Vintage Black Life: Actress & Activist, Fredi Washington

"Very few actresses of the Depression era were as striking as Washington. She became committed to the state of the Black actor in America." -Donald Bogle

One of my favorite 1930s Harlem Renaissance glamour girls, black actress Fredi Washington, is perhaps most well-known as playing self-loathing Peola in Universal Pictures' racy 1934 film, Imitation of Life. In her life, however, Fredi was far from an Imitation.

Fredericka Carolyn Washington was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1903. Her mother, a former dancer, died when Fredi was eleven. She was sent to attend St. Elizabeth's Convent School for colored girls in Philadelphia, and soon after, her father and siblings migrated to New York for job opportunities. Fredi left boarding school and joined them in Harlem. As the oldest girl in her family, she helped raise her younger siblings, Isabel, Rosebud, and Robert, under the watchful eye of their grandmother.

In 1921, when she was seventeen, Fredi found her first performing job as a chorus girl in the hit broadway musical, Shuffle Along. She toured with the all-black troupe for four years, meeting dancer Josephine Baker along the way. Josephine hired her into the "Happy Honeysuckles," a cabaret group, and became Fredi's mentor and friend. In 1926, Fredi made her debut as an actress opposite Paul Robeson in Black Boy. Her beauty and talent made her a popular featured dancer, but with a lack of opportunities for black actresses in America, she toured internationally as part of a ballroom troupe with her dancing partner Al Moiret. They were popular in England, France, and Germany, where Fredi mingled with European royalty and wealthy suitors. Otto Kahn, the millionare, was so struck by her that he offered to pay for her acting education if she agreed to pass for a white Frenchwoman. She refused.



Fredi returned to the States in '28, where she secured her first movie roles in Black and Tan (1929) and The Emperor Jones (1933). In 1934, she was cast in her most well-known role in the Academy Award-nominated adaptation of Fannie Hurst's novel, Imitation of Life. She played the role of Peola, a young, fair-skinned biracial woman who attempts to escape society's discrimination by passing for white. Bizarrely, she was so convincing in the film that some accused her of denying her heritage in her everyday life - which she was quick to deny. "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.

Despite receiving critical acclaim, Fredi was unable to find much work in Hollywood, as was the case for many light-skinned African-American actresses. She wore heavy make-up to darken her skin for the few roles she did get. Throughout her career, she turned down chances to pass for a white actress in movie roles. In 1937, she starred in her last film, One Mile From Heaven, opposite Claire Trevor. In an effort to help other black actors and actresses find more opportunities, Fredi founded the Negro Actors Guild that same year, but, frustrated by her experiences in Hollywood, she quit the film industry altogether.

Fredi turned her attention to working as a campaigner for equal rights in films and theatre. She was the Entertainment Editor for People's Voice, an African-American newspaper. She worked closely with Walter White, then president of the NAACP, and was outspoken about issues of racism. Fredi later tried to find work in radio, and was cast in an important role in a World War II radio tribute to black women called Heroines in Bronze. In 1945, she said, "You see, I'm a mighty proud gal and I can't for the life of me, find any valid reason why anyone should lie about their origin or anything else for that matter. Frankly, I do not ascribe to the stupid theory of white supremacy and try to hide the fact that I am a Negro for economic or any other reasons. If I do, I would be agreeing that being a Negro makes me inferior and that I have swallowed all of the propaganda dished out by our fascist-minded white citizens."

Fredi (left) and her sister Isabel in the '40s

Fredi briefly returned to the broadway stage, earning roles in Lysistrata (1946) and A Long Way From Home (1948). In the '50s, she worked as a film casting consultant for films and broadway shows such as Carmen Jones, Cry, The Beloved Country, and Porgy & Bess. During this time, she married Dr. Anthony Bell, a dentist, and retired to Connecticut. 

In 1975, forty years after making an impression on America in Imitation of Life, Fredi's contribution to cinema was finally recognized when she was inducted into America's Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. She died in 1994.