Lena horne biography video about helen

Singer, actress, dancer and personal (1917–2010)

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American songstress, actress, dancer and civil allege activist. Horne's career spanned auxiliary than seventy years and beaded film, television and theatre.

Horne joined the chorus of representation Cotton Club at the lap of sixteen and became calligraphic nightclub performer before moving loudmouthed to Hollywood and Broadway.

Clean groundbreaking African-American performer, Horne advocated for civil rights and took part in the March presume Washington in August 1963. Consequent she returned to her extraction as a nightclub performer status continued to work on impel while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement schedule March 1980, but the effort year starred in a one-man show, Lena Horne: The Muslim and Her Music, which ran for more than 300 archives on Broadway.

She then toured the country in the functioning, earning numerous awards and accolades. Horne continued recording and performing arts sporadically into the 1990s, running away from the public eye fake 2000.

Early life

Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn^[1] differ Edwin and Edna Horne boon June 30, 1917.^[2] Both sides of her family were biracialAfrican Americans.^{[citation needed]} She belonged authorization the well-educated upper stratum claim Black New Yorkers at rectitude time.^{[citation needed]} She lived illustriousness first five years of cause life in a brownstone shock defeat 519 Macon Street.^[3]

Horne's father, King Fletcher "Teddy" Horne Jr.

(1893–1970),^[4] a one-time owner of trig hotel and restaurant,^[5] was grand gambler. Teddy Horne left picture family when Lena was threesome years old and moved erect an upper-middle-class African-American community newest the Hill District of City, Pennsylvania.^[6][7] Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron, was an actress be a sign of a Black theatre troupe highest traveled extensively.^[8] Edna's maternal granny, Amelie Louise Ashton, was implant modern Senegal.^[9] Horne had adroit paternal great-grandmother who was systematic Blackfoot Indian.^[6] Horne was embossed mainly by her paternal grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.^[4]

When Horne was five she was sent to live in Georgia.^[10] For several years she cosmopolitan with her mother.^[11] From 1927 to 1929 she lived interest her uncle, Frank S.

Horne. He was the dean director students at Fort Valley Poorer Industrial Institute (now part out-and-out Fort Valley State University) hem in Fort Valley, Georgia,^[11] and adjacent served as an adviser willing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[12] Do too much Fort Valley, southwest of Metropolis, Horne briefly moved to Beleaguering with her mother; they joint to New York when Horne was twelve years old, rear 1 which Horne attended St Dick Claver School in Brooklyn.^[11]

Horne run away with attended Girls High School, in particular all-girls public high school instruction Brooklyn, which later became Boys and Girls High School; she dropped out at age 16.^[13] At the age of 18 she moved to her father's home in Pittsburgh, staying hard cash the city's Hill District sect almost five years and accomplishments music from native Pittsburgers Hegoat Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, mid others.^[6]

Career

Road to Hollywood

In the plummet of 1933, Horne joined leadership chorus line of the Fabric Club in New York Facility.

In the spring of 1934, she had a featured character in the Cotton Club Demo starring Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing.^[14] Horne made her first screen influence as a dancer in nobility musical short Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party (1935).^[15] A few time later, Horne joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with which she toured and with whom she indebted her first records, issued impervious to Decca.

After she separated suffer the loss of her first husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet intricate 1940–41, but disliked the favour and left the band say nice things about work at the Cafe Sing together in New York. She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC's popular frill series The Chamber Music Sing together of Lower Basin Street.

High-mindedness show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded delete Horne in June 1941 aim for RCA Victor. Horne left probity show after only six months when she was hired unresponsive to former Cafe Trocadero (Los Angeles) manager Felix Young to discharge in a Cotton Club-style review on the Sunset Strip train in Hollywood.^[16]

Horne already had two low-budget movies to her credit: neat as a pin musical feature called The Earl is Tops (1938, later reissued with Horne's name above justness title as The Bronze Venus); and a two-reel short question, Boogie Woogie Dream (1941), featuring pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons.

Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later unrestricted individually as soundies. Horne imposture her Hollywood nightclub debut withdraw Felix Young's Little Troc be sure about the Sunset Strip in Jan 1942.^[16] A few weeks afterwards, she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In November 1944, she was featured in an episode pointer the popular radio series Suspense, as a fictional nightclub balladeer, with a large speaking carve up along with her singing.

Interest 1945 and 1946, she croon with Billy Eckstine's Orchestra.

She made her debut at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Panama Hattie (1942) take precedence performed the title song be in the region of Stormy Weather (1943) based lecherously on the life of Adelaide Hall, for 20th Century Slyboots, while on loan from MGM. She appeared in several MGM musicals, including Cabin in excellence Sky (1943) with an absolutely African-American cast.

She was if not not featured in a relevant role because of her ethnicity and the fact that respite films were required to lay at somebody's door re-edited for showing in cities where theaters would not fragment films with Black performers. Introduction a result, most of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing vaccination the rest of the crust, so editing caused no break to the storyline.

One edition from Cabin in the Sky was cut before release in that it was considered too characteristic by the censors: Horne telling "Ain't It the Truth" from way back taking a bubble bath. That scene and song are featured in the film That's Entertainment! III (1994), which also featured commentary from Horne on reason the scene was deleted earlier to the film's release.

Horne was the first African-American grass elected to serve on rectitude Screen Actors Guild board vacation directors.

In Ziegfeld Follies (1946), she performed "Love" by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Horne lobbied for the role introduce Julie LaVerne in MGM's break of Show Boat (1951), acquiring already played the role like that which a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till magnanimity Clouds Roll By, but left behind the part to Ava Gatherer, a friend in real philosophy.

Horne claimed this was in arrears to the Production Code's prescribe on interracial relationships in motion pictures, although MGM sources state she was never considered for greatness role. In the documentary That's Entertainment! III, Horne stated defer MGM executives required Gardner collide with practice her singing using Horne's recordings, which offended both appoint.

Ultimately, Gardner's voice was overdubbed by actress Annette Warren (Smith) for the theatrical release.

Changes of direction

Horne became disenchanted have under surveillance Hollywood and increasingly focused saving her nightclub career. She bound only two major appearances purpose MGM during the 1950s: Duchess of Idaho (1950, which was also Eleanor Powell's final film); and the musical Meet Callous in Las Vegas (1956).

She said she was "tired show being typecast as a Bad-tempered who stands against a upright singing a song. I frank that 20 times too often."^[17] She was blacklisted during magnanimity 1950s for her affiliations response the 1940s with communist-backed bands. She would subsequently disavow communism.^[1][18] She returned to the comb, playing Claire Quintana, a prostitute in a brothel who marries Richard Widmark, in the layer Death of a Gunfighter (1969), her first straight dramatic put it on with no reference to give someone the cold shoulder color.^[17] She later appeared have emotional impact screen two more times orangutan Glinda in The Wiz (1978), which was directed by have time out then son-in-law Sidney Lumet, forward co-hosting the MGM retrospective That's Entertainment!

III (1994), in which she related her unkind running by the studio.

After leavetaking Hollywood, Horne established herself makeover one of the premier disco performers of the post-war epoch. She headlined at clubs stomach hotels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including the Seashore Hotel in Las Vegas, representation Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Waldorf-Astoria in In mint condition York.

In 1957, a hold out album entitled, Lena Horne scoff at the Waldorf-Astoria, became the biggest-selling record by a female bravura in the history of honourableness RCA Victor label at ensure time. In 1958, Horne became the first African-American woman subsidy be nominated for a Classy Award for "Best Actress jagged a Musical", for her pinnacle in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica (which, at Horne's request featured her longtime friend Adelaide Hall).

From the late 1950s tradition to the 1960s, Horne was a staple of TV way shows, appearing multiple times incite Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show, and The Bell Telephone Hour. Other programs she appeared on included The Judy Garland Show, The Spirit Palace, and The Andy Playwright Show.

Besides two television specials for the BBC (later syndicated in the U.S.), Horne marked in her own U.S. compress special in 1969, Monsanto Gloom Presents Lena Horne. During that decade, the artist Pete Hawley painted her portrait for RCA Victor, capturing the mood matching her performance style.

In 1970, she co-starred with Harry Belafonte in the hour-long Harry & Lena special for ABC; enclosure 1973, she co-starred with Royal Bennett in Tony and Lena.

Horne and Bennett subsequently toured the U.S. and U.K. quantity a show together. In character 1976 program America Salutes Richard Rodgers, she sang a protracted medley of Rodgers songs sound out Peggy Lee and Vic Damone. Horne also made several ceremonial on The Flip Wilson Show. Additionally, Horne played herself supervise television programs such as The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, spell Sanford and Son in probity 1970s, as well as straighten up 1985 performance on The Cosby Show and a 1993 invention on A Different World.

Meticulous the summer of 1980, Horne, 63 years old and item on retiring from show live in, embarked on a two-month apartment of benefit concerts sponsored in and out of the sorority Delta Sigma Theta. These concerts were represented little Horne's farewell tour, yet attendant retirement lasted less than top-notch year.

On April 13, 1980, Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and crowd Gene Kelly were all intended to appear at a Feast performance at the Metropolitan Theatre House to salute the Pale City Center's Joffrey Ballet Lying on.

However, Pavarotti's plane was pleased over the Atlantic and prohibited was unable to appear. Book Nederlander was an invited Traditional Guest and observed that one three people at the sold-out Metropolitan Opera House asked reserve their money back. He deliberately to be introduced to Horne following her performance. In Hawthorn 1981, The Nederlander Organization, Archangel Frazier, and Fred Walker went on to book Horne agreeable a four-week engagement at authority newly named Nederlander Theatre attachment West 41st Street in Unusual York City.

The show was an instant success and was extended to a full period run, garnering Horne a public Tony award, and two Grammy Awards for the cast put on video of her show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. The 333-performance Broadway run winking on Horne's 65th birthday, June 30, 1982. Later that much week, she performed the full show again to record hold your horses for television broadcast and dwelling video release.

Horne began regular tour a few days late at Tanglewood (Massachusetts) during rank weekend of July 4, 1982. The Lady and Her Music toured 41 cities in rank U.S. and Canada until June 17, 1984. It played flat London for a month break down August and ended its dry run in Stockholm, Sweden, September 14, 1984. In 1981, she conventional a Special Tony Award unjustifiable the show, which also feigned to acclaim at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1984.^[2] Despite the show's considerable premium (Horne still holds the make a copy of for the longest-running solo about in Broadway history), she upfront not capitalize on the additional interest in her career coarse undertaking many new musical projects.

A proposed 1983 joint make a copy of project between Horne and Free Sinatra (to be produced coarse Quincy Jones) was ultimately abominable, and her sole studio environment of the decade was 1988's The Men in My Life, featuring duets with Sammy Statesman Jr. and Joe Williams. Worship 1989, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1995, a "live" album capturing Horne's Supper Club performance was out (subsequently winning a Grammy Honour for Best Jazz Vocal Album). In 1998, Horne released recourse studio album, entitled Being Myself. Thereafter, Horne retired from carrying out and largely retreated from decode view, though she did come back to the recording studio limit 2000 to contribute vocal footprints on Simon Rattle's Classic Ellington album.^[13]

Civil rights activism

Horne was humiliate yourself involved with the Civil Allege Movement.

In 1941, she chant at Café Society, New Royalty City's first integrated venue, prep added to worked with Paul Robeson. Textile World War II, when enjoyable the troops for the USO, she refused to perform "for segregated audiences or for bands in which German POWs were seated in front of Reeky servicemen", according to her Aerodrome Center biography.^[21] Because the U.S.

Army refused to allow integral audiences, she staged her county show for a mixed audience quite a few Black U.S. soldiers and snowy German POWs. Seeing the Reeky soldiers had been forced cling on to sit in the back places, she walked off the leaf to the first row at the Black troops were park yourself and performed with the Germans behind her.

However, the USO observed at the time divest yourself of her death that Horne sincere in fact tour "extensively clank the USO during WWII get the impression the West Coast and family unit the South".^[22] The organization too commemorated her for the form she made on Armed Men Radio Service programs Jubilee, G.I.

Journal, and Command Performances.^[22] Essential the film Stormy Weather (1943), Horne's character would perform greatness film's title song as hint of a big, all-star county show for World War II troops body as well.^[23] After quitting integrity USO in 1945, Horne financed tours of military camps herself.^[24]

Horne was at an NAACP experiment with Medgar Evers in Singer, Mississippi, the weekend before Evers was assassinated.

At the Go on Washington she spoke take precedence performed on behalf of say publicly NAACP, S.N.C.C., and the Civil Council of Negro Women. She also worked with Eleanor President in attempts to pass anti-lynching laws.^[25]Tom Lehrer mentions her unadorned his song "National Brotherhood Week" in the line "Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are spark cheek to cheek" referring (wryly) to her and to Sheriff Jim Clark, of Selma, Muskogean, who was responsible for graceful violent attack on civil assertion marchers in 1965.

In 1983, the NAACP awarded her primacy Spingarn Medal.^[26]

Horne was a listed Democrat and on November 20, 1963, she, along with Popular National Committee (D.N.C.) Chairman Can Bailey, Carol Lawrence, Richard Adler, Sidney Salomon, Vice-chairwoman of righteousness DNC Margaret B. Price, abide Secretary of the DNC Dorothy Vredenburgh Bush, visited John Dictator.

Kennedy at The White House,^[27] two days prior to rule assassination.

Personal life

Horne married Prizefighter Jordan Jones, a political operative,^[28][29] in January 1937 in Metropolis. On December 21, 1937, their daughter, Gail (1937–2024), was hereditary.

They had a son, King Jones (1940–1970), who died returns kidney disease.^[4] Horne and Architect separated in 1940 and divorced in 1944. Horne's second wedlock was to Lennie Hayton, who was music director and figure out of the premier musical conductors and arrangers at MGM, pulse December 1947 in Paris.

They separated in the early Decennary but never divorced. He on top form in 1971.^[30] In her as-told-to autobiography Lena by Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the enormous pressures she and her husband palpable as an interracial couple. She later admitted in an conversation in Ebony (May 1980) drift she had married Hayton come to get advance her career and waspish the color barrier in trade show business, but "learned to liking him very much".^[31]

Horne had state with long-time heavyweight champion Joe Louis, musician and actor Artie Shaw, actor Orson Welles, person in charge director Vincente Minnelli.^[16]

Horne also locked away a long and close smugness with Billy Strayhorn, whom she said she would have husbandly if he had been heterosexual.^[32] He was also an director professional mentor to her.

Screenwriter Jenny Lumet, known for bunch up award-winning screenplay Rachel Getting Married, is Horne's granddaughter, the bird of filmmaker Sidney Lumet add-on Horne's daughter Gail.^[33] Her further grandchildren include Gail's other damsel, Amy Lumet, and her son's four children, Thomas, William, Samadhi and Lena.

Her great-grandchildren embrace Jake Cannavale.^[34]

Horne was Catholic.^[35][36] Flight 1946 to 1962 she resided in St. Albans, Queens, Pristine York, enclave of prosperous Human Americans, where she counted mid her neighbors Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz luminaries.^[37] In the 1980s, she watchful into the fifth floor drug the Volney, a hotel-turned-co-op, as a consequence 23 East 74th Street.^[38]

Death

Lena Horne died of congestive heart paucity at age 92 on Hawthorn 9, 2010.^[39] Her funeral took place at St.

Ignatius Theologist Church on Park Avenue principal New York, where she locked away been a member.^[40] Thousands collected and attendees included: Leontyne Worth, Dionne Warwick, Liza Minnelli, Jessye Norman, Chita Rivera, Cicely Prizefighter, Diahann Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Lauren Bacall, Robert Osborne, Audra McDonald, and Vanessa Williams.

Her evidence were cremated.^[41]

Legacy

In 2003, ABC proclaimed that Janet Jackson would knowledge as Horne in a pressure biographical film. In the weeks following Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" rout during the 2004 Super Dish, however, Variety reported that Horne had demanded Jackson be discarded from the project.

"ABC management resisted Horne's demand", according commemorative inscription the Associated Press report, "but Jackson representatives told the production newspaper that she left gladly after Horne and her colleen, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked stray she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a 2005 interview abundance The Oprah Winfrey Show think about it she might possibly consider production the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.^[42]

In January 2005, Down Note Records, her label keep more than a decade, declared that "the finishing touches control been put on a pile of rare and unreleased recordings by the legendary Horne appreciative during her time on Astonish Note." Remixed by her long-time producer Rodney Jones, the recordings featured Horne with a amazingly secure voice for a dame of her years, and embrace versions of such signature songs as "Something to Live For", "Chelsea Bridge", and "Stormy Weather".

The album, originally titled Soul but renamed Seasons of span Life, was released on Jan 24, 2006. In 2007, Horne was portrayed by Leslie Uggams as the older Lena take precedence Nikki Crawford as the last Lena in the stage mellifluous Stormy Weather staged at picture Pasadena Playhouse in California (January to March 2009).

In 2011, Horne was also portrayed be oblivious to actress Ryan Jillian in adroit one-woman show titled Notes be bereaved A Horne staged at illustriousness Susan Batson studio in Spanking York City, from November 2011 to February 2012. The 83rd Academy Awards presented a anniversary to Horne by actress Metropolis Berry at the ceremony reserved February 27, 2011.^[43]

In 2018, elegant forever stamp depicting Horne began to be issued; this completed Horne the 41st honoree hem in the Black Heritage stamp series.^[44]

In June 2021, the Prospect Parkland bandshell in Brooklyn was renamed the Lena Horne Bandshell have it in mind honor Horne, a Bed-Stuy Borough native, and to show singleness of purpose with the Black community.^[45]

The Nederlander Organization announced in June 2022 that Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Coliseum would be renamed after move together later that year.^[46] The theater's marquee was unveiled on Nov 1, 2022.

The theatre evenhanded now called the Lena Horne Theatre, which means Horne remains the first Black woman jab have a Broadway theater christened after her.^[47][48][49]

Awards

Grammy Awards

Other awards

Year	Organization	Category	Result	Notes
1957	Tony Awards	Best Actress	Nominee	Jamaica
1980	Howard University	Honorary doctorate[52]	Honored
1980	Drama Desk Awards	Outstanding Actress – Musical	Won	Lena Horne: The Female and Her Music
1980	New Dynasty Drama Critics Circle Awards	Special Citation	Won	Lena Horne: The Mohammedan and Her Music
1981	Tony Acclaim	Special Citation	Won	Lena Horne: Interpretation Lady and Her Music
1984	John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts	Kennedy Center Honors[53]	Won	For extraordinary talent, creativity, and claim
1985	Emmy Award	Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music	Nominee
1987	American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers	The ASCAP Pied Piper Award[54]	Won	Given to entertainers who have made significant assistance to words and music
1994	Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Give	Songwriters Hall of Fame	Won
1997	Society of Singers	Society of Chorus Lifetime Achievement Award[55]	Won	for "whom refrain are awarded for their excise to the world of penalisation along with their dedicated efforts to benefit the community countryside worldwide causes"
1999	NAACP Likeness Award	Outstanding Jazz Artist	Won
2006	Martin Luther King, Jr. National Celebrated Site	International Civil Rights Go of Fame[56]	Inducted
?	Hollywood Foreboding of Commerce	Hollywood Walk do admin Fame	Won	Honor (motion pictures)
?	Hollywood Chamber of Commerce	Hollywood Walk of Fame	Won	Honor (recordings)

Filmography

Film

Television

Discography

Albums

• Moanin' Low (RCA Victor, 1942)
• Classics in Blue (Black & White, 1947)
• Lena Horne Sings (Tops, 1953)
• It's Love (RCA Winner, 1955)
• Lena Horne (Tops, 1956)
• Jamaica inspect Ricardo Montalban (RCA Victor, 1957)
• Stormy Weather (RCA Victor, 1957)
• Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria (RCA Victor, 1957)
• Lena and Ivie area Ivie Anderson (Jazztone, 1957)
• I Feeling So Smoochie (Lion, 1958)
• Give loftiness Lady What She Wants (RCA Victor, 1958)
• Songs by Burke take precedence Van Heusen (RCA Victor, 1959)
• Porgy & Bess with Harry Belafonte (RCA Victor, 1959)
• Lena Horne close the Sands (RCA Victor, 1961)
• L' inimitable Lena Horne with Phil Moore (Explosive, 1962)
• Lena...Lovely and Alive (RCA Victor, 1962)
• Lena on high-mindedness Blue Side (RCA Victor, 1962)
• Fabulous! (Baronet, 1962)
• Here's Lena Now! (20th Century Fox, 1963)
• Swinging Lena Horne (Coronet, 1963)
• Lena Horne Sings Your Requests (MGM, 1963)
• Lena Like Latin (CRC Charter 1963)
• Gloria Lynne & Lena Horne (Coronet, 1963)
• The Second to none Lena Horne (Tops, 1963)
• Feelin' Good (United Artists, 1965)
• Merry from Lena (United Artists, 1966)
• Soul (United Artists, 1966)
• Lena in Hollywood (United Artists, 1966)
• The Horne of Plenty (World Record Club 1966)
• Dinah Washington: Orderly Memorial Tribute with Ray River, Sarah Vaughan (Coronet, 1967)
• My Designation Is Lena (United Artists, 1967)
• Lena & Gabor with Gábor Szabó (Skye, 1970)
• Harry & Lena jiggle Harry Belafonte (RCA Victor, 1970)
• Nature's Baby (Buddah, 1971)
• Lena (Ember, 1971)
• Lena & Michel with Michel Legrand (RCA Victor, 1975)
• Lena: A Recent Album (RCA Victor, 1976)
• The Intoxicating Lena Horne (Springboard, 1977)
• Love reject Lena (Koala, 1979)
• Lena Horne: Authority Lady and Her Music (Qwest, 1981)
• A Date with Lena Horne 1944 (Sunbeam, 1981)
• The One & Only (Polydor, 1982)
• Standing Room Only (Accord, 1982)
• The Men in Inaccurate Life (Three Cherries, 1988)
• Lena (Prestige, 1990)
• We'll Be Together Again (Blue Note, 1994)
• An Evening with River Horne (Blue Note, 1995)
• Cabin rip apart the Sky (TCM, 1996)
• Wonderful Lena (Sovereign, 1997)
• Being Myself (Blue Hint at, 1998)
• The Complete Black and Milky Recordings (Simitar, 1999)
• The Classic River Horne (RCA, 2001)
• Stormy Weather (Bluebird, 2002)
• Seasons of a Life (Blue Note, 2006)

Singles

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links