{"id":20835,"date":"2012-02-25T03:28:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-25T03:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=20835"},"modified":"2018-01-04T04:25:13","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T04:25:13","slug":"obituaries-fredi-washington-90-actress-broke-ground-for-black-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=20835","title":{"rendered":"Obituaries: Fredi Washington, 90, Actress; Broke Ground for Black Artists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Obituaries: Fredi Washington, 90, Actress; Broke Ground for Black Artists<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n1994-06-30<\/p>\n

Sheila Rule<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fredi Washington<\/a>, one of the first black actresses to gain recognition for her work on stage and in film, died on Tuesday at St. Joseph Medical Center in Stamford, Conn.<\/a>, where she lived. She was 90.<\/p>\n

The cause was pneumonia<\/a>, which developed after a stroke, said her sister, Isabel Powell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Miss Washington’s best-known performance was as the young mulatto<\/a> who passes for white<\/a> in the 1934 film “Imitation of Life<\/a>.” Her performance was so convincing that she was accused of denying her heritage in her private life.<\/p>\n

“She did pass for white when she was traveling in the South<\/a> with Duke Ellington<\/a> and his band,” said Jean-Claude Baker<\/a>, a restaurateur and author and a friend of Ms. Washington’s. “They could not go into ice-cream parlors, so she would go in and buy the ice cream, then go outside and give it to Ellington and the band. Whites screamed at her, ‘Nigger lover!’ “…<\/p>\n

Read the entire obituary here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obituaries: Fredi Washington, 90, Actress; Broke Ground for Black Artists The New York Times 1994-06-30 Sheila Rule Fredi Washington, one of the first black actresses to gain recognition for her work on stage and in film, died on Tuesday at St. Joseph Medical Center in Stamford, Conn., where she lived. She was 90. The cause […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[27925,9754,2640,9756,2327],"class_list":["post-20835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-fredericka-carolyn-washington","tag-fredi-washington","tag-new-york-times","tag-sheila-rule","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20835"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55540,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835\/revisions\/55540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}