Name	Fredi Washington (Fredericka Carolyn Robinson)
Build	Slim
Eye Color	Brown - Light
Hair Color	Black
Date of Birth	December 23, 1903
Birthplace	Savannah, Georgia
Star Sign	Capricorn
Died	June 28, 1993 (Aged 90)
Location of Death	Stamford, Connecticut
Cause of Death	Stroke
Nationality	United States
Ethnicity	Black
High School	St. Elizabeth Convent Egri School of Dramatic Writing Christopher School of Languages
Occupation	Actress
Celebrity Index	Fr
Claim to Fame	Imitation of Life (1934)
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Trivia and Quotes

Trivia

A longtime advocate for civil rights, she was administrative secretary for the Joint Actors Equity-Theater League Committee on Hotel Accommodations for Negro Actors throughout the United States.

As a co-founder of the Negro Actors Guild, the Guild`s officers at the time included Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters, Paul Robeson and Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who was married to her sister Isabel Washington. Later Fredi was editor and columnist for "The People`s Voice", a weekly paper founded by Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in 1938. She wrote the regular features "Headlines and Footlights" And "Fredi Speaks".

Attended St. Elizabeth Convent in Cornwells Heights, Pennsylvania, and later, for dramatic training, the Egri School of Dramatic Writing and the Christopher School of Languages.

First husband was Lawrence Brown, a trombonist in the Duke Ellington band. Following their divorce in 1951, she married a Connecticut dentist, Hugh Anthony Bell, and retired. She worked at the Stamford branch of Bloomingdale`s from 1954 to 1980.

For better or worse, she was stereotyped as the "tragic mulatto", never better than as Peola, the light-skinned daughter of Louise Beavers in Imitation of Life (1934) who tries to pass for white. So realistic was her portrayal that many filmgoers thought she was antiblack in real life.

In the 1940s and early 1950s, she actively participated in the Cultural Division of the National Negro Congress and the Committee for the Negro in the Arts.

Played the lead opposite Paul Robeson in the Broadway play "Black Boy" under the (then) stage name of Edith Warren. She later worked with Paul Robeson again on the film The Emperor Jones (1933), in which they darkened her skin with makeup for fear that audiences might think Paul Robeson was actually filming love scenes with a white woman.

She moved to New York at the age of 16 and started her career as a chorus girl two years later at the Alabam Club. She spent four years (1922-1926) in the landmark play "Shuffle Along".

Was on radio in the Jewish comedy "The Goldbergs".

Was the third of nine children.

• Fredi Washington and Hugh anthony Bell
• Fredi Washington and Lawrence Brown
• Fredi Washington and Paul Robeson
• Fredi Washington and Joe Louis

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