An intimate portrait of McQueen's life and career.

Library Journal

Stephen Bourne's memoir of this great performer is well researched and beautifully written - as one would expect from this biographer. It's also a chilling tale of how Hollywood destroys its own and one that deserves to be read by actors and fans of McQueen alike.

Patrick Newley, The Stage, 2008

Bourne pulls all into perspective and reveals a talented but unfulfilled actor who was frustrated and denied by larger systems and institutions; an altruistic survivor who later became an anti-poverty activist. All Black actors working in Hollywood should read Bourne's biographies on McQueen and Ethel Waters (2007). Film historians and anti-racist educators should place these works as staples on Black History booklists. It is a solidly crafted work on an enigmatic Black woman.

Black and Asian Studies Association Newsletter

Bourne's Butterfly McQueen Remembered is a much-needed entry in the history of American and black American culture and artistic production . . . The chronicle of McQueen's journey as a performing artist will be valuable in stimulating new scholarship in the history of black theater and is a rich resource for those looking at the history of black creativity in Hollywood. It is likely to inspire further inquiry into the early twentieth-century work of lesser known black theater artists and into the complex climate endured by black actors in Hollywood.

Black Camera: An International Film Journal

Stephen Bourne's portrait of this remarkable woman is not just a study of her life, work and beliefs. It is also a more general account of the plight of African American actors in the Hollywood studio system and a re-examination of the nature and meaning of their performances.

Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal