The Lena Horne Centennial

Today is the centennial birthday of the lovely Lena Horne (1917-2010).

Always classy and graceful, Horne was not a part of the earthy black vaudeville grind I often write about here. A second generation performer (her mother was a traveling actress), she got her start singing in Harlem’s Cotton Club and other swank New York night clubs, performing with the likes of Adelaide Hall and Noble Sissle.  She toured with bands, sang on radio, and made early films appearances in the films Cab Calloway’s Jitterbug Party (1935) and the race feature The Duke is Tops a.k.a The Bronze Venus (1938) and Boogie Woogie Dream (1941).

This culminated with a contract with MGM which Lorne signed in 1942. Her few years at the studio proved a frustration to her. She only got proper speaking roles in a couple of all-star features, albeit both of them classics: Cabin in the Sky (1943), with Eddie “Rochester” Anderson,Ethel Waters, Butterfly McQueen, Louis Armstrong,Mantan Moreland,Ernest Whitman, Duke Ellington, Oscar Polk, Rex Ingram, and Buck & Bubbles; and Stormy Weather (also 1943) with Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway, The Katherine Dunham Troupe, Fats Waller, The Nicholas Brothers, Dooley Wilson, et al. Otherwise she was generally cast as herself or as “singer”, and given a few minutes of screen time in a vocal performances. Those pictures include Panama Hattie (1942), Thousands Cheer (1943), I Dood It(1943), Swing Fever (1943), Broadway Rhythm (1944), Two Girls and a Sailor (1944), Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Til the Clouds Roll By (1946), Words and Music (1948), and Duchess of Idaho (1950).

By this time, there was television, and Horne remained a frequent sight on variety and talk shows for decades, including The Ed Sullivan Show,The Colgate Comedy Hour, Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium, The Steve Allen Show,Kraft Music Hall, and many others. She also starred in her own specials, including ones she co-starred in with Harry Belafonte (1971) and Tony Bennett (1973). In the ’70s you could see her on shows like Sanford and Son and Flip. Almost always she would trot out her signature tune “Stormy Weather”. In 1978 she played Glinda in the screen version of The Wiz. Her own Broadway show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music (1981-82) played for over a year. She then toured with it for another year. She continued to perform live and on television until around 2004.

Throughout the entirety of that period, Horne released nearly 100 LP recordings. In addition to “Stormy Weather”, her other hits included versions of “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” (1945), “Deed I Do” (1948), and “Love Me Or Leave Me”.

In addition to her two marriages, Horne had affairs with Joe Louis, Artie Shaw, Orson Welles, and Vincente Minnelli, and close friendships with Billy Strayhorn and Rex Stout. Horne’s daughter Gail (by Horne’s white second husband, jazz musician Lenny Hayton) married director Sidney Lumet. Their daughter Jenny Lumet was married to Bobby Cannavale and wrote the impeccable 2008 film Rachel Getting Married.

Addendum: In honor of Horne’s birth in Bed-Stuy, in 2021 Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Bandshell became the Lena Horne Bandshell. The following year Broadway’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre became the Lena Horne. (Wasn’t she only on Broadway for about a year? Whereas Brooks Atkinson was a major force in New York Theatre for like 60 years. Whatever — it’s not a hill I propose to die on!).

For more on show biz history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever fine books are sold.