| Salma El-Sharkawy |
African-American actress, born on January 8, 1911 in Tampa, Florida, USA, as Thelma McQueen. She attended public school in Augusta, Georgia and graduated from high school in Long Island, New York. She studied dance with Katherine Dunham. She danced with the Venezuela Jones Negro Youth Group. She performed the "Butterfly Ballet" in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", a Shakespeare production, in 1935. She obtained her nickname "Butterfly" and continued appearing in stage shows. She continued to work on stage, cinema, TV, and radio. She received a bachelor's degree in political science from New York City College in 1975, when she was 64 years old. She gained recognition for her role as a silly maid in Gone with the Wind (1939). She is known for The Mosquito Coast (1986), Affectionately Yours (1941), and ABC Afterschool Specials (1979). She chose to live on the money she got as compensation for an accident she had and retired to a small town where she lived in a modest one-bedroom cottage. She passed away from severe burns caused by a fire in her bedroom on December 22, 1995 in Augusta, Georgia, USA.
|
|
|
