Oscar Award-Winning Actress Hattie McDaniel Used to Live in Fort Collins
I spent a large chunk of my weekend binge-watching the new Ryan Murphy show, Hollywood. In the show— which I highly recommend, by the way— Queen Latifah portrays Oscar Award-winning actress Hattie McDaniel, who was the first black woman to win this award for her role in the 1939 film, Gone With The Wind.
Like I do with every Netflix show about real people, I descended into a Wikipedia hole about McDaniel, discovering that she lived in Fort Collins when she was a child with her family...and was subsequently SHOCKED!
According to the Loveland Reporter-Herald, they lived on 317 Cherry Street:
Her parents rented the modest bungalow and lived in Fort Collins with their four children. Her father, Henry, sang and was a Baptist preacher. Hattie attended the nearby Franklin School on Mountain Avenue.
It's likely the McDaniel family lived in Fort Collins for less than ten years, and in 1901 they moved to Denver. After that, Hattie made her way to Los Angeles to pursue her acting and radio career, according to NorthernColoradoHistory.com.
You can see McDaniel's full Oscars acceptance speech right here:
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