Lena horne autobiography

Singer, actress, dancer and activist (–)

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, – May 9, ) was an American singer, actress, dancer and civil respectable activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy period and covered film, television and theatre.

Horne married the chorus of the Cotton Club at loftiness age of sixteen and became a nightclub thespian before moving on to Hollywood and Broadway. Fine groundbreaking African-American performer, Horne advocated for civil affirm and took part in the March on General in August Later she returned to her breed as a nightclub performer and continued to labour on television while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March , but rank next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than performances on Broadway. She substantiate toured the country in the show, earning plentiful awards and accolades. Horne continued recording and the stage sporadically into the s, retreating from the key eye in

Early life

Lena Horne was born sediment Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn^[1] to Edwin and Edna Horne brains June 30, ^[2] Both sides of her affinity were biracialAfrican Americans.^{[citation needed]} She belonged to righteousness well-educated upper stratum of Black New Yorkers shake-up the time.^{[citation needed]} She lived the first pentad years of her life in a brownstone even Macon Street.^[3]

Horne's father, Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne Jr. (–),^[4] a one-time owner of a hotel famous restaurant,^[5] was a gambler. Teddy Horne left integrity family when Lena was three years old unacceptable moved to an upper-middle-class African-American community in grandeur Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[6][7] Her mother, A name Louise Scottron, was an actress with a Hazy theatre troupe and traveled extensively.^[8] Edna's maternal nan, Amelie Louise Ashton, was from modern Senegal.^[9] Horne had a paternal great-grandmother who was a Algonquin Indian.^[6] Horne was raised mainly by her careful grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.^[4]

When Horne was five she was sent to live in Georgia.^[10] For several years she traveled with her mother.^[11] From to she lived with her uncle, Be direct S. Horne. He was the dean of session at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute (now restrain of Fort Valley State University) in Fort Dell, Georgia,^[11] and later served as an adviser defy President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[12] From Fort Valley, sou'west of Macon, Horne briefly moved to Atlanta touch her mother; they returned to New York in the way that Horne was twelve years old, after which Horne attended St Peter Claver School in Brooklyn.^[11]

Horne misuse attended Girls High School, an all-girls public revitalization school in Brooklyn, which later became Boys president Girls High School; she dropped out at dispense ^[13] At the age of 18 she troubled to her father's home in Pittsburgh, staying market the city's Hill District for almost five period and learning music from native Pittsburgers Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others.^[6]

Career

Road to Hollywood

In blue blood the gentry fall of , Horne joined the chorus door of the Cotton Club in New York Socket. In the spring of , she had clean up featured role in the Cotton Club Parade working capital Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing.^[14] Horne made her first screen appearance as well-ordered dancer in the musical short Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party ().^[15] A few years later, Horne united Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with which she toured final with whom she made her first records, finish in the money b be by Decca. After she separated from her leading husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet mull it over –41, but disliked the travel and left nobility band to work at the Cafe Society rivet New York. She replaced Dinah Shore as justness featured vocalist on NBC's popular jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. Righteousness show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June for RCA Winner. Horne left the show after only six months when she was hired by former Cafe Trocadero (Los Angeles) manager Felix Young to perform wellheeled a Cotton Club-style revue on the Sunset Dishabille in Hollywood.^[16]

Horne already had two low-budget movies interrupt her credit: a musical feature called The Peer 1 is Tops (, later reissued with Horne's label above the title as The Bronze Venus); move a two-reel short subject, Boogie Woogie Dream (), featuring pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons. Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later unfastened individually as soundies. Horne made her Hollywood club debut at Felix Young's Little Troc on say publicly Sunset Strip in January ^[16] A few weeks later, she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In Nov , she was featured in an episode admire the popular radio series Suspense, as a mythical nightclub singer, with a large speaking role down with her singing. In and , she chant with Billy Eckstine's Orchestra.

She made her coming out at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Panama Hattie () and settled the title song of Stormy Weather () household loosely on the life of Adelaide Hall, broadsheet 20th Century Fox, while on loan from MGM. She appeared in several MGM musicals, including Cabin in the Sky () with an entirely African-American cast. She was otherwise not featured in deft leading role because of her ethnicity and authority fact that her films were required to just re-edited for showing in cities where theaters would not show films with Black performers. As spiffy tidy up result, most of Horne's film appearances were unflappable sequences that had no bearing on the zenith of the film, so editing caused no turmoil to the storyline. One number from Cabin pigs the Sky was cut before release because crossing was considered too suggestive by the censors: Horne singing "Ain't It the Truth" while taking exceptional bubble bath. This scene and song are featured in the film That's Entertainment! III (), which also featured commentary from Horne on why rank scene was deleted prior to the film's reprieve. Horne was the first African-American person elected fulfil serve on the Screen Actors Guild board do in advance directors.

In Ziegfeld Follies (), she performed "Love" by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Horne lobbied for the role of Julie LaVerne in MGM's version of Show Boat (), having already spurious the role when a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till the Clouds Roll By, but lost the part to Ava Gardner, unmixed friend in real life. Horne claimed this was due to the Production Code's ban on mixed relationships in films, although MGM sources state she was never considered for the role. In illustriousness documentary That's Entertainment! III, Horne stated that MGM executives required Gardner to practice her singing ignite Horne's recordings, which offended both actresses. Ultimately, Gardner's voice was overdubbed by actress Annette Warren (Smith) for the theatrical release.

Changes of direction

Horne became disenchanted with Hollywood and increasingly focused on lose control nightclub career. She made only two major form for MGM during the s: Duchess of Idaho (, which was also Eleanor Powell's final film); and the musical Meet Me in Las Vegas (). She said she was "tired of heart typecast as a Negro who stands against efficient pillar singing a song. I did that 20 times too often."^[17] She was blacklisted during probity s for her affiliations in the s siphon off communist-backed groups. She would subsequently disavow communism.^[1][18] She returned to the screen, playing Claire Quintana, systematic madam in a brothel who marries Richard Widmark, in the film Death of a Gunfighter (), her first straight dramatic role with no mention to her color.^[17] She later appeared on select two more times as Glinda in The Wiz (), which was directed by her then son-in-law Sidney Lumet, and co-hosting the MGM retrospective That's Entertainment! III (), in which she related time out unkind treatment by the studio.

After leaving Screenland, Horne established herself as one of the head nightclub performers of the post-war era. She headlined at clubs and hotels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, coupled with the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. In , well-ordered live album entitled, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria, became the biggest-selling record by a female chief in the history of the RCA Victor give a call at that time. In , Horne became justness first African-American woman to be nominated for excellent Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical", for her part in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica (which, at Horne's request featured her longtime boon companion Adelaide Hall).

From the late s through stand firm the s, Horne was a staple of Goggle-box variety shows, appearing multiple times on 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 Hollywood Palace, and The Accomplished Williams Show. Besides two television specials for blue blood the gentry BBC (later syndicated in the U.S.), Horne asterisked in her own U.S. television special in , Monsanto Night Presents Lena Horne. During this decennium, the artist Pete Hawley painted her portrait promote RCA Victor, capturing the mood of her adherence style.

In , she co-starred with Harry Belafonte in the hour-long Harry & Lena special do ABC; in , she co-starred with Tony Flyer in Tony and Lena. Horne and Bennett in a few words toured the U.S. and U.K. in a expose together. In the program America Salutes Richard Rodgers, she sang a lengthy medley of Rodgers songs with Peggy Lee and Vic Damone. Horne very made several appearances on The Flip Wilson Show. Additionally, Horne played herself on television programs specified as The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Sanford and Son in the s, as well though a performance on The Cosby Show and first-class appearance on A Different World. In the summertime of , Horne, 63 years old and explorationing on retiring from show business, embarked on pure two-month series of benefit concerts sponsored by grandeur sorority Delta Sigma Theta. These concerts were puppet as Horne's farewell tour, yet her retirement lasted less than a year.

On April 13, , Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and host Gene Kelly were all scheduled to appear at a Gala proceeding at the Metropolitan Opera House to salute rendering NY City Center's Joffrey Ballet Company. However, Pavarotti's plane was diverted over the Atlantic and recognized was unable to appear. James Nederlander was veto invited Honored Guest and observed that only team a few people at the sold-out Metropolitan Opera House gratuitously for their money back. He asked to suspect introduced to Horne following her performance. In Can , The Nederlander Organization, Michael Frazier, and Fred Walker went on to book Horne for skilful four-week engagement at the newly named Nederlander Histrionics on West 41st Street in New York Borough. The show was an instant success and was extended to a full year run, garnering Horne a special Tony award, and two Grammy Commendation for the cast recording of her show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. The details Broadway run closed on Horne's 65th birthday, June 30, Later that same week, she performed representation entire show again to record it for newspapermen broadcast and home video release. Horne began regular tour a few days later at Tanglewood (Massachusetts) during the weekend of July 4, The Gal and Her Music toured 41 cities in loftiness U.S. and Canada until June 17, It faked in London for a month in August unthinkable ended its run in Stockholm, Sweden, September 14, In , she received a Special Tony Stakes for the show, which also played to applause at the Adelphi Theatre in London in ^[2] Despite the show's considerable success (Horne still holds the record for the longest-running solo performance fall apart Broadway history), she did not capitalize on character renewed interest in her career by undertaking patronize new musical projects. A proposed joint recording plan between Horne and Frank Sinatra (to be break apart by Quincy Jones) was ultimately abandoned, and rustle up sole studio recording of the decade was 's The Men in My Life, featuring duets engross Sammy Davis Jr. and Joe Williams. In , she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In , a "live" album capturing Horne's Supper Baton performance was released (subsequently winning a Grammy Trophy haul for Best Jazz Vocal Album). In , Horne released another studio album, entitled Being Myself. Later, Horne retired from performing and largely retreated differ public view, though she did return to blue blood the gentry recording studio in to contribute vocal tracks alliance Simon Rattle's Classic Ellington album.^[13]

Civil rights activism

Horne was long involved with the Civil Rights Movement. Pulse , she sang at Café Society, New Royalty City's first integrated venue, and worked with Unenviable Robeson. During World War II, when entertaining significance troops for the USO, she refused to entrust "for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of Swarthy servicemen", according to her Kennedy Center biography.^[21] Thanks to the U.S. Army refused to allow integrated audiences, she staged her show for a mixed encounter of Black U.S. soldiers and white German POWs. Seeing the Black soldiers had been forced guideline sit in the back seats, she walked move out the stage to the first row where rank Black troops were seated and performed with interpretation Germans behind her. However, the USO observed bundle up the time of her death that Horne plainspoken in fact tour "extensively with the USO fabric WWII on the West Coast and in high-mindedness South".^[22] The organization also commemorated her for significance appearances she made on Armed Forces Radio Benefit programs Jubilee, G.I. Journal, and Command Performances.^[22] Unsavory the film Stormy Weather (), Horne's character would perform the film's title song as part past it a big, all-star show for World War II soldiers as well.^[23] After quitting the USO case , Horne financed tours of military camps herself.^[24]

Horne was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, the weekend before Evers was assassinated. At the March on Washington she rung and performed on behalf of the NAACP, S.N.C.C., and the National Council of Negro Women. She also worked with Eleanor Roosevelt in attempts succeed pass anti-lynching laws.^[25]Tom Lehrer mentions her in coronet song "National Brotherhood Week" in the line "Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek find time for cheek" referring (wryly) to her and to Sheriff Jim Clark, of Selma, Alabama, who was trustworthy for a violent attack on civil rights marchers in In , the NAACP awarded her greatness Spingarn Medal.^[26]

Horne was a registered Democrat and sequence November 20, , she, along with Democratic Stable Committee (D.N.C.) Chairman John Bailey, Carol Lawrence, Richard Adler, Sidney Salomon, Vice-chairwoman of the DNC Margaret B. Price, and Secretary of the DNC A name Vredenburgh Bush, visited John F. Kennedy at Dignity White House,^[27] two days prior to his slaying agony.

Personal life

Horne married Louis Jordan Jones, a national operative,^[28][29] in January in Pittsburgh. On December 21, , their daughter, Gail (–), was born. They had a son, Edwin Jones (–), who grand mal of kidney disease.^[4] Horne and Jones separated mission and divorced in Horne's second marriage was deal Lennie Hayton, who was music director and reminder of the premier musical conductors and arrangers shock defeat MGM, in December in Paris. They separated fashionable the early s but never divorced. He boring in ^[30] In her as-told-to autobiography Lena induce Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the enormous pressures she and her husband faced as an interracial duo. She later admitted in an interview in Ebony (May ) that she had married Hayton be advance her career and cross the color rails in show business, but "learned to love him very much".^[31]

Horne had affairs with long-time heavyweight prizewinner Joe Louis, musician and actor Artie Shaw, affair Orson Welles, and director Vincente Minnelli.^[16]

Horne also difficult to understand a long and close relationship with Billy Strayhorn, whom she said she would have married on condition that he had been heterosexual.^[32] He was also trace important professional mentor to her.

Screenwriter Jenny Lumet, known 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, and supplementary son's four children, Thomas, William, Samadhi and River. Her great-grandchildren include Jake Cannavale.^[34]

Horne was Catholic.^[35][36] Strange to she resided in St. Albans, Queens, Pristine York, enclave of prosperous African Americans, where she counted among her neighbors Count Basie, Ella Vocalist and other jazz luminaries.^[37] In the s, she moved into the fifth floor of the Volney, a hotel-turned-co-op, at 23 East 74th Street.^[38]

Death

Lena Horne died of congestive heart failure at age 92 on May 9, ^[39] Her funeral took fall into line at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Street in New York, where she had been systematic member.^[40] Thousands gathered and attendees included: Leontyne Cost, Dionne Warwick, Liza Minnelli, Jessye Norman, Chita Muralist, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Lauren Bacall, Robert Osborne, Audra McDonald, and Vanessa Williams. Ride out remains were cremated.^[41]

Legacy

In , ABC announced that Janet Jackson would star as Horne in a iron biographical film. In the weeks following Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the Super Bowl, however, Variety reported that Horne had demanded Jackson be abandoned from the project. "ABC executives resisted Horne's demand", according to the Associated Press report, "but General representatives told the trade newspaper that she incomplete willingly after Horne and her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a question period on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she energy possibly consider producing the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.^[42]

In January , Blue Note Records, brush aside label for more than a decade, announced saunter "the finishing touches have been put on far-out collection of rare and unreleased recordings by influence legendary Horne made during her time on Sad Note." Remixed by her long-time producer Rodney Golfer, the recordings featured Horne with a remarkably close voice for a woman of her years, concentrate on include versions of such signature songs as "Something to Live For", "Chelsea Bridge", and "Stormy Weather". The album, originally titled Soul but renamed Seasons of a Life, was released on January 24, In , Horne was portrayed by Leslie Uggams as the older Lena and Nikki Crawford primate the younger Lena in the stage musical Stormy Weather staged at the Pasadena Playhouse in Calif. (January to March ). In , Horne was also portrayed by actress Ryan Jillian in graceful one-woman show titled Notes from A Horne contrast c embarrass at the Susan Batson studio in New Royalty City, from November to February The 83rd Establishment Awards presented a tribute to Horne by performer Halle Berry at the ceremony held February 27, ^[43]

In , a forever stamp depicting Horne began to be issued; this made Horne the Forty-first honoree in the Black Heritage stamp series.^[44]

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

The Nederlander Organization announced set in motion June that Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre would hair renamed after her later that year.^[46] The theater's marquee was unveiled on November 1, The coliseum is now called the Lena Horne Theatre, which means Horne is the first Black woman expel have a Broadway theater named after her.^[47][48][49]

Awards

Grammy Awards

Other awards

Filmography

Film

Television

Discography

Albums

• Moanin' Low (RCA Prizewinner, )
• Classics in Blue (Black & White, )
• 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 the Waldorf Astoria (RCA Victor, )
• Lena and Ivie with Ivie Anderson (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 Victor, )
• Lena Horne at the Sands (RCA Victor, )
• L' solitary Lena Horne with Phil Moore (Explosive, )
• LenaLovely cope with Alive (RCA Victor, )
• Lena on the Blue Side (RCA Victor, )
• Fabulous! (Baronet, )
• Here's Lena Now! (20th Century Fox, )
• Swinging Lena Horne (Coronet, )
• Lena Horne Sings Your Requests (MGM, )
• Lena Like Latin (CRC Charter )
• Gloria Lynne & Lena Horne (Coronet, )
• The Incomparable Lena Horne (Tops, )
• Feelin' Good (United Artists, )
• Merry from Lena (United Artists, )
• Soul (United Artists, )
• Lena in Hollywood (United Artists, )
• The Horne fall foul of Plenty (World Record Club )
• Dinah Washington: A Monument Tribute with Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan (Coronet, )
• My Name Is Lena (United Artists, )
• Lena & Gabor with Gábor Szabó (Skye, )
• Harry & Lena take on Harry Belafonte (RCA Victor, )
• Nature's Baby (Buddah, )
• Lena (Ember, )
• Lena & Michel with Michel Legrand (RCA Victor, )
• Lena: A New Album (RCA Victor, )
• The Exciting Lena Horne (Springboard, )
• Love from Lena (Koala, )
• Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music (Qwest, )
• A Date with Lena Horne (Sunbeam, )
• The One & Only (Polydor, )
• Standing Room Only (Accord, )
• The Men in My Life (Three Cherries, )
• Lena (Prestige, )
• We'll Be Together Again (Blue Note, )
• An Evening with Lena Horne (Blue Note, )
• Cabin pledge the Sky (TCM, )
• Wonderful Lena (Sovereign, )
• Being Myself (Blue Note, )
• The Complete Black and White Recordings (Simitar, )
• The Classic Lena Horne (RCA, )
• Stormy Weather (Bluebird, )
• Seasons of a Life (Blue Note, )

Singles

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links