The late Fredi Washington (1903-1994) is best known for her pivotal suppporting role of the light-skinned “Peola” in John M. Stahl‘s Imitation of Life (’34), which I’ve never actually sat down and watched. (I’ve only seen the 1959 Douglas Sirk-Lana Turner version.)

But I just saw Washington in Dudley Murphy‘s Black and Tan (’29), a 19-minute short in which she plays a beautiful dancer who’s married to the 30-year-old Duke Ellington, but who suffers from a tragic heart ailment.

The twentysomething Washington is obviously quite the spirited and vivacious actress. Right away I said “wow, she’s happening.” During the nightclub performance section she wears a fetching harem-flapper costume that made me sit up in my chair.

Wiki excerpt: “Moviegoers sometimes assumed from Washington’s appearance — her blue-gray eyes, pale complexion and light brown hair — that she might have passed [for white] in her own life. In 1934, she said her Imitation of Life role did not reflect her off-screen life, but ‘if I made Peola seem real enough to merit such statements, I consider such statements compliments and makes me feel I’ve done my job fairly well.'”