Fredericka Carolyn Washington was born on December 23, 1903, in Savannah, Georgia. After her Mother died she and her sister were educated at a convent school in Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania, until they went to live with their Grandparents. She then attended the Egri School of Dramatic Writing and the Christopher School of Languages. At the age of 15, Fredi was dancing with the Happy Honeysuckles. She worked as a bookkeeper for W.C. Handy's record company, and was soon appearing with Baker in the musical "Shuffle Along"(1921). She co-starred with Paul Robeson in the Broadway play "Black Boy"(1926) and with Ethel Waters in "Mamba's Daughter"(1939).
Washington made her film debut in the Dudley Murphy short "Black and Tan" (1929), playing Duke Ellington's girlfriend, a dancer who performs despite illness and collapses after her big number. Her next film was "Emperor Jones," (1933) playing a prostitute who has a brief relationship with a railroad porter. The studio made her wear makeup to darken her skin because they were afraid that moviegoers would think Robeson was wooing a white woman.
The following year she played a black female who denied her dark skinned Mother so that she could pass as white in "Imitation of Life" (1934). In this emotion tearjerker she denies her Mother again and again. When her Mother, played by Louise Beavers, comes to school to pick her up because of the bad weather she hides her face in a book to avoid being noticed. When her Mother points her out to the teacher who thought Peola was white, Peola screams, "I hate you!" over and over. At the age of 19 she leaves home to work in a restaraunt as a cashier and is happy, but her Mother tracks her down again. She runs away again. This decision comes back to haunt her. After her Mother dies of a broken heart, Peola shows up at the funeral and hysterically throws herself onto the basket finally proclaiming, "She was my Mother!".
After giving a commanding performance in Imitation of Life it would seem certain that her film career would soar. However this was not the case. Because of her light skin, she had a hard time fitting in anywhere. She was not "black" enough to take off as an African American actress, but white audiences would not accept her in lead roles where there was any romance with a white actor because she was black. It is rumored that Studio Executives encouraged her to try to pass for white. But, unlike her Imitation Of Life character Peola, she refused to do it. She had no desire to deny the fact that she was black, she was proud of her heritage.
After Imitation Of Life," she starred in Ouanga (1936) as a plantation owner who decides to seek revenge in the form of voodoo spells when her boyfriend leaves her to marry a white woman. Her last film role was One Mile from Heaven(1937), a 20th Century Fox drama about a reporter who thinks she has a major story when she hears about a black woman who has a white daughter with blonde hair.
She devoted the rest of her life to civil rights causes co-founding the Negro Actors Guild of America and writing theater reviews for The People's Voice, published by her sister's husband Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Fredi finally did get to work in Hollywood films again but not as an actress but as a casting consultant on the Dorothy Dandridge-starring films Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess.
The talented actress, and activist died on June 28, 1994 in Stamford, Connecticut.
"Imitation Of Life" Quotes
Delilah Johnson:
What's my baby want?
Peola Johnson, Age 19:
I want to be white, like I look.
Delilah Johnson:
Peola!
Peola Johnson:
(gesturing to mirror) Look at me. Am I not white? Isn't that a white girl?
