“Oh, Miss Scarlett, I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout birthin’ babies”, Gone with the Wind, 1939. Thelma McQueen attended public school in Augusta, Georgia and graduated from high school in Long Island, New York. She studied dance with Katherine Dunham, Geoffrey Holder, and Janet Collins. She danced with the Venezuela Jones Negro Youth Group. The “Butterfly” stage name, which does describe her constantly moving arms, actually derives from dancing the “Butterfly Ballet” in a 1935 production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Her stage debut was in “Brown Sugar,” directed by George Abbott for whom she did several other stage shows. In 1939 she appeared as the……
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