She joined Eleanor Roosevelt's unsuccessful campaign for anti-lynching legislation and worked on behalf of Japanese Americans who faced discrimination.
During the anti-communist hearings in the U. Congress in the s, Horne was among hundreds of entertainers blacklisted because of political views and social activism. In the s, she performed in the South at rallies for civil rights, participated in the March On Washington, and supported the work of the National Council for Negro Women.
Later in life, Horne acquired renewed fame after appearing in the film The Wiz and touring in a one-woman show in the s. Her mother, Edna, was an actress with an African American theater troupe and traveled extensively. Horne was mainly raised by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.
Yet, she still moved a great deal in her early years because her mother often took her with her on the road. They lived in various parts of the South before Horne was returned to her grandparents' home in After they died, Horne lived with a friend of her mother's, Laura Rollock. Shortly thereafter Edna remarried and Horne moved in with her mother and her mother's new husband.
The constant moving resulted in Lena having an education that was often interrupted. She attended various small-town, segregated separated by race school's when in the South with her mother. From an early age Horne had ambitions of becoming a performer—much against the wishes of her family, who felt she should have higher goals. The Hornes were an established middle class family, with several members holding college degrees and distinguished positions in organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP and the Urban League a group that worked to increase the economic and political power of minorities and to end discrimination based on race.
Nonetheless, Horne pursued her own course and at age sixteen was hired to dance in the chorus at Harlem's famed Cotton Club. In Lena Horne. Reproduced by permission of Schomburg Center for Research. In she became the featured singer with the Noble Sissle Society Orchestra, which performed at many first-rate hotel ballrooms and nightclubs.
She left Sissle in to perform as a "single" in a variety of New York City clubs. In Horne married minor politician Louis Jones, by whom she had a daughter, Gail, and a son, Edwin they separated in and divorced in She gained some early stage experience in Lew Leslie's revues, Blackbirds of and Blackbirds of , and in she joined one of the great white swing bands, the Charlie Barnet Orchestra.
But as the group's only black member she suffered many humiliations of racial prejudice, especially from hotels and restaurants that catered exclusively to whites. Horne left Barnet in Her career received an immediate boost from entertainment manager John Hammond, who got her a long engagement at the famous Cafe Society Downtown, a club in New York City.
It was at the Cafe Society that Horne learned about African American history, politics, and culture and developed a new appreciation of her heritage. She rekindled her acquaintance with Paul Robeson — , whom she had known as a child. Horne's conversations with Robeson made her realize that the African American people were going to unify and make their situations in life better.
She felt she needed to be a part of that movement. From that point onward, Horne became a significant voice in the struggle for equality and justice for African Americans in the United States. In a long booking at the SavoyPlaza Hotel, which brought Horne national coverage and a number of movie appearances, established her as the highest-paid African American entertainer in the United States.
She was signed to a seven-year contract with the movie studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer MGM —the first African American woman since to sign a term contract with a film studio. She was not dark enough in color to star with many of the African American actors of the day and her roles in white films were limited, since Hollywood was not ready to portray interracial relationships on screen. Given these harsh limitations imposed on African Americans in s and s Hollywood movies, Horne's film career is impressive.
Another major role followed in Stormy Weather and then some nonspeaking roles in Broadway Rhythm , Two Girls and a Sailor , and a musical biography of Rodgers and Hart, Words and Music She refused to take on any roles that were disrespectful to her as a woman of color.
Horne, despite her great fame, continued to experience humiliating racial discrimination wrongful treatment because of race , and in the late s she sued a number of restaurants and theaters for race discrimination and also began working with Paul Robeson in the Progressive Citizens of America, a political group opposing racism.
She also assisted Eleanor Roosevelt — in her mission for antilynching legislation laws making it illegal to hang a person accused of a crime without a trial. Although that was her last big-screen appearance, she stayed busy in television appearing in A Century of Women and That's Entertainment!
III Had it not been for the prevailing racial attitudes during the time when Lena was just starting her career, it's fair to say that it would have been much bigger and come much sooner.
Even taking those factors into account, Lena Horne is still one of the most respected, talented and beautiful performers of all time. Sign In. Edit Lena Horne. Showing all 59 items. While at MGM, her appearances in movies were shot so that they could be cut easily from the film.
This was because MGM feared audiences of the day--but especially in the South--would not accept a beautiful black woman in romantic, non-menial roles. Many in the business believed that this was the main reason she lost out on playing the mulatto "Julie" in MGM's remake of Show Boat Ironically, the role was played by one of Lena's close off-screen friends, Ava Gardner , who practiced for it by singing to Horne's recordings of the songs, and Lena had already appeared in the "Show Boat" segment of Till the Clouds Roll by , in which she appeared as "Julie" singing "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" which was, as all her MGM appearances, shot in such a way that it could be easily edited out of the film.
Former mother-in-law of director Sidney Lumet. She was branded a "Communist sympathizer" by many right-wing conservatives because of her association with Paul Robeson and her progressive political beliefs which led her to be blacklisted in the s. According to her autobiography, she photographed so light in her initial screen tests that MGM was afraid people would mistake her for a white woman, so they had makeup legend Max Factor create a make-up line for her called "Dark Egyptian", so she could appear as a "Negro" onscreen.
Ironically, Hedy Lamarr used this same makeup in White Cargo when she played a half-caste African native. Sought the lead role in the controversial film Pinky , about a black girl who passes for white. Zanuck decided to take the safe road and choose a white star who had box-office appeal and picked Jeanne Crain. Grandmother of Jenny Lumet and Amy Lumet. In Charles Whiting's book "The Long March on Rome", he reports that she refused to appear before racially segregated United States Army audiences in World War II Italy--since the army was officially segregated, the policy was to have one show solely for white troops and another show solely for black troops.
Horne insisted on performing for mixed audiences, and since the United States Army refused to allow integrated audiences, she wound up putting on a show for a mixed audience of black American soldiers and white German POWs.
Leslie Uggams is scheduled to portray her in a musical production "Stormy Weather" at the Pasadena Playhouse California starting January Her father's name was Edwin F. Her mother was an actress, Edna Louise Calhoun Scottron. Children from first marriage to Louis Jones: Gail Jones b. Her favorite actor was John Garfield. She was a lifelong liberal Democrat who was active in the civil rights movement of the s. She worked with Eleanor Roosevelt on anti-lynching laws and during the John F.
Kennedy administration she was a frequent guest at the White House. She moved into cabaret performances in some part because her name had appeared in "Red Channels", a publication that circulated in the entertainment industry during the McCarthy "Red Scare" era that listed names of performers it considered "subversives".
Director Vincente Minnelli stated that Horne's cameo music appearances in other people's movies were designed to be easily edited out when they played in Southern theaters. According to Minelli, "This was, of course, contemptible". Became pregnant by her 2nd husband Lennie Hayton but suffered a miscarriage whilst in Paris in July While on a performance tour in England in July she was offered a leading role in a movie to be filmed in England, on the life of jazz and ragtime composer and pianist Jelly Roll Morton.
The movie was ultimately never made.
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