Hazel Scott

Hazel Scott was born in Trinidad in the 1920’s. She later moved to Harlem, New York as a child. She grew up in a musical and intelligent household with her mother being trained as a pianist and her father who was a scholar. Hazel followed in her mother’s footsteps and became a pianist. Hazel following in her mother’s footsteps led her to become a prodigy and private student at Julliard at the age of 8. The beginning of Hazel’s piano career occurred when the great depression hit.

Hazel Scott was an inventive individual who became a powerhouse throughout her teenage years. Her big career moment happened at nineteen with the help of Billie Holiday. Hazel Scott’s career skyrocketed at the Cafe Society which was New York’s most popular integrated nightclub. Hazel was known to perform classical pieces with a jazzy twist. She was determined to avoid any circumstances of her venues being segregated. When she would arrive at her venue and notice segregated areas, she would decide to opt out of performing at that location. 

This provided Hazel with an opportunity to develop an acting career. She refused to accept  any demeaning roles. Hazel refused to back down from her morals to demean Black women. The movies she played in were done in the early 40’s and late 50’s. The power held by Hazel Scott was so influential that any role she accepted accompanied requirements for the producers to accommodate.  The most important demand she ever made was done in the film “The Heat’s On”. The film was a sendoff to soldiers in the military, however it still found a way to demean black women by having them wear dirty aprons to appear disheveled. Hazel disagreed with the message the film was sending to audiences. She said she would not lend her performances to the film if the costumes were not changed. The director originally met Hazel’s demands with disdain, before changing his mind. 

Hazel’s career was a whirlwind full of impact. Throughout her career in film and music, she also fought for equal civil rights and she was able to find love through her activism. She found love with Adam Clayton Powell who was an activist and pastor. Adam and Hazel began an affair, because he was married at the time, but four days after his divorce they married in 1944 and two years later Hazel gave birth to their son Adam Clayton Powell the third. Hazel’s marriage was thriving for some time, but when the marriage dissolved she moved to Paris to leave her old life behind and get away from the racism and discrimination she faced in the US. She lived out the rest of her life in Paris, before she returned back to the US in the late 60’s to see that her time of fame had faded into the background with the uprising of new music from rock and roll artists. Hazel Scott lived out the rest of her days in the US, before dying of cancer in 1981.