Avia Ustanny, Outlook Writer
AT HER home in Kingston, a well-rested Fae Ellington welcomes us, dressed in brilliant bandana plaid and her eyes bright with a promise of mischief just enough that the world around her remains an interesting place.
Ellington is the consummate entertainer and overlays with humour the bitter-sweet story her life that of girl who was asthmatic, illegitimate and dyslexic, but who, born with an extraordinary personality, went on to write and successfully perform unique roles in life.
"I was illegitimate and it was a big sinting," she stated in a recent interview with Outlook.
But Fae, tomboy and talented motor-mouth that she was, was involved in everything at St. Hugh's, the high school which she attended and from which she would later emerge a leader and source of influence in almost everything she did.
Most recently, she was appointed to chair the Prime Minister's Entertainment Advisory Board. Fae Ellington who has also been a tutor at the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication (CARIMAC) since 1985, and has been involved in the media for the past 30 years. On television, she has been a specialist presenter, having been trained at the BBC and the University of the West Indies where she obtained a Master of Arts degree.
Ellington joined the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation in 1974 and presented a regular morning TV show for over 12 years. She was one of the main news anchors on radio and TV in Jamaica for decades.
Today she remains a communication consultant for private companies. But drama, which she daily lives, has been her life's passion. An accomplished actress, Ellington has won several awards for distinguished work in the theatre.
She says that from the days at St. Hugh's, 'it was clear that I had an interest that I could not explain. I was a part of the school choir, the orchestra (playing triangle, hmmph). I was also drawn to drama, but I was too young to be a part of the main corps.
"But, I would watch Julia Thorn, Darryl Croskill - the eldest of the four Croskill boys - and the late Dennis Scott of the School of Drama and Yale. I was just so taken by the process."
For Ellington, performing was cathartic.
"Through acting I can forget,' said Fae. "I become."
So consumed she is with her role that she once developed pains in the chest while playing a character who had heart problems.
As a young teenager she loved the art of acting and was prepared to pay her dues. Fae did her first commercial, too, while in high school when a producer came to select four voices from the school choir for a commercial. "I was chosen for the Canada Dry commercial while still in third form," she exults in recollection.
Fae was paid three guineas ( 21 shillings). She agonised for weeks about how to spend the money and finally bought a much coveted pair of shoes from Morris's in Cross Roads, then she went home in the summer to "explain" the purchase to her mother.
Fae Ellington, born 52 years ago, is the only child of Mary 'Mae' Williams, a homemaker who was also given to good works. After Fae's birth on May 28, 1953 in the district of Smithville in Clarendon, Mae Williams committed herself to organisations like the Jamaica Agricultural Society, the Cocoa Growers Association and the Citrus Growers Association, keeping books and later dragooning her only child into service.
Also at home in Smithville was grandmother Emily Williams and a cousin, Errol Williams. Absent was Exford Ellington, Fae's father and a teacher who she would meet at age 21. Still later, at CARIMAC, she would be introduced to her two half brothers who were fathered by this man. Professor Aggrey Brown who became their foster parents when Exford Ellington migrated to Canada, introduced them.
Fae Ellington states: "My birthing circumstances have influenced my life. I have never been able to take money from a man."
At home there was no man who provided weekly money for groceries or who paid school fees.
She adds that, in high school, she also could not relate to her classmates' tales of family life which involved a father.
In relation to the issue of illegitimacy's she recalls, "I was supersensitive to the whole thing.
"I was never confronted with it at St. Hugh's but there was the stigma. At the end of school each term students were required to address an envelope to their parent so that their reports could be set off and the other students thought it quite curious when , instead of Mr. and Mrs. So and So, I wrote Miss Mae Williams."
She has been affected.
"I have loved deeply but I have never been able to ask for help. Now that she has ventured into making commemorative and greeting cards as a business, the only thing which is missing from the line of Jamaican cards is one dedicated to Father's Day. None of this is done out of spite or bitterness, but just because fathering is an experience she simply never had.
She is far from being bitter. "I have had my fair share of crosses. I discovered early in life that one has to grieve, but then you get up, pick up the pieces and move on. I really do not like to be around miserable people."
There have been negative circumstances, she says which have been turned into a point of strength for her. There was the morning when, preparing for her morning TV show, she went downstairs to find her driver being held up by men who later raped her and her house-mate.
"That was devastating. But, I have always had a small core of friends who were supportive. I had one particular male friend, who all he did when he saw me was just hug me.
" What this also taught me is that when you surround yourself with the right people and you commit in the right way with the spirit you can become healthy and whole again. I am impatient with the person who speaks of fate and say that they cannot change their situation."
So, instead of self pity, she daily enacts her favourite role - that of the phoenix who is consumed by flames but flies out, again and again.
The communicator says that she is far from perfect, though some would say she is intolerant of mediocrity in any of her parallel professions.
She has had many examples of excellence and has quickly followed them all. First was Connie Lue at Chin Yee's Travel Agency on Orange Street where she held her first job. Next were many role models in theatre and media who set the pace for any who were willing to follow.
Ellington was one of the first students at the School of Drama, with others like Oliver Samuels, Ruth Hoshing and Trevor Nairne. The first pantomime she acted in was Music Boy by Trevor Rhone.
The 70s were good years, with one year spent touring with Olive Lewin which took her to Miami in the United States; London and Manchester, England; Berlin and Cologne, Germany.
Successful in theatre, Ellington also worked as cultural and recreational officer in the six adult prisons in Jamaica before resigning in a fit of anger over the absence of true rehabilitation programmes.
It was the end of one thing however and the start of another as, she was accepted at JBC Radio Two by Leonie Forbes and Dennis Hall starting the career which really propelled her to national attention.
Chatting with us on this warm December morning, she mentions her terminated marriage to the father of her son, 21-year-old Stuart Smellie, only to say that she has always encouraged the boy to cultivate a good relationship with his father, sending him cards on his birthday and other appropriate times.
"Men are made differently. Many are scared stiff of commitment. But, I think even if you are scared of commitment, you should not be afraid to commit to decency."
Personally, Ellington says she has never been shy of giving either or heart or what is in her purse.
Close friend, attorney at law Dennis Morrison QC states, "Fae is a loyal and generous friend. She is talented and has gift for people in terms of her ability to connect. She is a person of complete integrity. If she gives you her word, you cant want better than that."
Ellington admits, "I have found that I am a giver and it can be abused. No matter how old or how young you are, you can love and love very deeply and you can be hurt and hurt very deeply. But it does not mean that you should not open yourself to others."
Next year the actress and communicator looks toward the time when she will write her long overdue memoirs.
As to 2005, she says it was a remarkable year in which she directed her first play, the production ' Who Will sing for Lena' - the true story of a Georgia woman who was sent to the Electric chair - written by American professor Janice Riddell and in which Makeda Solomon, best actress of 2003 in Jamaica, played the starring role.
Fae reports with glee that, following the staging to the play Lena has been exonerated, granted clemency, posthumously.
"Theatre not only mimics life, but it can change lives" she comments. Her own life is an example. As challenging as some of her roles and experiences have been, her life has been transformed.
"I believe in God," Fae Ellington says, reflecting on the defining moments and challenges of her existence. But, she also has a passionate belief in decency and its great ability to transform relationships and human lives.
