Hazel. She Was Much More Than A Maid.....

No, not that one.  We got a whole different Hazel on tap today.


If you are someday on a quiz program and you are asked (for a one million dollar prize) if a Caucasian movie actress ever appeared on the cover of Jet Magazine.........

You're welcome.

But, love Roz as I do, we need to take a closer look at the other woman with her......Hazel Washington.  What a gal.

Hazel was born in Dallas in 1915.  Somewhere in her early teens she came to Los Angeles and was, by age 16, married to Roscoe (Rocky) Washington.  There seems to be much higher ceilings (opportunity wise) for the Washington clan during those unenlightened days than for other minority families.  Rocky, a member of LAPD was the first uniformed African American to achieve the rank of Lieutenant on the force.  Rocky's brother Julius was a Captain in the Los Angeles Fire Department, and Rocky's nephew Kenny Washington was the first Black pro athlete to sign a contract with the NFL!  So, yes, the fellas did well, but Hazel was no slouch!

By the early thirties, Hazel found employment as a 'movie maid'.  To call the position a maid is really a bit of a misnomer.  The people who did these jobs were really a combination of servant, star chef, personal assistant, and (before the costume departments became unionized) wardrobe mistress.  In quick succession, Hazel worked for Virginia Bruce, Ginger Rogers and the Great Garbo.  But in Hazel's case, the number 4 was the charm.  When Garbo went back to Europe, Rosalind Russell was her next employer.   Russell had been looking for a replacement maid.  Her previous one was a tad, shall we say, star struck.  Roz said that when she would sit down to chat with Clark Gable on a set, her maid would park herself right next to them so she wouldn't miss a word that Gable said.  Further, the woman was fascinated by the camera.  "She wound up in more shots than me!"  None of this was an issue with a seasoned pro like Washington and, as Russell was willing to pay her year round and not just when she was on a picture, Hazel stayed. 

Hazel and Roz (being the women they were) found in short order that they had become good friends in addition to their employment arrangement.  Garbo's entreaties to come back to work for her fell on Hazel's deaf ears.  One day in '36 Hazel came to work carrying a beautifully stylish leather handbag.  Russell raved, wanting to know where it came from.  Hazel told her that she had seen one in a magazine and swooned.  She realized that she could never afford it, so she went to a leather and findings shop, purchased materials and made a copy of it for herself!  Flabbergasted at the workmanship from someone who didn't know the leather goods business, Roz told her friend that she wanted her to go to night school and study the craft and further that Russell would pay for it.

Then in early '41, in the most unlikely of places, Beverly Hills......

The Afro American newspaper, March 14, 1942

For a little perspective, that $100 bag mentioned in the article would be $1500 in today's dollars.  And it was on the low end of prices in the shop.  All of Hollywood flocked to the place.  Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Ann Sheridan, Mary Livingstone, and Lena Horne were clients.  Hazel did a custom order of gloves, made to measure, for Gable.  There was a portable bar in black kangaroo skin for Van Johnson at $250.  Picture frames in powder blue suede.

The shop didn't last very long, but not because of poor sales.  It was because leather became increasingly difficult to get during the war.  While planning their next business move, Russell and Washington continued the old arrangement of Star and maid.  Around this time (because apparently there was nothing Hazel couldn't do) Washington also became the first licensed hairdresser hired by the studios to do black hair for such films as "Cabin In The Sky" and "Stormy Weather".

Finally, as both Hazel and Roz were a wiz with the knitting needles, they started a business of handmade luxury cashmere knitwear trimmed, typically in beads, sequins, lace or fur.  That is the business that the Jet cover article above talks about.  You can read the full article here.

Hazel Washington's fabulous life doesn't stop there.  I found continued mentions about her. 

1959 - Rocky and Hazel celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary at Lionel Hampton's opening at Hollywood's Moulin Rouge.

1965 - Hazel has a furrier design a full length lavender mink coat.

1966 - While attending a Shriner's convention in Manhattan, the Washingtons occupy the duplex penthouse of the New York Hilton at a cost of $500 per day.

And this little item from 1962:

The last mention I can find anywhere of Hazel was squib in the Baltimore Afro-American from 1979.  It said that Hazel was planning, with the help of a Paul Gardner, to write her biography.  It doesn't appear that the book ever happened though.  And that, dear readers, is certainly our loss.

Sure They Could Talk, But Did They Have Faces?

Ever since the 'Talkie Revolution'  there has been many stories spun about the silent stars who couldn't make the transition:  the Europeans, John Gilbert, Harry Langdon etc.  But an interesting chat sprung up on day on the Columbia lot in 1942 that turned that topic on it's head.

Hedda Hopper paid a visit to the set of  "My Sister Eileen" and soon the producer and director of  "Commandos Strike At Dawn"  came over to do their time in the presence of Herself.  (above:  Commandos prod. and dir.  Lester Cowan and John Farrow are on far right and left flanking Eileen star and dir. Roz Russell and Al Hall.  Hopper is at center) 

John Farrow suggested that very few stars of '42 would be able to make it in the silents and offered his list of those that he thought could.  They were:  Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, Charlie McCarthy, Harpo Marx, Roz Russell, James Cagney, Rochester, Barbara Stanwyck, and Jimmy Gleason.

I'll discount the following:  Chaplin as he had reached the heights during that era, Charlie McCarthy was a wooden dummy and not an actor, and Harpo Marx as silence was his shtick.  But it's a curious question and one I'd like to have you weigh in on.  Soooo........

Who do you think, from the Golden Era (let's say 1930-1958), could have made a go in Silents?  And what of today's crop, anybody?

I Just Knew....

....she'd be just like Auntie Mame in real life!!!

The Wizardry Of Roz

I am currently reading "Life Is A Banquet" the autobiography of Rosalind Russell (co-authored with Chris Chase).

It's a way fun ride and her writing is very direct and conversational.  And there is, of course, that wonderful Russell wit.  Chaper seven is titled, "The Night I Slept With John Wayne".  It then says, "All right, I never slept with John Wayne, but people expect a Hollywood chapter to be filled with sex and big names.  Now that that's out of the way, ....." 

The anectodes are plentiful with lots of insight into how she worked, crafting the many performances I've loved since I was a kid.  One of my favorites is the following:

After Take A Letter Darling, I went to Columbia for My Sister Eileen.  Janet Blair, the girl who was cast as Eileen, started out trying to upstage me.  She was new and nervous, the same way I'd been when I started, so I invited her into my dressing room and delivered a short speech about the inadvisability of the course she'd embarked on.

"Look," I said, "you're not going to steal the picture from me because I've got the better part, the sympathy comes to me.  And you're not going to get anyplace with what you're doing.  I know all those old tricks.  When you upstage me, all I do is turn my back on the camera, and then they have to come around on me full-face for my close-up."

I said I'd teach her these things if she wanted to learn them.  "When I pass out on the floor, you be the first to hold my head, to say, 'Oh Ruth.'  Don't stand back, or the audience is going to hate you for being mean to me."

She gaped.  "How wonderful you are to do this!"

"I'm not doing this because I like you," I said.  "I don't know anything about you.  I'm doing it to get a good picture."

"It's just I was terrified," she said, "and I was warned you'd garb every scene-"

"That's right," I said.  "I'm here to steal those scenes as fast as I can, but I love anybody that's trying with me, and I'll lose some.  It's very hard to steal a scene from Cary Grant.  I mean I've worked like a dog to stay ahead of him, or alongside of him, or in his shadow.  So fight me for it, but don't ruin your character because of it. ....  We've got to be sisters.  Eileen is so selfish that the audience won't like her if she's not adorable."

Some dame, huh?