12/24/2022 0 Comments Focused by frediMember of Happy Honeysuckles cabaret act, 1919 worked as stockroom clerk for a dress company and at other odd jobs, New York City bookkeeper at W. Education: Studied at Egri School of Dramatic Writing and Christophe School of Languages. At a Glance …īorn Fredericka Carolyn Washington, December 23, 1903, in Savannah, GA died June 28, 1994, of pneumonia after a stroke, in Stamford, CT married Lawrence Brown (a trombonist divorced) married Anthony H. According to Martin Duberman in Paul Robeson, Washington later claimed that the name change was the producer ’s idea. Washington ’s name was changed to Edith Warren just before the play opened in 1926. Shubert was so impressed that he urged her to audition for a role in Black Boy, a play based on the life of controversial black boxer Jack Johnson that was to star Paul Robeson. She was spotted by Lee Shubert, a noted theatrical manager and producer. Washington ’s next break came while she was working as a dancer at the Club Alabam ’ in New York. She was paid $35 a week for her role, which at the time was an excellent wage for someone with little experience as a dancer. Honing her dance skills with instruction by a black choreographer, Elida Webb, Washington was selected for the chorus of the 1921 production. By age 16 she was performing as part of the Happy Honeysuckles, a cabaret act employed by stage sensation Josephine Baker.Īfter a series of menial jobs, Washington auditioned to be one of the dancers in an all-black musical, Shuffle Along, about which she had heard while working as a bookkeeper at the W. At that time she became interested in acting and received some training at the Egri School of Dramatic Writing and the Christophe School of Languages. Washington made a dramatic shift away from the highly protective world of the convent when she moved to New York City to live with her grandmother and aunt. When her father married again, she and her sister Isabell were placed at Saint Elizabeth ’s Convent in Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania. Her mother died when she was 11, at which time the young Washington more or less took charge of the household and the tending of her two brothers and two sisters. Her frustration with stereotyping eventually led her away from film and fueled her development as an active promoter of rights for blacks.įredericka “Fredi ” Carolyn Washington was the eldest sibling of her family. Heralded for her performances both onstage and in film, Fredi Washington ’s career was nonetheless limited by a light complexion that typecast her as a mulatto and became an ongoing issue for the Hollywood censors of her era.
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