Lena Mary Calhoun Horne
Singer, Actress, Civil Rights Activist
(June 30, 1917 - May 9, 2010)
Stormy Weather was the first all-Black classic film that I had ever seen (and helped to establish my love for Black classic films). When I was a kid, the local television station would, once or twice a year, air this classic, and I would stop whatever I was doing to watch it. My favorite part was when
Lena Horne's character, "Selena Rogers", sang Ms. Horne's signature song, "Stormy Weather" as the great
Katherine Dunham danced in the background. Like everyone else, I was in awe of her beauty and the classy way she carried herself. Ms. Horne as a glamourous, sophisticated leading lady was a welcomed depature to the maid and "mammy" roles I was accustomed to seeing Black actors play when watching films from yesteryear.
It wasn't until I got older, and read more about Ms. Horne, that I learned that she was more than a pretty face. She was a pioneer who broke barriers for Black performers, becoming the first Black actor to sign a contract with a major Hollywood studio. Ms. Horne was also a fierce advocate for Civil Rights, working with Paul Robeson (which caused her to be blacklisted during McCarthy's Red Scare), refusing to perform for segregated audiences at USO performances, participating in the March on Washington in 1963 and, my personal favorite, throwing at lamp at a customer who made a racial slur at a Beverly Hills restaurant. In Brian Lanker's book, "I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America", Ms. Horne said,
"I was always battling the system to try to get to be with my people. Finally, I wouldn't work for places that kept us out. ... It was a damn fight everywhere I was, every place I worked, in New York, in Hollywood, all over the world".
Thank you, Ms. Horne, our Bronze Venus, for showing the world that Black is beautiful, strong, elegant, classy and courageous.
"I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else." - Lena Horne
Suggested Reading:
The Hornes: An American Family by Gail Lumet Buckley
(re-released as The Bronze Venus in 1943). These "race movies" were prevalent in the 1930s and 40s, usually low-budget and made strictly for the African-American audience.
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