Walker — rapid rise to prominence. A saleswoman with bags of charisma and good strategic nous, she managed to turn her hair product line into an enormous success using the profits to found colleges and education centers for the black community. The four-episode-long Netflix miniseries revolves around her career journey, showing how she managed to outdo her long-term business rival and arch-nemesis, Addie Monroe. Based on a true story, Self Made captures how Sarah conquered the beauty industry. As such, the show lays a great deal of emphasis on her complicated relationship with Annie Turnbo Malone — or as she is referred to in the series, Addie Monroe.
Annie Malone came from fairly humble beginnings.
Annie Turnbo Malone was the child of former slaves.
In the series, Addie tells Sarah, she's not attractive read: light-skinned enough to sell her products. Well, that was all it took to push Sarah to go off and create her own line of products as one does under the name Madam C. Walker , which sold ridiculously well. So well, in fact, that Sarah ended up being considered the wealthiest self-made woman in America and the first self-made millionaire, per Guinness World Records when she died. Still, the Addie Monroe vs. Madame C. Walker feud isn't totally true to real life the series is based in fact, but let's just say Netflix took some liberties. The character of Addie Monroe, for starters, is actually based on Annie Turnbo Malone, who had a successful hair-care business that Sarah was involved in before she set out on her own. Here's what you need to know about the real-life 'Addie Monroe' and her relationship to Madame C.
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From Women's Health. In the series, Addie tells Sarah she's not attractive read: light-skinned enough to sell her products. Well, that was all it took to push Sarah to go off and create her own line of products as one does under the name Madam C. Walker , which sold ridiculously well. So well, in fact, that Sarah ended up being considered the wealthiest self-made woman in America and the first self-made millionaire, per Guinness World Records when she died. Still, the Addie Monroe vs. Madame C.
Walker 's played by Octavia Spencer. Munroe appears to come from a wealthier background, benefits from colorism, and lacks all of Walker's kindness and warmth. When Walker relocates, Munroe follows, attempting to sabotage her at every turn. While most of Self-Made is adapted from the true story of America's first female self-made millionaire Madam C. There was, however, Annie Malone—a figure who in many ways was just like Addie, and in others very different. Like Walker, Malone was born to formerly enslaved parents, orphaned at an early age, and later raised by her older sisters. She attended school through the beginning of high school, but eventually stopped going due to a downturn in her health. In , at the age of 31, Malone moved to Lovejoy, Illinois and starting mixing and experimenting with different ingredients. She soon developed her signature product, the Wonderful Hair Grower. Both Malone and Walker are often given credit for inventing their respective haircare systems, which called for more regular washing, applying their proprietary sulfur-based products, and regularly massaging the scalp, but as Bundles points out in On Her Own Ground , such techniques were already in existence.
