JUNE 30

Lena Horne
Born June 30, 1917, Brooklyn, New York
Singer and Actress

Lena Horne

Original Name - Lena Mary Calhoun Horne
Raised by her actress mother, by the age of 16 she was dancing at Harlem's Cotton Club, becoming a popular singer with bands such as those of Noble Sissle and Teddy Wilson. She performed in the musical Blackbirds of 1939, and went into film, becoming the first African-American to be signed to a long-term contract (although her scenes were sometimes excised for distribution in the South). The title song of Stormy Weather (1943) became her signature.

Horne was blacklisted in the early 1950s for little more than her friendship with Paul Robeson and her outspokenness about discrimination, but she performed in the musical Jamaica (1957) and later made several other films. She toured Europe and the USA as a nightclub singer, spoke out increasingly against racism, and published her autobiography, Lena (1965).

Horne was married to musical conductor Lennie Hayton from 1947 until his death in 1971. MGM studio executives disapproved of the interracial marriage and eventually let both of them go. In 2006, ABC announced that Whitney Houston will portray Horne in a television biopic.