WASHINGTON STATE OF MIND : FREEMAN HITS STRIDE ON `ER'; NOW SHE'S BELTING OUT HISTORY.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

You could call it typecasting, up to a point.

Singer Dinah Washington had a nasal, knowing voice. So does actress Yvette Freeman.

Washington had a figure to match her oversize personality. ``Me too,'' Freeman says.

And like the legendary jazz/blues/pop chanteuse, Freeman knows how it feels to live out of a suitcase for months on end.

``I mean, I can relate to this totally,'' says the woman best-known to American audiences as unflappable nurse Haleh Adams on NBC's prime-time juggernaut ``ER.''

``I'm a road actress,'' Freeman elaborates. ``You have no husband; you have no home, really. You're on the road.''

Fortunately, the parallels end there. While Washington's star flickered out at age 39, a casualty of too many bouts with diet pills and the bottle, Freeman at 45 appears to be just hitting her prime.

Having shown that she can polish a ballad in Broadway musicals like ``Ain't Misbehavin','' and nail down a recurring TV character, Freeman is now busy immersing herself in Washington's turbulent life and times. She is shouldering the title role in the West Coast premiere of ``Dinah Was,'' Oliver Goldstick's bio-musical that has just opened a five-week run at the Coast Playhouse on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Despite Washington's unique flair for self-theatrics and wretched excess, Freeman believes that the diva's whirlwind career has plenty to teach more temperate souls.

``The story that we're telling can relate to anybody,'' Freeman asserts. ``It's about making choices in your life.''

Washington's choices often boiled down to the lesser of two evils, as she struggled with being African-American, gifted and willing to speak her mind. Like her screen idol Bette Davis, she didn't suffer fools gladly, nor did she bow to male authority.

``Bette Davis was the queen of the movies,'' Freeman observes. ``She was classy, she spoke well, and she didn't take any crap from anybody. (Dinah) learned a lot from ol' Bette.''

Developed and christened at the prestigious Williamstown (Mass.) Theatre Festival, ``Dinah Was'' unfolds in the course of a single momentous day in 1959, when Washington was at the peak of her powers.

Booked to perform at Las Vegas' Sahara hotel, she found herself assigned to a trailer next to the garbage dump in the hotel parking lot. In the play, her run-in with the hotel's racist and hypocritical management brings about a dramatic epiphany.

Says its author, ``The play is really about whether dignity is negotiable.''

Born Ruth Lee Jones in 1924 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Washington grew up in Chicago, giving gospel recitals and accompanying herself on piano. While still in her teens, she hooked up with jazzman Lionel Hampton and sang with him for three years.

Her seven CD's worth of Mercury recordings and 30 r&b hits testify to her prolific output and mastery of the blues, jazz, gospel and pop idioms. Performers as diverse as Frank Sinatra, Patti Austin and Nancy Wilson have tipped their hats to Washington. The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductee also helped launch the careers of Quincy Jones and Aretha Franklin.

Equally at home on the chitlin circuit of the Jim Crow South and in swishy East Coast supper clubs, the ``Queen of the Blues'' was the first African-American female to achieve crossover success with white audiences. She also was the first to seize control over her business affairs - a move that didn't exactly endear her to the white musical establishment.

Her personal life was equally volatile. Married at least nine times (officially), she was hitched to Detroit Lions gridiron great Dick ``Night Train'' Lane when she accidentally overdosed on alcohol and diet pills in 1963.

If Washington today lacks the name recognition of such peers as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, her sharp tongue and flaming temper may be partly at fault, says playwright Goldstick. Once, she cussed out the patrons at Miami's swanky Fountainbleu Hotel. ``The Ed Sullivan Show'' wouldn't touch her with a 10-foot pole.

Her profile might be even dimmer if not for the U.S. Postal Service, which honored the singer with one of its Legends of American Music commemorative stamps, and Clint Eastwood, who sprinkled Washington tunes throughout ``The Bridges of Madison County'' soundtrack.

However, Goldstick rejects the idea of Washington as victim. He believes that the singer undercut her own artistry by softening her gut-bucket vocal style in a misguided bid to sound like the easy-listening Sarah Vaughan.

``I think it chipped away at something vital in her, and she lost connection to the music,'' Goldstick says.

Ultimately, Washington may have been punished for being an African-American woman who simply wanted too much.

Says Freeman, ``I think that if you listen to society and then you listen to your dreams, you do have conflicts.''

THE FACTS The show: ``Dinah Was.''

Where: Coast Playhouse, 8325 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 and 8 p.m. Sundays; through July 28.

Running time: Two hours.

Tickets: [phone].

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: (1) Dinah Washington, immortalized on one of the U.S . Postal Service's Legends of American Music stamps, also figured prominently on the soundtrack for Clint Eastwood's ``The Bridges of Madison County.''

(2) Yvette Freeman of NBC's ``ER'' portrays legendary singer Dinah Washington in the West Coast premiere of Oliver Goldstick's musical ``Dinah Was'' at the Coast Playhouse in West Hollywood.