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Butterfly McQueen (January 7, 1911 in film|1911
– December 22, 1995 in film|1995) was an
United States|American film and television
actor|actress.

Born Thelma McQueen in Tampa, Florida, she trained
as a dancer and took her stage name from the
"Butterfly Dance" after performing it in a
production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

McQueen made her first film appearance playing an
uncredited bit part as a sales assistant in The
Women in 1939 and later that year filmed what
would become her most identifiable role—as
Prissy, the young maid in Gone With the Wind,
uttering the famous words:  "Miss Scarlet, I don't
know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies." She
continued to play maids and small parts in various
films including Since You Went Away (1944),
Mildred Pierce (1945) and Duel in the Sun (1946),
but by 1947 had grown tired of the Ethnic
stereotypes in popular culture|ethnic stereotypes
she was required to play and ended her film
career.

By 1950 she had begun a three-year stint on the
television series Beulah (show)|Beulah, which
reunited her with her Gone With the Wind co-star
Hattie McDaniel. 

Her acting roles after this were very few, and she
devoted herself to other pursuits including study,
and received a bachelor's degree in political
science in 1975.   She had one more role of some
substance in the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast.

McQueen died in Augusta, Georgia|Augusta, Georgia
(U.S. state)|Georgia, as a result of burns
received when a kerosene heater she was attempting
to light exploded and burst into  flames.  A
lifelong atheist, she donated her body to medical
science and remembered the Freedom From Religion
Foundation in her will.