Butterfly McQueen's (1911-1995) portrayal of Prissy in Gone With the Wind (1939) rivals Hattie McDaniel's Oscar-winning role as the "mammy," and is certainly as popular with audiences as Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara or Clark Gable's Rhett Butler.

Known to generations of movie viewers as Prissy, the frantic, squeaky-voiced servant who is harshly upbraided by Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 Civil War epic Gone With the Wind, actress Butterfly McQueen was actually a successful Broadway dancer who went on to win critical acclaim for her quirky portrayal of seemingly scatter-brained maids in a handful of popular films in the 1940s. Offscreen, however, she rebelled against Hollywood's rigid system of racial stereotyping and often insisted on altering scenes and dialogue that demeaned people of color. McQueen's announcement in 1947 that she would no longer accept so-called "handkerchief head" parts nearly cost the actress her career. Except for the part of a secretary in...