. This path extends into the greatest role of her career, Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). Here she is, in a number of ways, superior to most of the white folk surrounding her. From that point here roles unfortunately descended, with her characters becoming more and more menial.
Hattie McDaniel used her position to help many other black actors and artists and supported African American causes. Black actors like McDaniel struggled hard to be cast in the same types of roles as white actors. This is a struggle that continues but it was particularly hard in the 1930s. Hattie McDaniel died of cancer in 1952, aged 57, in hospital in California. Thousands of people went to her funeral in Hollywood.