Edgar Hughes "Blue" Washington (26 February 1898 – 15 September 1970) was an American actor and baseball player who played in the Negro leagues from 1915 to 1920 as a pitcher and first baseman.[3]
Washington started his baseball career as a pitcher with the Chicago American Giants in 1915.[4] He remained with Chicago in 1916. He later played with the Kansas City Monarchs in 1920, appearing in 24 documented major league games.[5]
He appeared in 74 films between 1919 and 1957, mostly playing small, uncredited roles as a porter, a bartender, an African native (as in King Kong (1933) and Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949), a cook, a chauffeur, a ship's crew member, a Nubian slave, and a doorman. Some of his characters had names such as "Ulambo", "Sambo" (sambo) and "Hambone". In the 1933 film Haunted Gold, he portrayed Clarence, John Wayne's comic sidekick. He had uncredited appearances in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939).[6]
Edgar Hughes Washington was the son of Susie Washington and had three siblings.[6] He became a boxer at age 14 with the stage name of "Kid Blue."[6] His separated from his partner Marian Lenàn when their son Kenny was two years old.[6] He was given the nickname "Blue" by film director Frank Capra when both were kids. Washington's son, Kenny Washington, a standout athlete at UCLA where he was a teammate of Jackie Robinson, broke the color barrier in the National Football League in 1946.
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