She grew
up in an upper-middle-class black community of a multigenerational
family. She was raised in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania and is reportedly a descendant of the John C. Calhoun
family. Lena Horne left home at the age of thirteen and started
her professional career dancing in the chorus at the Cotton
Club in Harlem New York at sixteen years of age. A few years
later she joined and toured with Noble Sissle's Orchestra. Lena's
first movie role was "The
Duke Is Tops" with Duke Ellington (also of the Cotton
Club.)
Lena was
plagued by racism by the management of the places she performed,
at times Lena would rebel at the treatment she received. Despite
this, Lena would become a legend among Stars and open the way
for many performers who were to followed her. Lena is said to
be the first African American signed to a long-term studio (MGM)
contract (Jeni
Legon claims this as well) with the stipulation
that she not have to play any demeaning, stereotypical roles –
she would never be forced to play any maid or mammy roles. However,
Lena did not get many acting roles because of this, which is a
shame. She only made 13 films while at MGM, most being cameo's
but while there she did managae to make two important African-American
classic movies – “Stormy Weather” and “Cabin
in the Sky.”
She
performed in New York nightclubs, on Broadway, and toured with
the Charlie Barnet Orchestra as well as becoming a movie actress
and would become the highest paid black actor in the country.
In 1947, Horne married for the second time, to composer Lennie
Hayton, a white man, and the two moved to Paris, where at the
time, interracial marriages were more accepted.
By the
mid-1950s, Horne was disenchanted with the Hollywood film industry
and increasingly focused on her nightclub career. After leaving
Hollywood, Horne established herself as one of the premiere nightclub
performers of the post-war era. She headlined at many prominent
clubs and hotels throughout the US, Canada and Europe, including
the Sands Hotel, the Cocoanut Grove and the Waldorf-Astoria.
Lena was
also a political activist, speaker and civil rights defender,
working to
combat
racial discrimination in America.. She also helped to push the
movie industry further along in the making of a more positive
portrayal of African-Americans on the big screen. For a brief
period in the 1950's she was blacklisted in Hollywood for her
efforts, (as well as her association with Paul Robeson)
and was not offered any movie contracts, except for two. Horne
was able to eventually get herself removed from the Blacklist
but took her almost ten years to get her name removed. She was
at the March on Washington and spoke and performed in behalf of
the NAACP, SNCC and the National Council of Negro Women. She is
also noted as working with then president Roosevelt's wife Eleanor
Roosevelt to help pass anti-lynching laws.
In 1958,
Horne was nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actress in
a Musical" (for her part in the "Calypso" musical
Jamaica) and in 1981, won a Tony award, and two Grammy Awards
for the cast recording of her show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her
Music. In 1989, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sang in one of Television's more popular
commercials in 1997 ... for The Gap Jeans commercial.
Ballrooms
