BLACK HISTORY MONTH Lena Horne She first sang at New York’s Cotton Club as a teenage girl, and would go on to become one of America’s premiere African-American superstars, but not without confronting racial and political hurdles along the away. The first black actor to be signed by a Hollywood studio to a long-term contract, the achingly beautiful Lena Horne was denied a role (one she’d already played) in MGM’s 1951 screen version of the musical Show Boat, because of the ban on interracial relationships by the Hollywood Production Code. (Ava Gardner, who was white, ultimately landed the role.) Horne was then blacklisted as a Communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era witch hunts, largely because of her association with racially progressive organizations. But that didn’t stop her. She participated in the historic march on Washington in 1963, and would remain an outspoken champion of civil rights causes until her death at the age of 92
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 08:17:10 +0000
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