Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American dancer, actress, Grammy-winning singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned over 70 years, appearing in film, television, and theater. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of 16 and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood.
Horne advocated for human rights and took part in the March on Washington in August 1963. Later she returned to her roots as a nightclub performer and continued to work on television, while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than 300 performances on Broadway. She then toured the country in the show, earning numerous awards and accolades. Horne continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, retreating from the public eye in 2000. Horne died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 2010, at the age of 92.
Early life[edit]
Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.[1] She was reportedly descended from the John C. Calhoun family, and both sides of her family were through a mixture of African, Native American, and European descent. She belonged to the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated black people.[2][3]
Her father, Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne Jr. (1893–1970),[4][5] was a numbers kingpin in the gambling trade. He left the family when she was 3 years old and moved to an upper-middle-class African American community in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[6][7] Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron (1894–1976), was a granddaughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron. She was an actress with a black theater troupe and traveled extensively.[8] Edna's maternal grandmother, Amelie Louise Ashton, was Senegalese.[9] Horne was raised mainly by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.[5]
When Horne was five, she was sent to live in Georgia.[10] For several years, she traveled with her mother.[11] From 1927 to 1929, she lived with her uncle, Frank S. Horne. He was the Dean of students at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute (now part of Fort Valley State University) in Fort Valley, Georgia,[11] who later served as an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[12] From Fort Valley, southwest of Macon, Horne briefly moved to Atlanta with her mother; they returned to New York when Horne was 12 years old.[11] She then attended Girls High School, an all-girls public high school in Brooklyn that has since become Boys and Girls High School; she dropped out without earning a diploma. At age 18, she moved to her father's home in Pittsburgh, staying in the city's Little Harlem for almost five years and learning from native Pittsburghers Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others.[6
Lena Horne, in full Lena Calhoun Horne, (born June 30, 1917, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.—died May 9, 2010, New York City), American singer and actress who first came to fame in the 1940s.
Horne left school at age 16 to help support her ailing mother and became a dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City. In two years at the Cotton Club she appeared with such entertainers as Cab Calloway and eventually starred in her own shows. In 1935 she joined the Noble Sissle orchestra under the name Helena Horne. Horne was married from 1937 to 1944 to Louis J. Jones. In the early 1940s she was hired to sing for Charlie Barnet’s orchestra. She was discovered by producer John Hammond, and soon after she performed in a solo show at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
In 1942 Horne moved to Los Angeles, after which she appeared in such movies as Cabin in the Sky (1943), Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), and The Wiz (1978). Her role in the film Stormy Weather (1943) included her rendition of the title song, which became her trademark. A remarkably charismatic entertainer, Horne was one of the most popular singers of her time. One of her albums, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria (1957), was a longtime best seller, and her first featured performance on Broadway—in the musical Jamaica (1957)—won her a New York Drama Critics’ Poll Award in 1958.
Lena Horne and Eddie (“Rochester”) Anderson in Cabin in the Sky
Lena Horne and Eddie (“Rochester”) Anderson in Cabin in the Sky
Lena Horne and Eddie ("Rochester") Anderson in Cabin in the Sky (1943), directed by Vincente Minnelli.
© 1943 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.; photograph from a private collection
Though primarily known as an entertainer, Horne also was noted for her work with civil rights and political organizations; as an actress, she refused to play roles that stereotyped African American women. She was married to Lennie Hayton from 1947 until his death in 1971. Her one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music (1981), garnered many awards, including a Drama Critics’ Circle Award and a special achievement Tony Award. In 1984 Horne received a Kennedy Center honour for lifetime contribution to the arts, and in 1989 she was given a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
Lena Horne, in full Lena Calhoun Horne, (born June 30, 1917, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.—died May 9, 2010, New York City), American singer and actress who first came to fame in the 1940s.
Horne left school at age 16 to help support her ailing mother and became a dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City. In two years at the Cotton Club she appeared with such entertainers as Cab Calloway and eventually starred in her own shows. In 1935 she joined the Noble Sissle orchestra under the name Helena Horne. Horne was married from 1937 to 1944 to Louis J. Jones. In the early 1940s she was hired to sing for Charlie Barnet’s orchestra. She was discovered by producer John Hammond, and soon after she performed in a solo show at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
In 1942 Horne moved to Los Angeles, after which she appeared in such movies as Cabin in the Sky (1943), Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), and The Wiz (1978). Her role in the film Stormy Weather (1943) included her rendition of the title song, which became her trademark. A remarkably charismatic entertainer, Horne was one of the most popular singers of her time. One of her albums, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria (1957), was a longtime best seller, and her first featured performance on Broadway—in the musical Jamaica (1957)—won her a New York Drama Critics’ Poll Award in 1958.
Lena Horne and Eddie (“Rochester”) Anderson in Cabin in the Sky
Lena Horne and Eddie (“Rochester”) Anderson in Cabin in the Sky
Lena Horne and Eddie ("Rochester") Anderson in Cabin in the Sky (1943), directed by Vincente Minnelli.
© 1943 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.; photograph from a private collection
Though primarily known as an entertainer, Horne also was noted for her work with civil rights and political organizations; as an actress, she refused to play roles that stereotyped African American women. She was married to Lennie Hayton from 1947 until his death in 1971. Her one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music (1981), garnered many awards, including a Drama Critics’ Circle Award and a special achievement Tony Award. In 1984 Horne received a Kennedy Center honour for lifetime contribution to the arts, and in 1989 she was given a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
Personal life
Horne at her 80th birthday party, 1997
Horne married Louis Jordan Jones, a political operative,[27][28] in January 1937 in Pittsburgh. On December 21, 1937, their daughter, Gail (later known as Gail Lumet Buckley, a writer) was born. They had a son, Edwin Jones (February 7, 1940 – September 12, 1970) who died of kidney disease.[5] Horne and Jones separated in 1940 and divorced in 1944. Horne's second marriage was to Lennie Hayton, who was music director and one of the premier musical conductors and arrangers at MGM, in December 1947 in Paris. They separated in the early 1960s, but never divorced. He died in 1971.[29] In her as-told-to autobiography Lena by Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the enormous pressures she and her husband faced as an interracial couple. She later admitted in an interview in Ebony (May 1980) that she had married Hayton to advance her career and cross the color barrier in show business, but "learned to love him very much".[30]
Horne had affairs with Artie Shaw, Orson Welles, Vincente Minnelli, and the boxer Joe Louis.[15]
Horne also had a long and close relationship with Billy Strayhorn, whom she said she would have married if he had been heterosexual.[31] He was also an 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 Sidney Lumet and Horne's daughter Gail.[32] Her other grandchildren include Gail's other daughter, Amy Lumet, and her son's four children, Thomas, William, Samadhi, and Lena. Her great-grandchildren include Jake Cannavale.[33]
Horne was Catholic.[34][35]
From 1946 to 1962, Horne resided in a St. Albans, Queens, New York, enclave of prosperous African Americans, where she counted among her neighbors Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and other jazz luminaries.[36]
Death
Horne died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 2010.[37] Her funeral took place at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue in New York, where she had been a member.[38] Thousands 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. Her remains were cremated.[39]
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