A beautiful African-American songstress who played a critical role in breaking Hollywood’s color barrier
Voice and Beauty
Brooklyn-born Lena Horne was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio.Everett
Origins
In 1933, at the age of 16, Horne auditioned for the chorus at the Cotton Club in Harlem, N.Y., the famous nightclub where all the customers were white, all the dancers were light-skinned blacks and the music was under the direction of Duke Ellington. Her talents were soon noticed, and she was cast as the star in the 1938 black musical The Duke Is Tops, above, a role for which she never got paid.Everett
Hollywood
Called to California by a nightclub owner, Horne was noticed by a composer at MGM who asked the studio bosses to listen to her perform. Duly impressed, studio head Louis B. Mayer signed her to a seven-year contract, the first time an African-American performer had been given a long-term contract. Despite that breakthrough, much of Horne's talent remained unexploited, as the studio cast her in "all-star" musicals like Broadway Rhythm, above, in which she appeared for one or two songs, allowing the studio to remove her scenes when the films played in Southern theaters.Everett
No Sun up in the Sky
In the 1943 production of Stormy Weather, a musical with a primarily African-American cast, Horne sang the title song, a melody that would become one of her signature pieces.Everett
Service
Horne’s popularity grew tremendously in the 1940s when American servicemen fought in Europe and Asia. She was idolized by all races but she got a boost from African-American soldiers who could not put pictures of white women on their lockers, certainly not of the pin-up queen of the era Betty Grable. And so, she noted, she became their muse by default.Bettmann / Corbis
Chanteuse
Though Horne met with limited success onscreen, she became a top draw on the nightclub circuit.Yale Joel / Time Life Pictures / Getty Images
Husband
In 1947 Horne married arranger, conductor and pianist Lennie Hayton, a white man, in a ceremony in France. Hayton was music director for both her and MGM, and their union was kept secret for three years.Bettmann / Corbis
Onstage
Later in her career, Horne enjoyed success onstage and on Broadway. Her one-woman show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music ran for 14 months and won her a Tony award.Bettmann / Corbis
True to Herself
As a child, she had wanted to be a schoolteacher, and onstage or in the talk-show-guest chair, that's what she so superbly was: the professor and the lesson, an inspiring example of outliving prejudice, turning stormy weather into blue skies and beauty into truth.She was 92 when she passed away.Carol Friedman / Corbis
