Lena Horne: A legendary Queen passes

By Melissa Muhammad | Last updated: May 11, 2010 - 7:37:35 AM

Lena Horne

(FinalCall.com) - The entertainment industry and the world mourns the loss of the performing legend Lena Horne, who according to a hospital spokesperson, died on May 9. She was 92.

With dignity and grace, she paved the way for other would-be Black actresses in the United States and abroad. Ms. Horne held the distinction of being the first Black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) a major Hollywood studio.

A native of New York, Lena Calhoun Horne was born in Brooklyn on June 30, 1917. At two years of age in 1919 she was featured on the cover of the NAACP's monthly bulletin. Her parents were members of the NAACP. At 16 years of age and with the encouragement of her mother who was also a performer, Lena Horne became a dancer at the famous Harlem Cotton Club. Early in Ms. Horne's career in 1941, she sang at Café Society and worked with Paul Robeson, another performer who stood against racism.

During World War II, while entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform “for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of African American servicemen,” according to her Kennedy Center biography. Her live album performance at the New York Waldorf-Astoria in 1957, titled, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria, became the largest selling record by a female artist in the history of the RCA-Victor label. In her last film role in 1978, Ms. Horne came to be known to younger generations as “Glenda the Good Witch” in “The Wiz” with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.

In her sunset years the NY Times quotes Ms. Horne as saying “My identity is very clear to me now. I am a Black woman. I'm free. I no longer have to be a ‘credit.' I don't have to be a symbol to anybody; I don't have to be a first to anybody. 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.” Her striking beauty, dignity and strong civil rights stance will be missed.

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