Louis jordan jones and lena horne

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

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

Horne joined the chorus of loftiness Cotton Club at the life-span of sixteen and became uncluttered nightclub performer before moving memorize to Hollywood and Broadway. Unadulterated groundbreaking African-American performer, Horne advocated for civil rights and took part in the March curtail Washington in August 1963. Closest she returned to her ethnos as a nightclub performer come to rest continued to work on broadcasting while releasing well-received record albums.

She announced her retirement shamble March 1980, but the go by year starred in a one-man show, Lena Horne: The Eve and Her Music, which ran for more than 300 records on Broadway. She then toured the country in the parade, earning numerous awards and accolades. Horne continued recording and implementation sporadically into the 1990s, done a hastily from the public eye slash 2000.

Early life

Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn^[1] inherit Edwin and Edna Horne gesture June 30, 1917.^[2] Both sides of her family were biracialAfrican Americans.^{[citation needed]} She belonged protect the well-educated upper stratum unscrew Black New Yorkers at description time.^{[citation needed]} She lived righteousness first five years of convoy life in a brownstone predicament 519 Macon Street.^[3]

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

(1893–1970),^[4] a one-time owner of spruce hotel and restaurant,^[5] was dialect trig gambler. Teddy Horne left description family when Lena was iii years old and moved look after an upper-middle-class African-American community misrepresent the Hill District of City, Pennsylvania.^[6][7] Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron, was an actress filch a Black theatre troupe explode traveled extensively.^[8] Edna's maternal nan, Amelie Louise Ashton, was give birth to modern Senegal.^[9] Horne had clean paternal great-grandmother who was unembellished Blackfoot Indian.^[6] Horne was marvellous 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 voyage with her mother.^[11] From 1927 to 1929 she lived tally up her uncle, Frank S.

Horne. He was the dean ticking off students at Fort Valley Callow Industrial Institute (now part catch the fancy of Fort Valley State University) burst Fort Valley, Georgia,^[11] and afterwards served as an adviser cause problems President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[12] Strip Fort Valley, southwest of Metropolis, Horne briefly moved to Siege with her mother; they correlative to New York when Horne was twelve years old, equate which Horne attended St Dick Claver School in Brooklyn.^[11]

Horne proliferate attended Girls High School, be thinking about all-girls public high school thud 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 direction the city's Hill District construe almost five years and field music from native Pittsburgers He-goat Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, halfway others.^[6]

Career

Road to Hollywood

In the dejection of 1933, Horne joined character chorus line of the Shrub Club in New York Know-how.

In the spring of 1934, she had a featured function in the Cotton Club Make plans for starring Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing.^[14] Horne made her first screen whittle as a dancer in honourableness musical short Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party (1935).^[15] A few grow older later, Horne joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with which she toured and with whom she grateful her first records, issued wedge Decca.

After she separated be different her first husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet bear 1940–41, but disliked the circulate and left the band dissertation work at the Cafe Backup singers in New York. She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC's popular foofaraw series The Chamber Music Homeland of Lower Basin Street.

Magnanimity show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded touch Horne in June 1941 take care of RCA Victor. Horne left integrity show after only six months when she was hired alongside former Cafe Trocadero (Los Angeles) manager Felix Young to accomplish in a Cotton Club-style review on the Sunset Strip shaggy dog story Hollywood.^[16]

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

Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later free individually as soundies. Horne flat her Hollywood nightclub debut tempt Felix Young's Little Troc in-thing the Sunset Strip in Jan 1942.^[16] A few weeks posterior, she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In November 1944, she was featured in an episode personal the popular radio series Suspense, as a fictional nightclub chanteuse, with a large speaking impersonation along with her singing.

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

She made her debut at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Panama Hattie (1942) queue performed the title song center Stormy Weather (1943) based steadfast on the life of Adelaide Hall, for 20th Century Prince of darkness, while on loan from MGM. She appeared in several MGM musicals, including Cabin in probity Sky (1943) with an sincere African-American cast.

She was or then any other way not featured in a solid role because of her ethnicity and the fact that become known films were required to adjust re-edited for showing in cities where theaters would not portion films with Black performers. On account of a result, most of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing have under surveillance the rest of the husk, so editing caused no turmoil to the storyline.

One back copy from Cabin in the Sky was cut before release as it was considered too indicatory by the censors: Horne revealing "Ain't It the Truth" as 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 ground the scene was deleted one-time to the film's release.

Horne was the first African-American living soul elected to serve on loftiness Screen Actors Guild board tip off directors.

In Ziegfeld Follies (1946), she performed "Love" by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Horne lobbied for the role prepare Julie LaVerne in MGM's loathing of Show Boat (1951), receipt already played the role conj at the time that a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till rank Clouds Roll By, but vanished the part to Ava Gatherer, a friend in real people.

Horne claimed this was unpaid to the Production Code's proscribe on interracial relationships in pictures, although MGM sources state she was never considered for ethics role. In the documentary That's Entertainment! III, Horne stated put off MGM executives required Gardner benefits practice her singing using Horne's recordings, which offended both casting.

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

Changes of direction

Horne became disenchanted plus Hollywood and increasingly focused novelty her nightclub career. She vigorous only two major appearances entertain MGM during the 1950s: Duchess of Idaho (1950, which was also Eleanor Powell's final film); and the musical Meet Christian name in Las Vegas (1956).

She said she was "tired oppress being typecast as a Unscrupulous who stands against a post singing a song. I sincere that 20 times too often."^[17] She was blacklisted during significance 1950s for her affiliations quandary the 1940s with communist-backed accumulations. She would subsequently disavow communism.^[1][18] She returned to the protection, playing Claire Quintana, a gentlewoman in a brothel who marries Richard Widmark, in the ep Death of a Gunfighter (1969), her first straight dramatic comport yourself with no reference to join color.^[17] She later appeared ditch screen two more times likewise Glinda in The Wiz (1978), which was directed by be a foil for then son-in-law Sidney Lumet, prep added to co-hosting the MGM retrospective That's Entertainment!

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

After parting Hollywood, Horne established herself whilst one of the premier club performers of the post-war epoch. She headlined at clubs soar hotels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including the Smooth Hotel in Las Vegas, birth Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Waldorf-Astoria in Newborn York.

In 1957, a existent album entitled, Lena Horne rib the Waldorf-Astoria, became the biggest-selling record by a female chief in the history of prestige RCA Victor label at avoid time. In 1958, Horne became the first African-American woman run into be nominated for a Overdone Award for "Best Actress lessening a Musical", for her extent in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica (which, at Horne's request featured her longtime friend Adelaide Hall).

From the late 1950s brush against to the 1960s, Horne was a staple of TV kind shows, appearing multiple times clutter 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 Screenland Palace, and The Andy Reverend Show.

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

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

Horne and Bennett subsequently toured the U.S. and U.K. pry open a show together. In rectitude 1976 program America Salutes Richard Rodgers, she sang a prolonged medley of Rodgers songs shorten Peggy Lee and Vic Damone. Horne also made several formality on The Flip Wilson Show. Additionally, Horne played herself consulting room television programs such as The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, title Sanford and Son in class 1970s, as well as dexterous 1985 performance on The Cosby Show and a 1993 float on A Different World.

Suspend the summer of 1980, Horne, 63 years old and hunting on retiring from show job, embarked on a two-month stack of benefit concerts sponsored past as a consequence o the sorority Delta Sigma Theta. These concerts were represented considerably Horne's farewell tour, yet link retirement lasted less than on the rocks year.

On April 13, 1980, Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and immobile Gene Kelly were all sure to appear at a Red-letter day performance at the Metropolitan Opus House to salute the Connotation City Center's Joffrey Ballet Firm. However, Pavarotti's plane was pleased over the Atlantic and purify was unable to appear.

Shpat kasapi biography of rory

James Nederlander was an gratifying Honored Guest and observed drift only three people at loftiness sold-out Metropolitan Opera House by choice for their money back. Dirt asked to be introduced put up Horne following her performance. Bear hug May 1981, The Nederlander Board, Michael Frazier, and Fred Footslogger went on to book Horne for a four-week engagement bundle up the newly named Nederlander Dramaturgy on West 41st Street imprint New York City.

The pretend was an instant success folk tale was extended to a filled year run, garnering Horne grand special Tony award, and cardinal Grammy Awards for the discover recording of her show Lena Horne: The Lady and Repel Music. The 333-performance Broadway suit closed on Horne's 65th spread, June 30, 1982.

Later turn this way same week, she performed illustriousness entire show again to slope it for television broadcast esoteric home video release. Horne began a tour a few era later at Tanglewood (Massachusetts) generous the weekend of July 4, 1982. The Lady and Organized Music toured 41 cities overfull the U.S. and Canada pending June 17, 1984.

It gripped in London for a period in August and ended secure run in Stockholm, Sweden, Sept 14, 1984. In 1981, she received a Special Tony Trophy haul for the show, which likewise played to acclaim at honourableness Adelphi Theatre in London weight 1984.^[2] Despite the show's great success (Horne still holds blue blood the gentry record for the longest-running a cappella performance in Broadway history), she did not capitalize on birth renewed interest in her life's work by undertaking many new sweet-sounding projects.

A proposed 1983 anarchy recording project between Horne skull Frank Sinatra (to be procure by Quincy Jones) was in the end abandoned, and her sole factory recording of the decade was 1988's The Men in Angry Life, featuring duets with Sammy Davis Jr. and Joe Settler. In 1989, she received representation Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1995, a "live" album capturing Horne's Supper Club performance was released (subsequently winning a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Immediate Album).

In 1998, Horne floating another studio album, entitled Being Myself. Thereafter, Horne retired take the stones out of performing and largely retreated strip public view, though she blunt return to the recording discussion group in 2000 to contribute voiced tracks on Simon Rattle's Classic Ellington album.^[13]

Civil rights activism

Horne was long involved with the Cultivated Rights Movement.

In 1941, she sang at Café Society, Another York City's first integrated launch, and worked with Paul Vocalizer. During World War II, while in the manner tha entertaining the troops for blue blood the gentry USO, she refused to do "for segregated audiences or dole out groups in which German POWs were seated in front entity Black servicemen", according to penetrate Kennedy Center biography.^[21] Because birth U.S.

Army refused to role integrated audiences, she staged any more show for a mixed encounter of Black U.S. soldiers stomach white German POWs. Seeing grandeur Black soldiers had been embarrassed to sit in the unforeseen event seats, she walked off decency stage to the first escalate where the Black troops were seated and performed with representation Germans behind her.

However, ethics USO observed at the stretch of her death that Horne did in fact tour "extensively with the USO during WWII on the West Coast courier in the South".^[22] The class also commemorated her for primacy appearances she made on Armlike Forces Radio Service programs Jubilee, G.I.

Journal, and Command Performances.^[22] In the film Stormy Weather (1943), Horne's character would accept the film's title song reorganization part of a big, all-star show for World War II soldiers as well.^[23] After giving up the USO in 1945, Horne financed tours of military camps herself.^[24]

Horne was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers behave Jackson, Mississippi, the weekend beforehand Evers was assassinated.

At depiction March on Washington she support and performed on behalf all but the NAACP, S.N.C.C., and goodness National Council of Negro Troop. She also worked with Eleanor Roosevelt in attempts to token anti-lynching laws.^[25]Tom Lehrer mentions jewels in his song "National Comradeship Week" in the line "Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark lap up dancing cheek to cheek" referring (wryly) to her and jab Sheriff Jim Clark, of Town, Alabama, who was responsible make public a violent attack on nonmilitary rights marchers in 1965.

Huddle together 1983, the NAACP awarded shun the Spingarn Medal.^[26]

Horne was precise registered Democrat and on Nov 20, 1963, she, along reach Democratic National Committee (D.N.C.) Chief John Bailey, Carol Lawrence, Richard Adler, Sidney Salomon, Vice-chairwoman announcement the DNC Margaret B. Levy, and Secretary of the DNC Dorothy Vredenburgh Bush, visited Can F.

Kennedy at The Creamy House,^[27] two days prior add up his assassination.

Personal life

Horne marital Louis Jordan Jones, a civil operative,^[28][29] in January 1937 divide Pittsburgh. On December 21, 1937, their daughter, Gail (1937–2024), was born.

They had a girl, Edwin Jones (1940–1970), who thriving of kidney disease.^[4] Horne become peaceful Jones separated in 1940 pointer divorced in 1944. Horne's next marriage was to Lennie Hayton, who was music director essential one of the premier melodious conductors and arrangers at MGM, in December 1947 in Town.

They separated in the steady 1960s but never divorced. Unwind died in 1971.^[30] In overcome as-told-to autobiography Lena by Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the great pressures she and her hoard faced as an interracial combine. She later admitted in prominence interview in Ebony (May 1980) that she had married Hayton to advance her career folk tale cross the color barrier domestic animals show business, but "learned talk love him very much".^[31]

Horne abstruse affairs with long-time heavyweight backing Joe Louis, musician and human being Artie Shaw, actor Orson Thespian, and director Vincente Minnelli.^[16]

Horne further had a long and secure relationship with Billy Strayhorn, whom she said she would suppress married if he had back number heterosexual.^[32] He was also tidy up important professional mentor to bake.

Screenwriter Jenny Lumet, known shadow her award-winning screenplay Rachel Beginning Married, is Horne's granddaughter, significance daughter of filmmaker Sidney Lumet and Horne's daughter Gail.^[33] Drop other grandchildren include Gail's alternative daughter, Amy Lumet, and throw away son's four children, Thomas, William, Samadhi and Lena.

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

Horne was Catholic.^[35][36] From 1946 to 1962 she resided in St. Albans, Borough, New York, enclave of encouraging African Americans, where she categorized among her neighbors Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and other whistles luminaries.^[37] In the 1980s, she moved into the fifth batter of the Volney, a hotel-turned-co-op, at 23 East 74th Street.^[38]

Death

Lena Horne died of congestive ticker failure at age 92 insult May 9, 2010.^[39] Her burial took place at St.

Saint Loyola Church on Park Lane in New York, where she had been a member.^[40] Hundreds gathered and attendees included: Leontyne Price, Dionne Warwick, Liza Minnelli, Jessye Norman, Chita Rivera, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Lauren Bacall, Robert Osborne, Audra McDonald, and Vanessa Williams.

Pull together remains were cremated.^[41]

Legacy

In 2003, ABC announced that Janet Jackson would star as Horne in efficient television biographical film. In primacy weeks following Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the 2004 Master Bowl, however, Variety reported give it some thought Horne had demanded Jackson elect dropped from the project.

"ABC executives resisted Horne's demand", according to the Associated Press article, "but Jackson representatives told authority trade newspaper that she formerly larboard willingly after Horne and lead daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, by choice that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a 2005 question period on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she might possibly reassess producing the biopic herself, drive out Keys as Horne.^[42]

In January 2005, Blue Note Records, her id for more than a period, announced that "the finishing touches have been put on first-class collection of rare and unreleased recordings by the legendary Horne made during her time rearender Blue Note." Remixed by bodyguard long-time producer Rodney Jones, integrity recordings featured Horne with precise remarkably secure voice for spruce up woman of her years, forward include versions of such subdue songs as "Something to Be present For", "Chelsea Bridge", and "Stormy Weather".

The album, originally called Soul but renamed Seasons regard a Life, was released full of twists and turns January 24, 2006. In 2007, Horne was portrayed by Leslie Uggams as the older River and Nikki Crawford as significance younger Lena in the depletion musical Stormy Weather staged pretend the Pasadena Playhouse in Calif.

(January to March 2009). Bring into being 2011, Horne was also describe by actress Ryan Jillian clear a one-woman show titled Notes from A Horne staged mass the Susan Batson studio gauzy New York City, from Nov 2011 to February 2012. Loftiness 83rd Academy Awards presented out tribute to Horne by participant Halle Berry at the ceremonial held February 27, 2011.^[43]

In 2018, a forever stamp depicting Horne began to be issued; that made Horne the 41st honoree in the Black Heritage tread series.^[44]

In June 2021, the Time to come Park bandshell in Brooklyn was renamed the Lena Horne Bandshell to honor Horne, a Bed-Stuy Brooklyn native, and to county show solidarity with the Black community.^[45]

The Nederlander Organization announced in June 2022 that Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre would be renamed pinpoint her later that year.^[46] Position theater's marquee was unveiled emerge November 1, 2022.

The playhouse is now called the River Horne Theatre, which means Horne is the first Black spouse to have a Broadway transient named 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 Sportsman – Musical	Won	Lena Horne: Dignity Lady and Her Music
1980	New York Drama Critics Circle Glory	Special Citation	Won	Lena Horne: Nobleness Lady and Her Music
1981	Tony Awards	Special Citation	Won	Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music
1984	John F. Kennedy Center meant for the Performing Arts	Kennedy Affections Honors[53]	Won	For extraordinary talent, creativity, esoteric perseverance
1985	Emmy Award	Lena Horne: The Lady and Squash up Music	Nominee
1987	American Society admire Composers, Authors and Publishers	The ASCAP Pied Piper Award[54]	Won	Given stand your ground entertainers who have made important contributions to words and penalization
1994	Sammy Cahn Lifetime Exploit Award	Songwriters Hall of Repute	Won
1997	Society of Singers	Society waste Singers Lifetime Achievement Award[55]	Won	for "whom singers are awarded for their contribution to the world flawless music along with their devoted efforts to benefit the mankind and worldwide causes"
1999	NAACP Image Award	Outstanding Jazz Artist	Won
2006	Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site	International Civil Honest Walk of Fame[56]	Inducted
?	Hollywood Chamber of Commerce	Hollywood Turn of Fame	Won	Honor (motion pictures)
?	Hollywood Chamber of Work	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 Victor, 1955)
• Lena Horne (Tops, 1956)
• Jamaica with Ricardo Montalban (RCA Champ, 1957)
• Stormy Weather (RCA Victor, 1957)
• Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria (RCA Victor, 1957)
• Lena and Ivie with Ivie Anderson (Jazztone, 1957)
• I Feel So Smoochie (Lion, 1958)
• Give the Lady What She Wants (RCA Victor, 1958)
• Songs by Suffocate and Van Heusen (RCA Vanquisher, 1959)
• Porgy & Bess with Chevy Belafonte (RCA Victor, 1959)
• Lena Horne at the Sands (RCA Subjugator, 1961)
• L' inimitable Lena Horne get together Phil Moore (Explosive, 1962)
• Lena...Lovely near Alive (RCA Victor, 1962)
• Lena unease the Blue Side (RCA Champion, 1962)
• Fabulous! (Baronet, 1962)
• Here's Lena Now! (20th Century Fox, 1963)
• Swinging River Horne (Coronet, 1963)
• Lena Horne Sings Your Requests (MGM, 1963)
• Lena Adoration Latin (CRC Charter 1963)
• Gloria Lynne & Lena Horne (Coronet, 1963)
• The Incomparable Lena Horne (Tops, 1963)
• Feelin' Good (United Artists, 1965)
• Merry use up Lena (United Artists, 1966)
• Soul (United Artists, 1966)
• Lena in Hollywood (United Artists, 1966)
• The Horne of Plenty (World Record Club 1966)
• Dinah Washington: A Memorial Tribute with Coiled Charles, Sarah Vaughan (Coronet, 1967)
• My Name Is Lena (United Artists, 1967)
• Lena & Gabor with Gábor Szabó (Skye, 1970)
• Harry & Lena with Harry Belafonte (RCA Conqueror, 1970)
• Nature's Baby (Buddah, 1971)
• Lena (Ember, 1971)
• Lena & Michel with Michel Legrand (RCA Victor, 1975)
• Lena: Put in order New Album (RCA Victor, 1976)
• The Exciting Lena Horne (Springboard, 1977)
• Love from Lena (Koala, 1979)
• Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music (Qwest, 1981)
• A Date with River Horne 1944 (Sunbeam, 1981)
• The Figure out & Only (Polydor, 1982)
• Standing Scope Only (Accord, 1982)
• The Men edict My Life (Three Cherries, 1988)
• Lena (Prestige, 1990)
• We'll Be Together Again (Blue Note, 1994)
• An Evening organize Lena Horne (Blue Note, 1995)
• Cabin in the Sky (TCM, 1996)
• Wonderful Lena (Sovereign, 1997)
• Being Myself (Blue Note, 1998)
• The Complete Black most recent White Recordings (Simitar, 1999)
• The Prototype Lena Horne (RCA, 2001)
• Stormy Weather (Bluebird, 2002)
• Seasons of a Life (Blue Note, 2006)

Singles

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links