Actress, Singer Hazel Bassett Dies
Services will be held today for Hazel Bassett, an Orange County actress and singer in the 1920s, who died of natural causes at Park Tustin, a nursing care facility in Santa Ana. She was 86.
Bassett was born in East Tawas, Mich., and moved to Long Beach in the 1920s, when she won beauty contests and began her career as a stage and screen actress and singer.
She married musician G. Willard Bassett in 1944 and moved to Santa Ana after his discharge from the Army.
For the next 40 years, the couple volunteered in church and community civic groups. They ran the G. Willard Bassett Music Studios in Santa Ana together until her husband’s death in 1973. She continued to run the studios until 1988.
Bassett died July 14.
She is survived by sons Ralph Bassett of Florida, Glenn Bassett of Connecticut and Al Bassett of Washington, and seven grandchildren.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. at Waverly Chapel, Fairhaven Cemetery, Santa Ana.
Tax-deductible donations can be made in lieu of flowers to: G. Willard Bassett Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 1470, Sunset Beach, Calif. 90742. The foundation benefits young Southern California musicians.
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