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 For discussions/comments/questions with other fans, pertaining to The Lady and her career, please go to the Lena Horne Message Board. This Message Board also has a chat room.
OK, so if you're coming here from a Yahoo search page, then you'll soon find out that this page isn't just about her MGM career. It's just that Yahoo takes so long to incorporate a change in the description whenever I make a submission to them.
It's funny - in the past, whenever I had to add some new information on my website on say, Judy Garland's TV show, I could always go to some other page to make sure that what I was putting down was correct. In the case of Lena, I always say to myself, "let me go to the 'official' information page and make sure I got the name of the song right" and then I realize, there is no official information site, and that mine is it - even though it's not THE official site - it seems to be the only major Lena site on the Web! (there could be a lot more on our Lena's site but I can't do it on my own - I need help from you all!)
By the way, if you like Lena, I'm sure you like these female vocalists from the yesteryears too, who have a style and delivery all their own. I sure love them, the songs they sang and their style! They were sleek, sassy ladies who sang some of the best songs written by legendary composers of Tin Pan Alley.
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She was the first black movie star on the cover of a movie magazine. Someone has said you are hearing the living history of jazz and blues when you hear Lena Horne sing. I
can't recall how it is exactly I got into Miss Horne. Her first movie for
me was probably "Stormy Weather", her movie as a "loan" to Fox from her
home studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Anyhow, I was mesmerized with this lovely
beauty with a sweet singing voice and decided to get to know more about
her. There were more movies that I came into contact with. As I got to
know more about her, I was disappointed in the fact that whenever she appeared
in a Metro musical, they didn't have the courtesy to give her a decent
talking role unless it was with others of her race, like "Cabin in the
Sky". With that came the discovery of race politics and prejudice that
was so rampant in classic Hollywood. Of course, I had always known that
classic Hollywood had been a racist industry. However, the degree to which
this racism impacted an individual's career was unknown to me till I read
accounts of Miss Horne's life. Her marriage with Jewish conductor/composer Lennie Hayton always fascinated me because it seemed to me that she was almost challenging the powers that be during her tenure at Metro. She herself says that their marriage became something of a cause celebre. There is no doubt that if Lennie had lived till today, they would still be married. Surprisingly enough, there isn't a single site on the Web (that is reachable through search engines) completely dedicated to Lena. I was quite disappointed in that. Racial prejudice was at least a little bit instrumental in Dorothy Dandridge's downfall. Which is not to bring down Miss Dandridge, because I am a big fan of Miss D's talents. But luckily, Lena has been stronger and wiser and has prevailed enough so that she is able to celebrate her 82nd birthday this year (1999). Lena never said die even though there were circumstances trying enough in her life. So, in tribute to a great lady, here I present, a website dedicated to the one and only Miss Lena Horne.
This is a personal fan page with no official affiliations with Miss Lena Horne. The images on this site are not intended to violate copyright laws. Flower graphics by Pat's Web Graphics.
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"Stormy Weather"
and "The Duke is Tops"
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This
Greatest Entertainers Ring site |
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