Actress Fredi Washington - Star Of Imitation Of Life (1934) - Was Too Light For Hollywood BIOGRAPHY OF RACE: Actresses Fredi Washington (below, right) and Louise Deavers in the 1934 film, Imitation Of Life. Washingtons parents were of African American and European ethnicity. The movie celebritys career was cut short by Hollywood studios that considered her too light-skinned for its few black roles. ACTRESS FREDERICKA CAROLYN Washington was born on December 23, 1903 in Savannah, Georgia. Her father, Robert T Washington, was a postal worker, and her mother, Harriet Walker Ward Washington, was a dancer. Both parents were of African American and European ethnicity. Fredi — born with fair skin, wavy hair and green eyes — was the eldest of five siblings. Her mother died when she was 11, and her father later remarried, placing her and her sister Isabel in St. Elizabeth’s Convent in Cornell Heights, Pennsylvania. YOUNG FREDI WASHINGTONS BIO Washington left when she was 16 and moved to Harlem, New York City to live with her grandmother and aunt. In 1922 she joined the all-black musical Shuffle Along as a chorus dancer, touring with the troupe for four years. In 1926 she made her debut as an actress in a leading theatre role opposite Paul Robeson in Black Boy. But with a limited number of acting opportunities for black actresses, she decided to move to Europe, where she worked as part of a ballroom dance troupe, touring France, Germany and England. The young actress returned to the United States in 1928, securing small parts in various stage and screen productions. In 1934 she was cast in her best-known movie role in the Academy Award-nominated adaptation of the Fannie Hurst novel, Imitation of Life. She played the role of Peola — a young, light-skinned African American woman who attempts to escape society’s discrimination by passing for white. Bizarrely, Washington was so convincing in the role that some accused her of denying her heritage in real life — a charge she was quick to refute. “In ‘Imitation of Life’, I was showing how a girl might feel under the circumstances, but I am not showing how I felt,” she told The Chicago Defender in 1935. As has been the case with many light-skinned African American actresses throughout history, Washington was often considered too light for Hollywood’s few black roles. Like Lena Horne after her, she too wore heavy make-up to darken her skin for the black roles she did get, such as when she played the part of Undine in the 1933 film Emperor Jones. HOLLYWOODS ETHNICITY PROBLEM In fact, throughout her career, Washington turned down a number of chances to pass for a white actress in movie roles, and was always vocal about being a proud African American. “No matter how white I look, on the inside I feel black,” she proclaimed in 1945. The movie celebritys African ancestry also classified her unequivocally as black within the traditions of America’s notorious “one-drop rule” — the series of laws passed by white racists in the early 20th century, which dictated that any person born with as little as “one drop” of “black blood”, were legally to be classified as “black”, thereby restricting their rights as citizens. After the Imitation of Life movie, Washington’s career hit a wall. With few opportunities for her in Hollywood, she decided to quit movies altogether. Politicized by her experiences, she became a writer and civil rights activist. She was a founding member of the Negro Actors Guild of America, working for better opportunities for African American actors. She was also an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Washington died of a stroke on June 28, 1994 in Stamford, Connecticut. She was 90-years-old.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 22:49:33 +0000
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