Imitation of Life (1934): 14 Shocking Facts You Totally Missed

Imitation of Life (1934): 14 insane behind the scenes facts you never knew The head of Hollywood censorship put it in writing that he hoped this movie would never be made. Joseph Breen called it a definitely dangerous story, Will Hays wrote to Universal directly, and the censorship file holds more than fifty letters fighting over this one film. Universal shot it anyway, and nothing in that file explains why the censors finally gave in. Louise Beavers carries the entire picture. The pancakes are her recipe, her face is on every box, and the fortune is built on her. She was paid about twenty nine hundred dollars. Claudette Colbert got ninety thousand. Variety said Beavers stole the movie outright, and the Academy didn't nominate her at all. Fredi Washington, who plays the most famous passing character of the thirties, spent her whole life refusing to pass. One year earlier the Hays Office had decided she looked too white and made her reshoot a scene in dark makeup. There was also a lynching sequence cut before filming, and in the original novel it was waffles, not pancakes. And the bonus: over five hundred extras in that funeral scene came from real Black fraternal lodges, and somewhere in that crowd, uncredited, stood Hattie McDaniel. ⏱ Timestamps in the video 👇 Which fact surprised you the most? Let me know below