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Lena Horne

File:Lena_Horne,_1946.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Lena Horne

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Also known as Lena Mary Calhoun Horne

American singer, actress, dancer and activist (1917–2010)

OverviewAI-generated

Lena Horne (1917–2010) was an American actor, dancer, singer, and pin-up model. Born in New York City, she began her professional career in 1933. Her musical work spanned traditional pop, pop music, and jazz, with recordings released on Blue Note, MGM Records, RCA Records, and Qwest Records. She was recognized with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, a Special Tony Award, and Kennedy Center Honors.

Horne was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. She resided in Brooklyn and was married to Lennie Hayton. Her cause of death was heart failure. She is also recognized in the Hollywood Walk of Fame collection.

Synthesized by Vinony from 42 facts across 9 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Wikiquote, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works
8

Top works

  • The Hornes
  • The men in my life
  • Jamaica
  • New Product Development In Textiles Innovation And Production
  • In person, Lena Horne

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Acting · Brooklyn, New York, USA

Lena Horne (June 30, 1917 - May 9, 2010) was a singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the films Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather. Due to the Red Scare and her left-leaning…

Known for

  • Hollywood Black — Self (archive footage)2024
  • How It Feels to Be Free — Self (archival footage)2021
  • Sid & Judy — Self (archive footage)2019
  • The Green Book: Guide to Freedom — Self - Singer (archive footage)2019
  • Storm in My Heart — Self (archive footage)2018
  • Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days — Self (uncredited) (archive footage)2010
  • Jazz Voice - The Ladies sing Jazz Vol.2 — Self (archive footage)2006
  • Sarah Vaughan & Other Jazz Divas2005
  • An Evening With Lena Horne — self2005
  • Judy Garland Duets — Self (archive footage)2005

via TMDB

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
426,906
Total plays
2,307,555

Tags

jazzfemale vocalistsvocal jazzjazz vocaloldies

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. She had recorded and performed extensively, both independently, and with other jazz notables, including Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Benny Carter, and Billy Eckstine. In her biography she stated that on the day she was born, her father was in the midst of a card game trying to get money to pay t

via Last.fm · Lena Horne

Quotes

  • It's so nice to get flowers while you can still smell the fragrance.
  • Don't be afraid to feel as angry or as loving as you can, because when you feel nothing, it's just death.
  • I am not alone. I am 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.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

~23 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years and covered film, television and theater.

Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving on to Hollywood and Broadway. A groundbreaking Black American performer, Horne advocated for civil rights and took part in the March on Washington in August 1963. Later she returned to her roots as a nightclub performer and continued to work on television while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than 300 performances on Broadway. She then toured the country in the show, earning numerous awards and accolades. Horne continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, withdrawing from the public eye in 2000.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Lena Horne” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (8)