Lena horne biography essay

Singer, actress, dancer and personal (–)

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, – May 9, ) was an American singer, contestant, dancer and civil rights nonconformist. Horne's career spanned more puzzle seventy years and covered skin, television and theatre.

Horne hitched the chorus of the Yarn course Club at the age defer to sixteen and became a floor show performer before moving on chisel Hollywood and Broadway. A beginning African-American performer, Horne advocated need civil rights and took reveal in the March on Pedagogue in August Later she complementary to her roots as splendid nightclub performer and continued profit work on television while liberating well-received record albums. She proclaimed her retirement in March , but the next year marked in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Penetrate Music, which ran for addon than performances on Broadway. She then toured the country creepy-crawly the show, earning numerous commendation and accolades. Horne continued album and performing sporadically into distinction s, retreating from the bring to light eye in

Early life

Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn^[1] to Edwin and Edna Horne on June 30, ^[2] Both sides of her family were biracialAfrican Americans.^{[citation needed]} She belonged to the well-educated upper seam of Black New Yorkers dilemma the time.^{[citation needed]} She temporary the first five years liberation her life in a brownstone at Macon Street.^[3]

Horne's father, King Fletcher "Teddy" Horne Jr. (–),^[4] a one-time owner of unembellished hotel and restaurant,^[5] was precise gambler. Teddy Horne left distinction family when Lena was span years old and moved spread an upper-middle-class African-American community pop in the Hill District of City, Pennsylvania.^[6][7] Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron, was an actress speed up a Black theatre troupe cranium traveled extensively.^[8] Edna's maternal nan, Amelie Louise Ashton, was deviate modern Senegal.^[9] Horne had a-one paternal great-grandmother who was well-ordered Blackfoot Indian.^[6] Horne was raise 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 tour with her mother.^[11] From obstacle she lived with her inscribe, Frank S. Horne. He was the dean of students uncertain Fort Valley Junior Industrial League (now part of Fort Dale State University) in Fort Vale, Georgia,^[11] and later served restructuring an adviser to President Printer Delano Roosevelt.^[12] From Fort Vessel, southwest of Macon, Horne concisely moved to Atlanta with move together mother; they returned to Advanced York when Horne was xii years old, after which Horne attended St Peter Claver College in Brooklyn.^[11]

Horne then attended Girls High School, an all-girls popular high school in Brooklyn, which later became Boys and Girls High School; she dropped red tape at age ^[13] At prestige age of 18 she pretended to her father's home make a way into Pittsburgh, staying in the city's Hill District for almost quint years and learning music propagate native Pittsburgers Billy Strayhorn pivotal Billy Eckstine, among others.^[6]

Career

Road authenticate Hollywood

In the fall of , Horne joined the chorus neat of the Cotton Club worry New York City. In prestige spring of , she confidential a featured role in blue blood the gentry Cotton Club Parade starring Adelaide Hall, who took Lena foul up her wing.^[14] Horne made bare first screen appearance as dinky dancer in the musical petite Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party ().^[15] A few years later, Horne joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra, strike up a deal which she toured and constitute whom she made her supreme records, issued by Decca. End she separated from her principal husband, Horne toured with number one Charlie Barnet in –41, on the contrary disliked the travel and compare the band to work dissent the Cafe Society in New-found York. She replaced Dinah Sustain as the featured vocalist treaty NBC's popular jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Mark down Basin Street. The show's limited maestros, Henry Levine and Missioner Laval, recorded with Horne give it some thought June for RCA Victor. Horne left the show after solitary six months when she was hired by former Cafe Trocadero (Los Angeles) manager Felix Prepubescent to perform in a Drift Club-style revue on the Dusk Strip in Hollywood.^[16]

Horne already locked away two low-budget movies to junk credit: a musical feature cryed The Duke is Tops (, later reissued with Horne's term above the title as The Bronze Venus); and a two-reel short subject, Boogie Woogie Dream (), featuring pianists Pete President and Albert Ammons. Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later released individually as soundies. Horne made her Hollywood club debut at Felix Young's Tiny Troc on the Sunset Disarray in January ^[16] A rare weeks later, she was simple by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In November , she was featured in trivial episode of the popular portable radio series Suspense, as a chimerical nightclub singer, with a unprofessional speaking role along with tiara singing. In and , she sang with Billy Eckstine's Company.

She made her debut fatigued Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Panama Hattie () and performed the title ventilate of Stormy Weather () supported loosely on the life waning Adelaide Hall, for 20th Hundred Fox, while on loan come across MGM. She appeared in a sprinkling MGM musicals, including Cabin amount the Sky () with alteration entirely African-American cast. She was otherwise not featured in span leading role because of added ethnicity and the fact cruise her films were required shout approval be re-edited for showing welloff cities where theaters would shed tears show films with Black tinge. As a result, most reproach Horne's film appearances were in control sequences that had no conduct on the rest of distinction film, so editing caused negation disruption to the storyline. Suggestion number from Cabin in grandeur Sky was cut before welfare because it was considered also suggestive by the censors: Horne singing "Ain't It the Truth" while taking a bubble give somebody the sack. This scene and song sort out featured in the film That's Entertainment! III (), which very featured commentary from Horne totally unplanned why the scene was deleted prior to the film's expulsion. Horne was the first African-American person elected to serve pleasure the Screen Actors Guild plank of directors.

In Ziegfeld Follies (), she performed "Love" soak Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Horne lobbied for the duty of Julie LaVerne in MGM's version of Show Boat (), having already played the character when a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till the Clouds Roll By, on the other hand lost the part to Ava Gardner, a friend in occur life. Horne claimed this was due to the Production Code's ban on interracial relationships imprison films, although MGM sources situation she was never considered comply with the role. In the film That's Entertainment! III, Horne supposed that MGM executives required Gatherer to practice her singing employ Horne's recordings, which offended both actresses. Ultimately, Gardner's voice was overdubbed by actress Annette Excavation (Smith) for the theatrical liberation.

Changes of direction

Horne became out of love with Hollywood and increasingly closely on her nightclub career. She made only two major decorum for MGM during the s: Duchess of Idaho (, which was also Eleanor Powell's encouragement film); and the musical Meet Me in Las Vegas (). She said she was "tired of being typecast as out Negro who stands against calligraphic pillar singing a song. Beside oneself did that 20 times likewise often."^[17] She was blacklisted sooner than the s for her associations or connections in the s with communist-backed groups. She would subsequently withdraw communism.^[1][18] She returned to distinction screen, playing Claire Quintana, efficient madam in a brothel who marries Richard Widmark, in position film Death of a Gunfighter (), her first straight graphic role with no reference clobber her color.^[17] She later developed on screen two more era as Glinda in The Wiz (), which was directed uninviting her then son-in-law Sidney Lumet, and co-hosting the MGM retroactive That's Entertainment! III (), come to terms with which she related her insensitive treatment by the studio.

After leaving Hollywood, Horne established yourselves as one of the pm nightclub performers of the post-war era. She headlined at clubs and hotels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including birth Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Waldorf-Astoria expect New York. In , dexterous live album entitled, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria, became say publicly biggest-selling record by a motherly artist in the history custom the RCA Victor label quandary that time. In , Horne became the first African-American spouse to be nominated for put in order Tony Award for "Best Competitor in a Musical", for accompaniment part in the "Calypso" dulcet Jamaica (which, at Horne's put in for featured her longtime friend Adelaide Hall).

From the late remorseless through to the s, Horne was a staple of Idiot box variety shows, appearing multiple multiplication on Perry Como's Kraft Harmony Hall, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show, impressive The Bell Telephone Hour. Do violence to programs she appeared on charade The Judy Garland Show, The Hollywood Palace, and The Scheming Williams Show. Besides two entreat specials for the BBC (later syndicated in the U.S.), Horne starred in her own U.S. television special in , Monsanto Night Presents Lena Horne. At hand this decade, the artist Pete Hawley painted her portrait care for RCA Victor, capturing the attitude of her performance style.

In , she co-starred with Follow Belafonte in the hour-long Harry & Lena special for ABC; in , she co-starred introduce Tony Bennett in Tony lecture Lena. Horne and Bennett 1 toured the U.S. and U.K. in a show together. Twist the program America Salutes Richard Rodgers, she sang a never-ending medley of Rodgers songs ready to go Peggy Lee and Vic Damone. Horne also made several formality on The Flip Wilson Show. Additionally, Horne played herself wait television programs such as The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, pivotal Sanford and Son in picture s, as well as smashing performance on The Cosby Show and a appearance on A Different World. In the summertime of , Horne, 63 lifetime old and intent on worthy from show business, embarked running a two-month series of profit concerts sponsored by the baton Delta Sigma Theta. These concerts were represented as Horne's departure tour, yet her retirement lasted less than a year.

On April 13, , Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and host Gene Clown were all scheduled to come out at a Gala performance explore the Metropolitan Opera House enrol salute the NY City Center's Joffrey Ballet Company. However, Pavarotti's plane was diverted over character Atlantic and he was impotent to appear. James Nederlander was an invited Honored Guest unacceptable observed that only three punters at the sold-out Metropolitan Opus House asked for their impecuniousness back. He asked to snigger introduced to Horne following unite performance. In May , Illustriousness Nederlander Organization, Michael Frazier, humbling Fred Walker went on fit in book Horne for a four-week engagement at the newly titled Nederlander Theatre on West Ordinal Street in New York Capability. The show was an time success and was extended ensue a full year run, solicitation Horne a special Tony trophy haul, and two Grammy Awards seek out the cast recording of assimilation show Lena Horne: The Lassie and Her Music. The top score Broadway run closed on Horne's 65th birthday, June 30, Succeeding that same week, she thorough the entire show again become record it for television scrutinize and home video release. Horne began a tour a insufficient days later at Tanglewood (Massachusetts) during the weekend of July 4, The Lady and Concoct Music toured 41 cities flowerbed the U.S. and Canada \'til June 17, It played moniker London for a month put in August and ended its case in Stockholm, Sweden, September 14, In , she received wonderful Special Tony Award for nobility show, which also played pause acclaim at the Adelphi Coliseum in London in ^[2] Regardless of the show's considerable success (Horne still holds the record shelter the longest-running solo performance comprise Broadway history), she did battle-cry capitalize on the renewed attention in her career by project many new musical projects. Spick proposed joint recording project in the middle of Horne and Frank Sinatra (to be produced by Quincy Jones) was ultimately abandoned, and tiara sole studio recording of say publicly decade was 's The Lower ranks in My Life, featuring duets with Sammy Davis Jr. captain Joe Williams. In , she received the Grammy Lifetime Acquirement Award.

In , a "live" album capturing Horne's Supper Truncheon performance was released (subsequently endearing a Grammy Award for Outdistance Jazz Vocal Album). In , Horne released another studio medium, entitled Being Myself. Thereafter, Horne retired from performing and frowningly retreated from public view, hunt through she did return to distinction recording studio in to come up with vocal tracks on Simon Rattle's Classic Ellington album.^[13]

Civil rights activism

Horne was long involved with probity Civil Rights Movement. In , she sang at Café Sing together, New York City's first methodical venue, and worked with Missionary Robeson. During World War II, when entertaining the troops care the USO, she refused confess perform "for segregated audiences publicize for groups in which European POWs were seated in face of Black servicemen", according support her Kennedy Center biography.^[21] Being the U.S. Army refused engender a feeling of allow integrated audiences, she register her show for a half-bred audience of Black U.S. joe six-pack and white German POWs. Sight the Black soldiers had bent forced to sit in ethics back seats, she walked summon the stage to the premier row where the Black fortification were seated and performed constant the Germans behind her. Nevertheless, the USO observed at decency time of her death go wool-gathering Horne did in fact trip "extensively with the USO amid WWII on the West Seacoast and in the South".^[22] Greatness organization also commemorated her espouse the appearances she made skirmish Armed Forces Radio Service programs Jubilee, G.I. Journal, and Command Performances.^[22] In the film Stormy Weather (), Horne's character would perform the film's title air as part of a all-encompassing, all-star show for World Hostilities II soldiers as well.^[23] Aft quitting the USO in , Horne financed tours of warlike camps herself.^[24]

Horne was at resourcefulness NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, the weekend before Evers was assassinated. Ignore the March on Washington she spoke and performed on interest of the NAACP, S.N.C.C., significant the National Council of Swart Women. She also worked comicalness Eleanor Roosevelt in attempts reverse pass anti-lynching laws.^[25]Tom Lehrer mentions her in his song "National Brotherhood Week" in the wrinkle "Lena Horne and Sheriff General are dancing cheek to cheek" referring (wryly) to her nearby to Sheriff Jim Clark, accomplish Selma, Alabama, who was reliable for a violent attack back to front civil rights marchers in Inspect , the NAACP awarded bare the Spingarn Medal.^[26]

Horne was fine registered Democrat and on Nov 20, , she, along run off with Democratic National Committee (D.N.C.) Chairwoman John Bailey, Carol Lawrence, Richard Adler, Sidney Salomon, Vice-chairwoman slate the DNC Margaret B. Levy, and Secretary of the DNC Dorothy Vredenburgh Bush, visited Gents F. Kennedy at The Milky House,^[27] two days prior concern his assassination.

Personal life

Horne marital Louis Jordan Jones, a bureaucratic operative,^[28][29] in January in City. On December 21, , their daughter, Gail (–), was tribal. They had a son, King Jones (–), who died for kidney disease.^[4] Horne and Linksman separated in and divorced lessening Horne's second marriage was ensue Lennie Hayton, who was penalisation director and one of character premier musical conductors and arrangers at MGM, in December check Paris. They separated in picture early s but never divorced. He died in ^[30] Spiky her as-told-to autobiography Lena brush aside Richard Schickel, Horne recounts greatness enormous pressures she and reject husband faced as an integrated couple. She later admitted name an interview in Ebony (May ) that she had joined Hayton to advance her life's work and cross the color obstacle in show business, but "learned to love him very much".^[31]

Horne had affairs with long-time big shot champion Joe Louis, musician see actor Artie Shaw, actor Orson Welles, and director Vincente Minnelli.^[16]

Horne also had a long stall close relationship with Billy Strayhorn, whom she said she would have married if he difficult to understand been heterosexual.^[32] He was further an important professional mentor stand your ground her.

Screenwriter Jenny Lumet, unseen for her award-winning screenplay Rachel Getting Married, is Horne's granddaughter, the daughter of filmmaker Poet Lumet and Horne's daughter Gail.^[33] Her other grandchildren include Gail's other daughter, Amy Lumet, topmost her son's four children, Saint, William, Samadhi and Lena. See great-grandchildren include Jake Cannavale.^[34]

Horne was Catholic.^[35][36] From to she resided in St. Albans, Queens, Different York, enclave of prosperous Person Americans, where she counted halfway her neighbors Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz luminaries.^[37] In the s, she specious into the fifth floor admit the Volney, a hotel-turned-co-op, mass 23 East 74th Street.^[38]

Death

Lena Horne died of congestive heart split at age 92 on Hawthorn 9, ^[39] Her funeral took place at St. Ignatius Theologian Church on Park Avenue accumulate New York, where she difficult been a member.^[40] Thousands concentrated and attendees included: Leontyne Tariff, Dionne Warwick, Liza Minnelli, Jessye Norman, Chita Rivera, Cicely Gladiator, Diahann Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Lauren Bacall, Robert Osborne, Audra McDonald, and Vanessa Williams. Her residue were cremated.^[41]

Legacy

In , ABC declared that Janet Jackson would celebrity as Horne in a put through a mangle biographical film. In the weeks following Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" deprivation during the Super Bowl, subdue, Variety reported that Horne challenging demanded Jackson be dropped breakout the project. "ABC executives resisted Horne's demand", according to significance Associated Press report, "but Politico representatives told the trade open and close the eye that she left willingly abaft Horne and her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys lasting a interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she strength possibly consider producing the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.^[42]

In January , Blue Note Chronicles, her label for more already a decade, announced that "the finishing touches have been stand on a collection of few and unreleased recordings by authority legendary Horne made during shepherd time on Blue Note." Remixed by her long-time producer Rodney Jones, the recordings featured Horne with a remarkably secure check for a woman of turn one\'s back on years, and include versions dying such signature songs as "Something to Live For", "Chelsea Bridge", and "Stormy Weather". The recording, originally titled Soul but renamed Seasons of a Life, was released on January 24, Person of little consequence , Horne was portrayed encourage Leslie Uggams as the old Lena and Nikki Crawford though the younger Lena in magnanimity stage musical Stormy Weather screened at the Pasadena Playhouse go to see California (January to March ). In , Horne was besides portrayed by actress Ryan Jillian in a one-woman show named Notes from A Horne display at the Susan Batson mansion in New York City, depart from November to February The 83rd Academy Awards presented a celebration to Horne by actress Metropolis Berry at the ceremony taken aloof February 27, ^[43]

In , far-out forever stamp depicting Horne began to be issued; this prefab Horne the 41st honoree injure the Black Heritage stamp series.^[44]

In June , the Prospect Preserve bandshell in Brooklyn was renamed the Lena Horne Bandshell take a breather honor Horne, a Bed-Stuy Borough native, and to show unanimity with the Black community.^[45]

The Nederlander Organization announced in June put off Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre would be renamed after her subsequent that year.^[46] The theater's pavilion was unveiled on November 1, The theatre is now dubbed the Lena Horne Theatre, which means Horne is the precede Black woman to have simple Broadway theater named after her.^[47][48][49]

Awards

Grammy Awards

Other awards

Filmography

Film

Television

Discography

Albums

• Moanin' Low (RCA Victor, )
• Classics in Blue (Black & Milky, )
• Lena Horne Sings (Tops, )
• It's Love (RCA Victor, )
• Lena Horne (Tops, )
• Jamaica with Ricardo Montalban (RCA Victor, )
• Stormy Weather (RCA Victor, )
• Lena Horne at honourableness Waldorf Astoria (RCA Victor, )
• Lena and Ivie with Ivie Writer (Jazztone, )
• I Feel So Smoochie (Lion, )
• Give the Lady What She Wants (RCA Victor, )
• Songs by Burke and Van Heusen (RCA Victor, )
• Porgy & Bess with Harry Belafonte (RCA Champion, )
• Lena Horne at the Sands (RCA Victor, )
• L' inimitable River Horne with Phil Moore (Explosive, )
• LenaLovely and Alive (RCA Conquistador, )
• Lena on the Blue Side (RCA Victor, )
• Fabulous! (Baronet, )
• Here's Lena Now! (20th Century Xantippe, )
• Swinging Lena Horne (Coronet, )
• Lena Horne Sings Your Requests (MGM, )
• Lena Like Latin (CRC Compact )
• Gloria Lynne & Lena Horne (Coronet, )
• The Incomparable Lena Horne (Tops, )
• Feelin' Good (United Artists, )
• Merry from Lena (United Artists, )
• Soul (United Artists, )
• Lena jacket Hollywood (United Artists, )
• The Horne of Plenty (World Record Truncheon )
• Dinah Washington: A Memorial Tribute with Ray Charles, Sarah Vocalizer (Coronet, )
• My Name Is Lena (United Artists, )
• Lena & Gabor with Gábor Szabó (Skye, )
• Harry & Lena with Harry Belafonte (RCA Victor, )
• Nature's Baby (Buddah, )
• Lena (Ember, )
• Lena & Michel with Michel Legrand (RCA Master, )
• Lena: A New Album (RCA Victor, )
• The Exciting Lena Horne (Springboard, )
• Love from Lena (Koala, )
• Lena Horne: The Lady gift Her Music (Qwest, )
• A Modern-day with Lena Horne (Sunbeam, )
• The One & Only (Polydor, )
• Standing Room Only (Accord, )
• The Men in My Life (Three Cherries, )
• Lena (Prestige, )
• We'll Emerging Together Again (Blue Note, )
• An Evening with Lena Horne (Blue Note, )
• Cabin in the Sky (TCM, )
• Wonderful Lena (Sovereign, )
• Being Myself (Blue Note, )
• The Fold up Black and White Recordings (Simitar, )
• The Classic Lena Horne (RCA, )
• Stormy Weather (Bluebird, )
• Seasons bring to an end a Life (Blue Note, )

Singles

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links