Actress and singer Lena Horne, the first African-American performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio, died Sunday night.
She was 92 years old.
AdvertisementThe actress was known for her contributions to the Civil Rights movement and for crossing racial boundaries in Hollywood during a time when blacks were relegated to smaller roles and productions.
She is best known for her performances in “Cabin in the Sky” and “Stormy Weather.”
Horne died at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, according to The New York Times.
Much more on Horne’s biography at her IMDB page.
Related: “She was ageless, but unfortunately mortal,” John Nolte adds, in his encomium at Big Hollywood, complete with video.
Filed under: All You Need Is Ears, Hollywood, Interrupted
R.I.P
What a beauty.
God bless her family in their time of grief.
She helped change society for the better by changing white America’s perception of black people. Lena Horne obviously was talented, beautiful, intelligent, and sexy … and if whites could admit that one black person could have all those characteristics, then *gasp!* other black people might, too.
An old joke from the Civil Rights Movement era asked “If you were going to be marooned on a desert island with a singer, would you want her to be Lena Horne or Kate Smith?”