Lena Horne

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Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 - May 9, 2010) was an American singer, dancer, actor, and civil rights campaigner.

Horne's career spanned 70 years in film, television, and theater.

Horne joined the Cotton Club at the age of 16 and became a nightclub performer before heading to Hollywood. Horne, who returned to her roots as a nightclub performer in August 1963, performed as a performer and on television, as well as releasing well-received record albums.

She announced her resignation in March 1980, but Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, a one-woman performance, ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway next year.

She then toured the country in the show, winning numerous awards and accolades.

Horne continued recording and performing in the 1990s, gradually, after being barred from the public eye in 2000.

Horne died of congestive heart disease at the age of 92 on May 9, 2010.

Early life

Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Both her family members were African-American. At the time, she belonged to the well-educated, upper stratum of black New Yorkers. She is believed to have descended from the John C. Calhoun family, and Dr. Andrew Bonaparte Calhoun, his nephew, "owned the slaves whose descendents include..." Horne.

Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne Jr. (1893-1970), the hotel's owner and founder, and "his partner, gambler and philanthropist Gus Greenlee, who died in the Hill neighborhood, where Lena lived. Edna Louise Scottron, her mother, appeared in a black theatre company and travelled extensively. Amelie Louise Ashton, Edna's maternal grandmother, was from modern Senegal. Horne was mainly raised by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.

Horne was five years old when she was sent to live in Georgia. For many years, she and her mother travelled together. She lived with her uncle, Frank S. Horne, from 1927 to 1929. He was the Dean of students at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute (now part of Fort Valley State University), and later served as an advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Horne and her mother, from Fort Valley, southwest of Macon, briefly migrated to Atlanta; Horne and her mother then returned to New York at the age of 12, after which Horne attended St Peter Claver School in Brooklyn.

She attended Girls High School, an all-girls public high school in Brooklyn that has since become Boys and Girls High School; she left without receiving a diploma. She returned to her father's house in Pittsburgh at age 18, spending a decade in the city's Little Harlem and learning from Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others.

Personal life

In January 1937, Horne married Louis Jordan Jones, a political strategist, in Pittsburgh. Gail Buckley, a writer, was born on December 21, 1937. They had a son, Edwin Jones (February 7, 1940 – September 12, 1970), who died of kidney disease. Horne and Jones separated in 1940 and divorced in 1944. In December 1947 in Paris, Horne's second marriage was to Lennie Hayton, who was music director and one of the best musical conductors and arrangers at MGM. They separated in the early 1960s, but never divorced. He died in 1971. Horne's book Lena by Richard Schickel chronicles the traumatic pressures she and her husband endured as an interracial couple. In an interview in Ebony (May 1980), she revealed that she had married Hayton to advance her career and break the colour barrier in show business, but that she "loved him greatly."

Horne, a long-serving heavyweight champion, was involved with Artie Shaw, Orson Welles, as well as director Vincente Minnelli.

Horne had a long and close friendship with Billy Strayhorn, who, she said, would have married if he had been heterosexual. He was also a vital career mentor to her. Horne's granddaughter, the daughter of filmmaker Sidney Lumet and Horne's daughter Gail, is screenwriter Jenny Lumet, who is best known for her award-winning screenplay Rachel Getting Married. Thomas, William, Samadhi, and Lena are among Gail's four grandchildren's that include Gail's other daughter, Amy Lumet, and her son's four children. Jake Cannavale is one of her grandchildren's great-grandchildren.

Horne was Catholic. She lived in St. Albans, Queens, New York, enclave of wealthy African Americans, where she counted among her neighbors Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and other jazz luminaries from 1946 to 1962. She rose to the fifth floor of the Volney, a hotel-turned-coop, at 23 East 74th Street in the 1980s.

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Career

Horne appeared on the chorus line of the Cotton Club in New York City in the fall of 1933. She appeared in the Cotton Club Parade as Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing in 1934. Horne made her first screen appearance as a dancer in Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party (1935). Horne, a few years later, performed with Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with whom she toured and with whom she made her first recordings, was released by Decca. Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1940–41, but she disliked the travel and left the band to work at the Cafe Society in New York. Dinah Shore was promoted to star vocalist on NBC's hit jazz program The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, replaced by Dinah Shore. Henry Levine and Paul Laval, the show's resident maestros, toured Horne in June 1941 for RCA Victory. Horne left the show after only six months after being hired by former Cafe Trocadero (Los Angeles) boss Felix Young to appear in a Cotton Club-style revue on Hollywood's Sunset Strip.

Horne had two low-budget movies to her name: a dramatic film called The Duke of Tops (1938), later reissued with Horne's name above the title as The Bronze Venus), and a two-reel short film starring pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons (1941). Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later released as soundies. Horne made her Hollywood nightclub debut at Felix Young's Little Troc on the Sunset Strip in January 1942. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had her signed a few weeks later. She appeared in an episode of the famous radio show Suspense in November 1944 as a fictional nightclub performer with a major speaking presence as well as her singing. She appeared with Billy Eckstine's Orchestra in 1945 and 1946.

She made her Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer debut in Panama (1942) and performed Stormy Weather (1943) based loosely on the life of Adelaide Hall, a twentieth century Fox show. She appeared in several MGM musicals, including Cabin in the Sky (1943) with a majority African American cast. She was otherwise uninterested in a leading role due to her ethnicity and the fact that her films were not allowed to be re-edited for screening in cities where black actors were otherwise unheardant. As a result, the bulk of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone scenes that had no connection on the remainder of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline. One number from Cabin in the Sky was censored before publication because it was seen as too provocative by the censors: Horne's "Ain't It the Truth" while taking a bubble bath. In the film That's Entertainment, this scene and song are included. III (1994), which also included Horne's commentary on why the scene was deleted prior to the film's release. Lena Horne was the first African-American woman to serve on the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild.

In the documentary That's Entertainment!

Horne became dissatisfied with Hollywood and became more focused on her nightclub careers. During the 1950s, she made only two major appearances for MGM: Duchess of Idaho (1950, which was also Eleanor Powell's last film); and Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956). She said she was "tired of being stereotyped as a Negro who protests a pillar singing a song." I did it 20 times too often." During the 1950s, she was blacklisted for her involvement in communist-backed organisations in the 1940s. She would later abandon communism in favour of anti-Communism. Claire Quintana, a madam in a brothel that marries Richard Widmark (1969), her first dramatic role with no mention of her gender, returned to the screen in the film Death of a Gunfighter (1969). She appeared on film two more times as Glinda in The Wiz (1978), which was produced by her then son-in-law Sidney Lumet, as well as co-hosting the MGM retrospective That's Entertainment. In which she related her unkind treatment by the studio, she described it as III (1994).

Horne rose to prominence in the postwar era after leaving Hollywood. She appeared at clubs and hotels in the United States, Canada, and Europe, including the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. In 1957, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria was the first female artist to sell the RCA Victor label at that time. Horne was one of the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actor in a Musical" in 1958 (for her role in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica), which featured her longtime friend Adelaide Hall at Horne's request.

Horne appeared on TV variety shows from the late 1950s to the 1960s, appearing on Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, The Dean Martin Exhibition, and The Bell Telephone Hour. The Judy Garland Exhibition, The Hollywood Palace, and The Andy Williams Show were among the other programs she appeared on. Horne appeared in her own US television special in 1969, which was later syndicated in the United States. Pete Hawley painted her portrait for RCA Victor, capturing the artist's performance style during the decade.

In 1970, she co-starred with Harry Belafonte in ABC's hour-long Harry & Lena special; in 1973, she co-starred with Tony Bennett in Tony and Lena. Horne and Bennett appeared in a group tour of the United States and the United Kingdom later this year. Richard Rodgers, a 1976 film with Peggy Lee and Vic Damone, sang a long medley of Rodgers songs. Horne has also appeared on The Flip Wilson Show several times. Horne also appeared on television shows including The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Sanford and Son in the 1970s, as well as a 1985 appearance on A Different World. Horne, 63 years old and intending to retire from show business, embarked on a two-month series of benefit concerts sponsored by Sorority Delta Sigma Theta in the summer of 1980. These concerts were promoted as Horne's farewell tour, but her resignation lasted less than a year.

Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and host Gene Kelly were all set to attend a Gala performance at the Metropolitan Opera House on April 13, 1980 to celebrate the Joffrey Ballet Company of the New York City Center. However, Pavarotti's plane was diverted across the Atlantic, and he was unable to land. James Nederlander was a specially invited Honored Guest, but only three people at the sold-out Metropolitan Opera House asked for their money back. Following her success, he begged to be introduced to Horne. Michael Frazier, The Nederlander Company, and Fred Walker booked Horne for a four-week appearance at the newly named Nederlander Theatre on West 41st Street in New York City in May 1981. The show was a huge success and was extended to a full year, winning Horne a special Tony Award and two Grammy Awards for her performance Lena Horne: The Lady and her Music. Horne's 65th birthday, 1982, the 333-performance Broadway show came to a close. She filmed the entire show again for television broadcast and home video release later this week. Horne began a tour in Tanglewood (Massachusetts) the weekend after July 4, 1982. The Lady and Her Music appeared in 41 cities in the United States and Canada until June 17, 1984. It appeared in London for a month in August and then came to a close in Stockholm, Sweden, on September 14, 1984. In 1981, she received a Special Tony Award for the performance, which also appeared at the Adelphi Theatre in London. Despite the show's enduring popularity (Horne now holds the Broadway record for the longest-running solo performance in Broadway history), she did not capitalize on the renewed passion in her career by embarking on several new musical ventures. Horne and Frank Sinatra's 1983 joint recording project (to be produced by Quincy Jones) was eventually scrapped, but her sole studio recording of the decade was 1988's The Men in My Life, starring duets with Sammy Davis Jr. and Joe Williams. In 1989, she was named recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Horne's Supper Club appearance was captured on an album in 1995 (which later received the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album). Horne released Being Myself, a 1998 compilation of recordings. Horne retired from performing and largely retreated from public view, but she did return to the recording studio in 2000 to contribute vocal tracks on Simon Rattle's Classic Ellington album.

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