Trivia of Lena Horne

 Trivia of Lena Horne (30 June 1917 - 9 May 2010),

*Both sides of her family were of African-American, Native American, and European American descent, and belonged to the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated people.Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron, was an actress with a Black theater troupe and traveled extensively.Lena was recorded at age 3 with her grandparents, father, and mother.

*From a young age, Lena Horne showed a passion for performing. She began her career in the 1930s as a dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York. It was during this time that she caught the attention of Hollywood scouts and was offered her first film role.Horne made her first screen appearance as a dancer in the musical short Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party (1935).

*She performed her beautiful voice in MGM's musical Cabin in The Sky (1943).She sang 'Ain't it the Truth' (written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg).During filming, the movie's black stars including Lana Horne were told by the studio manager that they were not allowed to eat at the MGM commissary. When studio head Louis B. Mayer heard about this, he invited the black performers to join him instead in his private dining room. All the performers were allowed to eat in the commissary the following day.

*Her role in the film Stormy Weather (1943) included her rendition of the title song, which became her trademark.Despite a running time of only 77 minutes, the film features some 20 musical numbers.Fred Astaire admitted Stormy Weather is the greatest movie musical number he had ever seen.

*Because of segregation rules, rising star Lena Horne couldn’t even lease her own house in Los Angeles.With segregation alive and well in 1940s Hollywood, white impresario Felix Young (manager of Los Angeles’s Cafe Trocadero) had to sign the lease for Horne’s new home “as if he was going to rent it,” she explained. When Horne’s neighbors found out that she was the house’s official inhabitant, they petitioned to have her removed—until Humphrey Bogart stepped in. Horne said Bogart “raised hell” with the community members, and “sent word over to the house that if anybody bothered me, please let him know.”

*She often performed at Cafe Society Downtown, a club that raised money for the Communist party.Because of her political affiliations and outspokenness, Horne was blacklisted from the studio system in the 1950s and ostensibly left the Hollywood silver screen.The blacklisting hurt Horne’s career and kept her from appearing on radio and television.

*After escape from blacklist, Lena Horne back to Hollywood silver screen in The Wiz (1978) along Michael Jackson and Diana Ross.The Wiz is an adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" that tries to capture the essence of the African-American experience.This film proved to be a commercial failure, as the $24 million production only earned $13.6 million at the box office.