MAID IN HOLLYWOOD - Brief and Anonymous

Film careers for a woman of color in the mid-20th century were often brief and anonymous.  For a pretty young woman like Anita Turner, it may be that her film career ended when she entered what was then considered a woman's "real" career - marriage.  In any case, she was only in three movies, and we see her here as Esther in the Technicolor logging melodrama, River Woman (1948). 

In the late 1940s and into the '50s a sassy maid was rare, but like many maids Esther is slightly subversive, an encourager of forbidden romance, and sometimes bearer of startling news.

The name of the tall, slim young woman who played Ellen, the maid in The Moth (1934), is unknown.  The protagonist Diane, played by Sally O'Neil, is rebellious and unconventional, and she treats Ellen more as a friend and confidante than a servant, and even gives her money to help Ellen's needy family members.

It should be noted that, while white people sometimes touch a maid in a friendly or affectionate manner, a maid rarely, if ever, forgets her station. She touches white persons only when dressing or assisting them.