Butterfly McQueen

Thelma McQueen was born in Tampa, Florida, and adopted the stage name "Butterfly" after a memorable performance in a butterfly ballet during a 1930s dance production. She moved to New York, joining a Black theatre troupe and appearing in productions including A Midsummer Night's Dream before Hollywood took notice.

In 1939, McQueen was cast as Prissy in Gone with the Wind, delivering the now-famous line "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies," a performance that made her instantly recognisable but also typecast her within the narrow, demeaning range of roles Hollywood offered Black actresses at the time. McQueen grew increasingly vocal about her discomfort with these roles, and by the late 1940s she made the difficult decision to walk away from film acting almost entirely rather than continue accepting parts she found degrading, famously stating she would rather work as a maid in real life than play one on screen in a way that diminished her dignity.

McQueen spent subsequent decades working outside the entertainment industry, including as a factory worker and a switchboard operator, while occasionally returning to stage and voice work. Remarkably, she went back to school in her sixties, earning a degree in political science from the City College of New York in 1975 at age 64. In 1979, at age 68, she won an Emmy Award for her role in the television film The Seventh Woman, closing out a career defined as much by her refusal to compromise as by her early fame.