Name: Gone with the Wind Mammy and Prissy
Made by and When: World Doll, 1989
Material: Mammy has a vinyl head, hands, lower legs, and sculpted-on vinyl boots; a stuffed cloth body and painted hair and eyes. Prissy is all vinyl with synthetic hair and painted eyes.
Marks: Mammy’s head is marked ©1939 SELZNICK, REN / 1967 MGM. A body tag reads, MADE IN CHINA / BY WORLD / DOLL / NEW YORK, N.Y. 10010… (followed by the materials description).
Prissy’s head is marked WORLD DOLL. MADE IN CHINA in raised letters is across Prissy’s back. The dress tag reads, “GONE WITH THE WIND” / MOVIE GREATS COLLECTION / BY WORLD / DOLL / NEW YORK, N.Y. 10010 / ©1939 SELZNICK REN. 1967 MGM / MADE IN CHINA
Both dolls have a Gone with the Wind cardboard hang tag with an image of “Rhett Butler” carrying “Scarlett O’Hara.”
Height: 11 inches
Mammy
Hair, Eyes, Mouth: Painted black hair covered with a white head scarf, painted brown eyes; open smile with red lip color and six individually sculpted and painted upper teeth
Clothes: A white neck scarf accented with a gold button, a black full-length dress with a wide skirt and white cuffed long sleeves, a white apron, a red satin petticoat, white pantaloons, and molded-on black mock lace-up boots
Prissy
Hair, Eyes, Mouth: Short black rooted hair, brown painted eyes, an open smile with four sculpted and painted upper teeth
Clothes: Wears a brown and white windowpane-print dress, a white apron, a white headscarf, a white half-slip, white pantaloons, and white slip-on high-heeled shoes. (Another version of Prissy was released wearing a brown and white floral-print dress and a contrasting floral-print apron.)
Other: Mammy and Prissy are portrait dolls of actresses, Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen, made in the likenesses of these two women, who portrayed Mammy and Prissy in the 1939 movie, Gone with the Wind. The movie is based on the book, Gone with the Wind (GWTW), written by Margaret Mitchell in 1936. Mammy and Prissy are both enslaved servants during the American Civil War setting of the book. The wiser of the two enslaved women, Mammy, was the head house servant, and Prissy was Scarlett O’Hara’s maid. For her role as Mammy, McDaniel became the first African American person to win an Oscar. She received the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in GWTW under highly restrictive, segregated conditions at the 1940 Academy Awards ceremony due to the venue’s strict “no Blacks” policy. After being criticized for accepting stereotypical roles, McDaniels is quoted as saying, “I’d rather play a maid than be one.”
Butterfly McQueen also received awards for acting roles, including a Daytime Emmy Award in 1980 for her role in the ABC Afterschool Special “Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid” and the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Award. A vocal atheist, McQueen is quoted as saying, “As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion.” She was also given the Freethought Heroine Award by the Freedom From Religion Foundation in 1989.
Gallery
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