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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Aunty Hazel - farewell to a classy lady

by

20141029

Trib­utes con­tin­ue to be of­fered to icon­ic tele­vi­sion pre­sen­ter Hazel Ward-Red­man, who died of pan­cre­at­ic can­cer at her San Fer­nan­do home on Mon­day. The first weath­er an­chor on T&T Tele­vi­sion (TTT) when the sta­tion pre­miered in 1962, Ward-Red­man will be re­mem­bered as the host of tele­vi­sion tal­ent com­pe­ti­tions Twelve and Un­der and Teen Tal­ent, and pop­u­lar week­end dance show Teen Dance Par­ty. She al­so host­ed Main­ly for Women. Ward-Red­man was a na­tion­al award re­cip­i­ent, re­ceiv­ing the Hum­ming­bird Medal (Gold) in 2000.

Na­tal­ie Rogers-Crop­per was one of the first win­ners of Twelve and Un­der, screened on Fri­day evenings on TTT. Based in Rochester, New York, she de­scribed Aun­ty Hazel as "a woman whose lega­cy lives in the ac­com­plish­ments of those many per­form­ers who were called to the stage af­ter pass­ing through her hands. I am one of them.

"When my sis­ter Rox­anne and I won the very first Twelve and Un­der over 40 years ago, we had al­ready seen her demon­strate el­e­gance, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, poise, beau­ty, warmth and joy. She was a shin­ing ex­am­ple of the best of our coun­try.

"As the years went by and I would be a guest on her spe­cials, I was re­mind­ed again and again about pre­sen­ta­tion, el­e­gance and ded­i­ca­tion to pro­fes­sion­al­ism. There is no ques­tion that I and many of us in the per­form­ing world were pro­found­ly in­flu­enced by her style and de­meanour, which seemed al­most roy­al. A queen she was in every way; we will all miss her dear­ly."

Rogers-Crop­per is cur­rent­ly the Garth Fa­gan Dance prin­ci­pal dancer/as­sis­tant re­hearsal di­rec­tor, dance school di­rec­tor and as­sis­tant chore­o­g­ra­ph­er for the Li­on King on Broad­way.

Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen and Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Denyse Plum­mer sang as a child on TTT's Twelve and Un­der, host­ed by Ward-Red­man.

"I was shocked when I got the news about Hazel Ward yes­ter­day. Twelve and Un­der was where I be­gan. Aun­ty Hazel was an in­sti­tu­tion. Long be­fore there were the Amer­i­can pro­grammes like The Voice and Amer­i­can Idol there was Hazel Ward's Twelve and Un­der, Teen Tal­ent and Teen Dance Par­ty.

"I re­mem­ber be­ing ter­ri­fied of Aun­ty Hazel at the age of nine, sit­ting in a cold TTT stu­dio, await­ing my turn to per­form. She was a very dis­ci­plined woman. I placed first in the pre­lim­i­nary, the se­mi-fi­nal and the fi­nal.

"That is where I got my start. Aun­ty Hazel was the be­gin­ning of Denyse Plum­mer. It's sad that we have lost such a very won­der­ful woman. Not on­ly was she won­der­ful in the work she did but al­so she was won­der­ful as a very el­e­gant and classy woman."

An­oth­er grad­u­ate of Teen Dance Par­ty is Roland Guy, who now runs two health-food stores in Brook­lyn, New York. As a teenag­er he fre­quent­ed the week­ly tele­vi­sion dance show with peo­ple like An­n­marie Rigs­by, Na­dine Chaman, Jan­ice Pe­ters, Ann and Bub­bles Rogers, and Her­man Cashie.

Said Guy: "I was very de­ject­ed when I heard of Aun­ty Hazel be­cause she played a very im­por­tant role in our lives back in that time. She set stan­dards for the youth 51 years ago. She was a very se­ri­ous woman but very kind, and gave us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op our skills. Aun­ty Hazel was un­touched by the evils of the world.

"Be­cause of Teen Dance Par­ty, sev­er­al of us ac­tu­al­ly got work in the stu­dio of TTT. When I came to Amer­i­ca, af­ter Teen Dance Par­ty and be­ing in the Viet­nam War in 1967, I stud­ied tele­vi­sion di­rect­ing and pro­duc­tion at RCA TV Stu­dio School in Man­hat­tan. I had sev­er­al jobs in that me­dia dis­ci­pline. It was be­cause of Hazel Ward's en­cour­age­ment that I was suc­cess­ful in every­thing I pur­sued.

"If Aun­ty Kay was the Queen of Ra­dio Trinidad, Hazel Ward was the Roy­al Princess of TTT."

Mi­a­mi-based hair styl­ist Shazz McLean-Browne en­joyed three gen­er­a­tions of in­volve­ment with Ward-Red­man. She said: "To me Aun­ty Hazel was the epit­o­me of class, so­phis­ti­ca­tion, el­e­gance and elo­quence. When I first met her she was fas­ci­nat­ed that I was not a shy child and al­ways com­ment­ed on that.

?

"When I went on 12 & Un­der my par­ents didn't even know un­til they saw me on TV on the Fri­day evening. That was around 1972. I could re­mem­ber the out­fit I wore and the song I sang. The out­fit was a maxi tu­nic of turquoise blue with yel­low pol­ka dots, with a hot pants be­neath, with strap-up Ro­man san­dals. The song was Rain­drops Keep Falling on my Head. I placed third and went all the way to the fi­nal.

"Aun­ty Hazel was like a moth­er to all us chil­dren and she made us feel very com­fort­able and se­cure. I al­so did Teen Tal­ent with her and, as an adult busi­ness woman, she al­so in­ter­viewed me on Main­ly for Women."

Cheryl Cud­joe, who now lives in At­lanta, Geor­gia, was 15 when she be­gan at­tend­ing Teen Dance Par­ty in 1966 and was one of the view­ers' favourites. She said: "I was orig­i­nal­ly on Teen Dance Par­ty with Ann Whar­wood, who host­ed the show be­fore Aun­ty Hazel. I re­mem­ber Aun­ty Hazel, as she was a won­der­ful, classy woman; very lov­ing. Al­most every week­end I used to win awards for Best Dressed, Best Hair­style, Best Shoes and Best Dancer. I re­mem­ber oth­er pop­u­lar girls like Yvonne Fer­gus­son, Kell­many Lam­bert and Jan­ice Hunte."

Lon­don-based singer and ac­tor Nigel Wong told the T&T Guardian it was Ward-Red­man who in­tro­duced him to the Russ­ian play­wright Chekhov.

"For more than 50 years Hazel nur­tured, en­cour­aged and dis­cov­ered the young tal­ent of T&T. Hazel al­so un­der­stood the im­por­tance of nur­tur­ing tal­ent of every kind, be it dance, the­atre or mu­sic.

"The thing about Hazel that struck me deeply was as a young man she gave me three vol­umes of Chekhov plays. At the age of 14 I had nev­er heard of Chekhov.

Eight years lat­er, while at dra­ma school, play­ing catch-up, hav­ing not had the lux­u­ry of A-Lev­el the­atre stud­ies, when in my sec­ond term the head of dra­ma pre­sent­ed Chekhov plays to us, I in­ward­ly shout­ed with glee. I was now able to work on their lev­el!

"Many years lat­er, as a pro­fes­sion­al per­former, I re­turned to Trinidad on hol­i­day. Hazel heard that I was in Trinidad and asked me to do a tele­vi­sion spe­cial, where my work would be fea­tured. When I got to the tele­vi­sion stu­dios Hazel did not greet me as a young prot�g� but han­dled me with the re­spect of a pro­fes­sion­al."

Ward-Red­man's fu­ner­al is sched­uled for Sat­ur­day, at St Paul's An­gli­can Church, Har­ris, San Fer­nan­do, at 10.30 am.


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