- Maidie Norman
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Maidie Norman 
Maidie photographed by Carl Van VechtenBorn October 16, 1912
Villa Rica, Georgia, U.S.Died May 2, 1998 (aged 85)
San Jose, California, U.S.Occupation Actress Years active 1947–1988 Spouse McHenry Norman (1937–?) Divorced, 1 child
Weldon D. Canada (Sept. 9, 1977 - May 2, 1998) (her death)Maidie Norman (October 16, 1912 – May 2, 1998) was an African American actress of stage, screen and television.
Contents
Career
She made her film debut late in life in the 1947 film, The Burning Cross. Her other screen credits include parts in Manhandled (1949), The Well (1951), Torch Song (1953), Forever Female (1954), Susan Slept Here (1954), The Opposite Sex (1956), Written on the Wind (1956), 4 for Texas (1963), Sixteen (1973), Airport '77 (1977), Movie Movie (1978), and Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982). During her time in movies and television she had a total of 92 credits. Her most memorable role was as the ill-fated maid Elvira in Robert Aldrich's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) opposite Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
Her TV credits include appearances in Hallmark Hall of Fame, Fireside Theatre, Four Star Playhouse, Celebrity Playhouse, The Loretta Young Show, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Little House on the Prairie, and The Streets of San Francisco. In her later years she found herself in more TV roles and only a few film roles. Her last film role was in Terrorist on Trial: The United States vs. Salim Ajami (1988) and that same year she made her last three TV appearances in Amen, Side by Side (a made for TV movie), and Simon & Simon.
Personal life
She was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1977.[1]
She created and taught a course in black theater history at UCLA; in her honor, the university established the Maidie Norman Research Award for the best student essay on African-American film or theater.[2]Norman was also an artist-in-residence at Stanford University. The Los Angeles Sentinel named her woman of the year in 1964. In 1985, California Educational Theatre Association gave her a professional artist award.[3]
Norman was invited to serve as an official delegate of the Methodist Church for a Conference on Human Relations held Feb. 11-13, 1958 at the First Methodist Church of Glendale and sponsored by the Southern California-Arizona Conference Board of Christian Social Relations and the General Board of Social and Economic Relations.[4]
She died of lung cancer in 1998. Norman was survived by a son, McHenry "Skip" Norman; a sister, Clarice Herbert; two stepchildren, Veronique and Lescil Wills; five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.[5]
She is interred at Meadowbrook Memory Gardens in Villa Rica, Georgia[6]
References
- ^ [1] Maidie Norman, 85, Maid in 'Baby Jane', New York Times, May 12, 1998, accessed online July 21, 2011
- ^ [2] Extravagant Crowd, Carl Van Vechten photgraphic exhibit at Yale University Library, accessed online July 21, 2011
- ^ [3] Maidie Norman; Actress Fought Stereotypes, Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1998, accessed online July 21, 2011
- ^ [4] Holman Methodist Drama Guild Plans Theater Workshop, The California Eagle: Church, February 13, 1958, accessed online July 31, 2011
- ^ [5] Jet Magazine, May 25, 1998, accessed online at Findarticles.com July 21, 2011
- ^ [6] Findagrave.com, record added July 4, 2004, accessed online July 21, 2011
External links
Categories:- 1912 births
- 1998 deaths
- American Methodists
- California Republicans
- American film actors
- American television actors
- American stage actors
- African Americans' rights activists
- African American memoirists
- People from San Jose, California
- Deaths from lung cancer
- 20th-century actors
- African American actors
- African American film actors
- American memoirists
- American anti-communists
- American feminists
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