Lena Horne and I Ain't Together
(Props to Monty)
Or
It's Raining All the Time
(Kudos to Monty)
Lena Horne, who gave Heathcliff Huxtable a birthday lap dance in front of his family, has died at the age of 92. The nightclub and stage singer broke new ground for black performers when she signed a long-term contract with MGM in the 1940s, scoring the plum role of token black singer in a number of “all-star” musicals including Thousands Cheer, Broadway Rhythm, Two Girls and a Sailor, Ziegfeld Follies, Words and Music. Ironically, in early screen tests, her light skin made her appear white, so she needed blackface to play black on screen. On screen, she appeared only in singing numbers unrelated to the plot that could be easily cut when the films were played in the enlightened South. Although she did get to talk to a white lady on Show Boat. And a mere 60 years later, Halle Barry became the first black actress to win a Best Actress Oscar. In the 1940s, she was the top black entertainer in the country, making $1,000 a week from MGM, $1,500 per radio appearance and $6,500 a week at the nightclubs, while serving as an allowable pin-up girl for black GIs. Horne criticized the way the black soldiers were treated, refusing to perform for non-integrated audiences, or those where German POWs were seated in front of black servicemen, which clearly meant she was a Communist, and she found herself blacklisted (pun intended, as always) and in the 1960s she became increasingly active in the civil rights movement. She made a few films, most notably Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz, won a Tony in 1981 for her one-woman show, “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music,” the longest running solo performance in Broadway history, and continued recording through the 1990s. Janet Jackson briefly had the role of Lena Horne in a TV biopic, but her wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl got her kicked off the project.
Or
It's Raining All the Time
(Kudos to Monty)
Lena Horne, who gave Heathcliff Huxtable a birthday lap dance in front of his family, has died at the age of 92. The nightclub and stage singer broke new ground for black performers when she signed a long-term contract with MGM in the 1940s, scoring the plum role of token black singer in a number of “all-star” musicals including Thousands Cheer, Broadway Rhythm, Two Girls and a Sailor, Ziegfeld Follies, Words and Music. Ironically, in early screen tests, her light skin made her appear white, so she needed blackface to play black on screen. On screen, she appeared only in singing numbers unrelated to the plot that could be easily cut when the films were played in the enlightened South. Although she did get to talk to a white lady on Show Boat. And a mere 60 years later, Halle Barry became the first black actress to win a Best Actress Oscar. In the 1940s, she was the top black entertainer in the country, making $1,000 a week from MGM, $1,500 per radio appearance and $6,500 a week at the nightclubs, while serving as an allowable pin-up girl for black GIs. Horne criticized the way the black soldiers were treated, refusing to perform for non-integrated audiences, or those where German POWs were seated in front of black servicemen, which clearly meant she was a Communist, and she found herself blacklisted (pun intended, as always) and in the 1960s she became increasingly active in the civil rights movement. She made a few films, most notably Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz, won a Tony in 1981 for her one-woman show, “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music,” the longest running solo performance in Broadway history, and continued recording through the 1990s. Janet Jackson briefly had the role of Lena Horne in a TV biopic, but her wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl got her kicked off the project.
posted by The Grim Reaper at 3:46 PM
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