Born in Brooklyn in 1917, Lena Horne became one of the most popular African American performers of the 1940s and 1950s. At the age of sixteen she was hired as a dancer in the chorus of Harlem’s famous Cotton Club. There she was introduced to the growing community of jazz performers, including Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington. She also met Harold Arlen, who would write her biggest hit, “Stormy Weather.” For the next five years she performed in New York nightclubs, on Broadway, and touring with the Charlie Barnet Orchestra. Singing with Barnet’s primarily white swing band, Horne was one of the first black women to successfully work on both sides of the color line.

Within a few years, Horne moved to Hollywood, where she played small parts in the movies. At this time, most black actors were kept from more serious roles, and though she was beginning to achieve a high level of notoriety, the color barrier was still strong. “In every other film I just sang a song or two; the scenes could be cut out when they were sent to local distributors in the South. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much of a chance to act,” she said. “CABIN IN THE SKY and STORMY WEATHER were the only movies in which I played a character who was involved in the plot.” Her elegant style and powerful voice were unlike any that had come before, and both the public and the executives in the entertainment industry began to take note. By the mid-’40s, Horne was the highest paid black actor in the country. Her renditions of “Deed I Do” and “As Long as I Live,” and Cole Porter’s “Just One Of Those Things” became instant classics. For the thousands of black soldiers abroad during World War II, Horne was the premier pin-up girl.

Much like her good friend Paul Robeson, Horne’s great fame could not prevent the wheels of the anti-Communist machine from bearing down on her. Her civil rights activism and friendship with Robeson and others marked her as a Communist sympathizer. Like many politically active artists of the time, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to perform on television or in the movies. For seven years the attacks on her person and political beliefs continued. During this time, however, Horne worked as a singer, appearing in nightclubs and making some of her best recordings. LENA HORNE AT THE WALDORF ASTORIA, recorded in 1957, is still considered to be one of her best. Though the conservative atmosphere of the 1950s took their toll on Horne, by the 1960s she had returned to the public eye and was again a major cultural figure.

In 1963, she participated in the march on Washington and performed at rallies throughout the country for the National Council for Negro Women. She followed that with a decade of international touring, recording, and acting on both television and the silver screen. Horne had found in her growing audience a renewed sense of purpose. All of this came crashing down when her father, son and husband died in a period of twelve months during the early 1970s. Horne retreated almost completely from public life. It was not until 1981 that she fully returned, making a triumphant comeback with a one-person show on Broadway. LENA HORNE: THE LADY AND HER MUSIC chronicled Horne’s early life and almost fifty years in show business. It ran for fourteen months and became the standard by which one-woman shows are judged. Throughout the past twenty years, Horne’s performances have been rare yet welcome occurrences.

Much has changed since the 16-year old who was Lena Horne danced her first tentative steps across the stage of the Cotton Club. Through myriad triumphs and challenges, she paved the way to stardom for countless others in the entertainment industry. Her continued musical, theatrical, and political efforts grew with the times and met each new decade with courage and grace. But, if one thing hasn’t changed, it’s Horne’s ability to break our hearts with her shimmering resonant voice, singing songs like “Black Coffee” and “Stormy Weather.”

Connected artists:

Louis Armstrong

Richard Avedon

Truman Capote

Duke Ellington

George Gershwin

John Hammond

Billie Holiday

Paul Robeson

Related Web sites:

Class Act

Biography at The Iceberg

Internet Movie Database Entry

Horne Resource Page

1. Individuals play a variety of roles in people’s lives. Ask the students to brainstorm the roles they play. For example, they are children, siblings, students, workers, grandchildren, aunts or uncles, etc. Ask the students to choose one role and respond in a writing journal to the following questions:
   • Are you comfortable playing this role?
   • How does it make you feel?
   • Have you chosen this role?
   • What expectations do people have of this role?
   • Do you agree with them?
2. Divide the class into pairs, and ask them to share their responses.
3. Ask the class to discuss the following people and the roles they have played in society:
   • Princess Diana
   • Nelson Mandela
   • Maya Angelou
   • Michael Jordan
   • Hillary Clinton
4. Focus on the following questions:
   • Do you think these people have chosen the roles they play?
   • Are roles always freely chosen?
   • How do you think these roles have impacted their private lives?
   • Do people have a responsibility to take on roles? Why or why not?

Activity One

1. Ask the students to generate a list of people from ancient times to the present representing role models for youth.
2. Divide the class into two groups and debate the following question:
   • Do prominent people in public life have a responsibility to act as role models for youth?
3. After the debate, discuss the following question:
   • Do you feel that you have a responsibility to act as role models for younger children? Why or why not?
4. At different times in her life, Lena Horne struggled with how to reconcile her personal life and her life as a black woman living in the public eye. Many saw her as a role model. Some possible sites to read about Lena Horne’s life include:

   http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/horne_l.html

   http://www.worldbook.com/fun/aamusic/html/horne.htm;

   http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=B71y67u50h0jk

   http://www.who2.com/lenahorne.html

   http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Horne,+Lena

5. Compile a class fact sheet about Lena Horne’s life. This may include photos and websites.
6. Ask the class the following question:
   • Based on your readings, would you consider Lena Horne a role model?

Activity Two

1. Race played a central role in Horne’s personal and professional life. As an artist, she struggled with the expectations of her people, and her work. Divide the class into four groups to conduct Internet research. Some good sites to begin researching are suggested. Under each some group possible sites to begin researching are suggested.

   Group One: McCarthyism in Hollywood

   http://www.sag.com/blacklist.html#SAG%20&%20the%20Blacklist

   Group Two: African Americans in Hollywood

   http://americanhistory.about.com/homework/americanhistory/library/weekly/aa031997.htm

   http://cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/african-american/twentieth_century/cinema.htm

   Group Three: Lena Horne and Hollywood

   http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/6424/lenacoverf.html

   Group Four: Civil Rights Movement and the Stage

   http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart9.html#09b

2. Each group should prepare a brief presentation summarizing the results of their research and share it with the whole class.
3. Ask the students to pretend that they are Lena Horne and are writing a letter to a friend. Have the students describe how they might imagine Lena Horne felt about one of the following incidents:
   • Lena Horne was blacklisted.
   • Lena Horne was thrown out of the USO for turning her back on a white audience and facing the black audience at a performance.
   • Lena Horne was unable to stay at many of the hotels she performed at, or be a customer at some of the venues she played at, such as the Cotton Club.
   • In 1960 Gary Cooper became the first white person on television to touch a black person when he greeted Lena Horne on a show they were both appearing on.
4. Share Lena Horne’s quote with the class:
   • “I’m a black woman, I’m not alone, I’m free… I no longer, I say I’m free because 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.”
5. Ask the class to respond to the quote in a brief paragraph based on their readings on Horne’s struggles throughout her personal and professional life.
6. Share individual responses with the class.

Activity Three

1. Ask the class to brainstorm their favorite performing artists.
2. Conduct a brief Internet search on the following 1960’s performers:
   • The Beatles
   • Janis Joplin
   • Aretha Franklin

   Discuss how each flourished in the context of the social, cultural and political movements of the times. You may want to play some music from the 60’s in the background that can be accessed at http://www.netoldies.com/.

3. Lead a class discussion on how the constraints of one’s time shapes who one is as both a person and an artist.
4. Divide the class into pairs or small groups. Have each group select a musician, an artist, or a writer to research. Each group should create a presentation that highlights how the social context influenced the individual and his or her work. Presentations may be in the form of posters, skits, murals, essays or any other appropriate rendering.
5. Compile a class list describing the societal influences and values on artists today with those in Lena Horne’s life.

Assessment

Students will be assessed on the quality of their participation in class discussions, the quality of their writing, and the quality of their presentations.

Extension Activities

1. Ask the students to prepare a brief report discussing how the Internet has the potential to transform the music and entertainment world. Share individual reports with the class.
2. Ask the students to research the life of Spike Lee and look for parallels between his life and Lena Horne’s life.