Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Celebrates Lena Horne’s 100th Birthday

Legendary song stylist, actress, and activist Lena Horne would have turned 100 years old this past June 30th and in honor of that Brooklyn Academy of Music is screening a series of her films this week, September 18th through September 20th. The series features four films and two shorts honoring the legendary figure. The series includes: Cabin in the Sky (Minnelli, 1943) + Boogie-Woogie Dream (Burger, 1944), The Duke Is Tops (Nolte, 1938), Stormy Weather (Stone, 1943) + Now (Álvarez, 1965), and The Wiz (Lumet, 1978). Horne was one of the first black women to achieve high visibility in a Hollywood that was essentially closed to black women at the time. Particularly notable is that her parts tended to be of the more glamorous ilk rather than the roles of maids that black women of that time were generally relegated. Unfortunately, they tended to leave her in isolated scenes that could be easily edited out of versions meant for theaters where movies with black actors, as a rule, weren’t screened.

A relation of one of America’s forefathers Lena, according to her biographer James Gavin, spent much of her childhood in “an immaculate four-story brownstone in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant section” where she was raised by her grandparents. Her mother was an actress who traveled a lot and her father who split from her mother when she was very young, was hotel owner and numbers runner in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. Lena Horne was a descendant of Dr. Andrew Bonaparte Calhoun the nephew of John C. Calhoun, the seventh vice-president of the United States. Yale University’s Grace Hopper College was formerly named after him.

She began performing as a teen in such historic venues as the Cotton Club and Cafe Society. She later worked at the esteemed Cafe Society as well. Lena remained vehemently opposed to seg and regation and racism her whole life and was blacklisted in Hollywood because of her activism. She refused to perform for segregated audiences and reportedly hurled several objects at a man who called her “nigger” in a Beverly Hills restaurant causing him to bleed. She was with Medgar Evers two days before he was assassinated and with JFK three days prior to him being slain. In 1947, Horne married Lennie Hayton, a white Oscar-winning conductor and arranger at MGM. The interracial couple kept their marriage secret for a number of years.

Despite this, Horne made several memorable films such as Cabin in the Sky, Stormy Weather, and The Wiz which featured other notable black artists such as Bill Bojangles Robinson, Katherine Dunham, Ada Brown, Cab Calloway, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. She was first black actress on a long-term contract with a studio, was the first black on the cover of Motion Picture magazine, and the first black star whose picture could be pinned up by black GIs in their lockers. Horne was one of the first to force the white public to admit that black (albeit mixed in her case) could be beautiful.

During the fifties and sixties, nightclubs flourished as venues where singers and other performers could appear and establish great careers. Horne became one of the preeminent performers on America’s nightclub circuit. In 1957, a live album entitled, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria, became the biggest-selling record by a female artist in the history of the RCA Victor label at that time. In 1958, Horne became the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical". Ultimately, she won two Tony Awards and eight Grammys. Horne died in 2010 at the age of 92.

Jesse Trussell, programmer BAM cinema had the following to share about Horne.

What is it about Lena Horne that in your opinion made her so legendary?

Horne was a trailblazing performer from her early days in the Cotton Club to her all to brief film career. With a stunning voice and magnetic charisma, she forced herself into the national spotlight at a time when much of the nation was openly hostile to black female performers.

In your opinion what were her unique contributions to entertainment/society?

Horne is a model for today’s politically active artists. She used her platform to advocate for integrated audiences at her performances for soldiers during WWII and she worked with NAACP, SNCC, and the National Council of Negro Women during the Civil Rights Movement. All the while, she recorded indelible music and become the first black woman to be nominated for a Tony. And, did this all at a time where speaking out threatened her career.

How did you come to choose the films that you did for this series?

Horne's filmography is small, yet full of sparkling performances that make you angry she was wasn't given more (and larger) Hollywood roles. These films draw together iconic, classic Hollywood features, a civil rights era short that used her powerful recording of the song ‘Now’, and her wonderful late career performance as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz.

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