{"id":59660,"date":"2020-04-10T20:40:03","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T20:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59660"},"modified":"2020-04-10T20:42:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T20:42:19","slug":"as-with-fredi-washington-in-1934s-imitation-of-life-and-several-other-black-females-who-skin-tones-and-facial-features-enabled-them-to-pass-for-white-such-as-lena-horne-don","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59660","title":{"rendered":"As with Fredi Washington in 1934\u2019s Imitation of Life and several other Black females who skin tones and facial features enabled them to \u201cpass\u201d for white such as Lena Horne, Dona would have to deny her family heritage to succeed in the entertainment industry&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As with <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Fredi Washington (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fredi_Washington\" target=\"_blank\">Fredi Washington<\/a> in <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"1934\u2019s Imitation of Life (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Imitation_of_Life_(1934_film)\" target=\"_blank\">1934\u2019s <\/a><em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"1934\u2019s Imitation of Life (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Imitation_of_Life_(1934_film)\" target=\"_blank\">Imitation of Life<\/a> <\/em>and several other Black females who skin tones and facial features enabled them to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"\u201cpass\u201d for white (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cpass\u201d for white<\/a> such as <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Lena Horne (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lena_Horne\" target=\"_blank\">Lena Horne<\/a>, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Dona [Drake] (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dona_Drake\" target=\"_blank\">Dona [Drake]<\/a> would have to deny her family heritage to succeed in the entertainment industry because at the time and for many years after, the studios felt the movie going public wouldn\u2019t accept (and unfortunately they were correct) an attractive black actress, no matter how talented, in any role but that of a servant or comedic side-kick. Certainly not as the romantic lead opposite a white actor, even <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cinema_of_the_United_States\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Hollywood (opens in a new tab)\">Hollywood<\/a> knew the rest of the country paid it\u2019s salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59641\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"The \u201cReal\u201d Mrs. William Travilla \u2013 Dona Drake (opens in a new tab)\">The \u201cReal\u201d Mrs. William Travilla \u2013 Dona Drake<\/a>,\u201d <em>Travilla\u2019s Legacy: Keeping True Fashion Alive<\/em>, November, 7, 2013. <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"https:\/\/travillalegacy.wordpress.com\/2013\/11\/07\/the-real-mrs-william-travilla-dona-drake\/ (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/travillalegacy.wordpress.com\/2013\/11\/07\/the-real-mrs-william-travilla-dona-drake\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/travillalegacy.wordpress.com\/2013\/11\/07\/the-real-mrs-william-travilla-dona-drake\/<\/a>.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As with Fredi Washington in 1934\u2019s Imitation of Life and several other Black females who skin tones and facial features enabled them to \u201cpass\u201d for white such as Lena Horne, Dona [Drake] would have to deny her family heritage to succeed in the entertainment industry because at the time and for many years after, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30845,30844,30841],"class_list":["post-59660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-dona-drake","tag-eunice-westmoreland","tag-travillas-legacy-keeping-true-fashion-alive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59660","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=59660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59662,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59660\/revisions\/59662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}