Addie in Self Made Is Based on Beauty Pioneer Annie Turnbo Malone

Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker is a four-part mini-series that premieres on Netflix on Friday, March 20. Carmen Ejogo plays Addie Monroe, Sarah Walker's (Octavia Spencer) mentor-turned-competitor in the hair industry. The fictional Addie is based on Annie Turnbo Malone, a beauty pioneer and a self-made millionaire herself. Self Made, a new mini-series on Netflix, is really the story of two self-made American millionaires. Sarah Walker, who made a fortune with her Madam C.J. Walker hair products, is the focal point of the show. However, Walker only got into that industry by working for Annie Turnbo Malone, another successful hair care entrepreneur who may have become a millionaire before Walker. In the dramatized Netflix series, Annie Turnbo Malone's character is renamed "Addie Monroe," and played by Carmen Ejogo. But Addie and Annie have many similarities, including the fact that Walker (played by Octavia Spencer) worked for her before starting her own company. While Addie appears in all four episodes of Self Made, she's constantly in Disney villain mode, toggling between treacly sweet and outright vicious. She spends her time devising increasingly complicated plots to thwart Walker's growing empire. The worst sin of all? Addie refused to recognize that when one Black woman succeeded, she lifted up other Black women. So does Addie match up to her real-life inspiration, Annie Malone? Not at all. Self Made fails to tell Malone's full story—which is also one of a self-made millionaire using her platform to champion other Black women. Here's what you need to know about Annie Malone and her relationship to Madam C.J. Walker. Annie Turnbo Malone was the child of former slaves. In 1869, two years after Walker was born, Annie Turnbo Malone was born to two former slaves in Metropolis, Illinois. She was the tenth of 11 children. Tragically, when Malone was a toddler, her parents, Roger and Isabella Turnbo, fell ill and died in close succession. Malone moved to Peoria, Illinois and was raised by her older sister, Ada Moody. Her close relationships with her sisters went hand-in-hand with her business acumen. As a young girl, Malone loved playing with her sisters' hair. Eventually, that became her career. Malone never graduated from high school—but it served its purpose. While attending public school in Peoria, Illinois, Malone developed a love for chemistry. After withdrawing from school due to illness, Malone continued to experiment with chemicals. She learned about the natural world's resources by "gathering herbs with an old relative, an herb doctor [whose] mixtures fascinated [her]," per Her Dream of Dreams: The Rise and Triumph of Madam C. J. Walker. Specifically, Malone was interested in creating a product that could grow and straighten hair without damaging the hair or scalp. Before Malone's product—which she called her Wonderful Hair Grower—women used bacon grease, heavy oils, and butter to straighten hair, all of which were very damaging. According to the book Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture, the Wonderful Hair Grower contained sage and egg rinses, and drew from recipes of the folk tradition. In 1902, Malone moved to St. Louis, Missouri. With the help of two assistants, Malone sold products door to door, and offered demonstrations for how women could incorporate Malone's hair grower and patented straightening combs into their routine. Sarah Walker, then Sarah McWilliams from her first marriage, was one of Malone's first employees, likely around 1903. Already popular in St. Louis, Malone's business expanded after she opened a store during the 1904 World's Fair and demonstrated her techniques to people from around the world. She began marketing her products throughout the U.S. and the Caribbean. In 1906, Malone trademarked her company's name, "Poro." Poro was either a reference to a West African organization devoted to disciplining and enhancing the body—or a combination of the surname from her first marriage, "Pope," and her sister's name, "Roberts." Her motto was, “Clean scalps mean clean bodies.” In 1918, Malone established Poro Beauty College, the first cosmetology school specializing in Black hair. She had 175 employees, and launched many more careers. After studying at Poro College, women started their own beauty stops and businesses—making Malone's major avenue for social mobility, as Black women were barred from all work but domestic labor in St. Louis at the time. Located in the Ville, a predominantly Black neighborhood, Poro College was more than a beauty school—it was a "center of community activity," per a 1926 booklet called Poro in Pictures. Poro College's complex, estimated to have cost $500,000, housed classrooms, a factory, sewing rooms, barber shops, dining halls, a gymnasium, bakery, chapel, roof garden, and 500-seat auditorium. "The Poro Family," as the community was called, offered social activities and classes for members, as well as provided welfare. After a tornado devastated St. Louis in 1927, Poro College became a rescue center that sheltered, closed, and fed 5,000 people in need. Poro College's ideals of "personal beauty and tidiness, self-resect, thrift, and industry" spread to other American cities. According to The Southern, Poro College established 32 schools throughout the U.S. and had 75,000 women agents around the world (including the Philippines, South America, and Africa). In 1930, Poro College relocated to Chicago, where it took up an entire block between 44th and South Parkway. Malone was a millionaire by the end of the first World War. By 1920, her company was worth an estimated $14 million. Adjusted to 2020's standards, that would make her worth $259 million. However, A'Lelia Bundles, Walker's descendent and biographer, doubts the veracity of that estimate. Since Poro did not keep careful records, Bundles said "there is no way to prove the claims about Malone's wealth." What we do know? Malone was famously generous with her fortune. She donated to Howard University, Tuskegee Institute, St. Louis's Pine Street YMCA, and the St. Louis Colored Children's Home, which bears her name today. She extended the same generosity to her employees. As legend has it, Malone gave diamond rings to agents who had been with the company for over five years, and rewarded those who accrued savings with cash rewards. And a few other factors. The trouble began in 1927, Malone went through a costly divorce from her second husband, Aaron Malone, who demanded half her fortune. She ended up paying him $200,000. After the divorce, Malone moved the business to Chicago for a fresh start—but trouble followed her. Poro thrived through the Depression and WWII, but could not withstand Malone's back taxes and a lawsuit from a disgruntled former employee. By 1943, Malone owed the government $100,000 for unpaid real estate and excise taxes, according to an article by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1951, the government and creditors seized Poro. Unlike Walker, who was rich until the day she died in 1919, Malone had lost most of her fortune by the end of her life. According to the Chicago Public Library, her estate was listed at $100,000 at the time of her death. She died of a stroke in 1957 at the age of 87. While overshadowed by her protege, Malone's legacy is just as important as Walker's.