Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role 1940
Hattie McDaniel Gone With The Wind 1940
SEX WORKER ROLE
Cora in Blonde Venus 1932
Character Is Living Off The Avails Of Prostitution
Hattie McDaniel in Blond Venus 1932
‘Living off the avails of’ prostitution means someone who makes a living from or lives off the money that prostitutes earn.
Despite her historic Oscar win, Hattie McDaniel only received offers for the role of a maid. Talk about typecasting. In that era, Hollywood could not envision Hattie as anything but that type of character. It is impossible to find a role where she played a prostitute or even a madam. Anything close to a part involving sex work was the Marlene Dietrich film, “Blond Venus.”
In the film, Marlene Dietrich plays Helen Faraday. She is a torch singer who goes by the name of Blond Venus, hence the title. Helen finds herself on the run with her son through a series of events. She is striving to stay ahead of her husband, who is relentlessly pursuing her. Helen, wanting to avoid the publicity of being a singer, resorts to prostitution as a means of survival. She plies her trade in New Orleans, where Hattie’s character works as her maid and nanny. This is where Hattie’s character is ‘living off the avails of’ prostitution. Her character is subsisting on the money that Marlene Dietrich’s protagonist, a prostitute, earns.
Hattie McDaniel with Marlene Dietrich in Blond Venus 1932
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