RIP Lena Horne

0 Comments

1. 

   rhapsodyinbooks

   10 May 2010 Reply

   I saw the movie Stormy Weather when I was very very young, but I remember clearly being aware that she was boxed off and isolated in the film because of being black (lightness not withstanding). It's not that I was so precocious, but the boxing off was so obvious back then!!!

   But I always loved her voice - it was like Billie Holiday's - distinctive. I never could understand the appeal of Ella, who from the sound of her could be anybody, and could be white. I was always grateful movie makers back in the fifties recognized that great black talent should be seen and heard, even if "boxed off."

   I think Alicia Keys is a great choice to play her!

2. 

   elliottzetta

   10 May 2010 Reply

   Ok, then maybe I need to watch the film again b/c doesn't it have an all-black cast? And for the record, I LOVE Ella Fitzgerald!! I would *never* mistake her voice for a white woman, esp when she scats...personally, I'd love to see bio-pics of Ella, Dinah Washington, or Sarah Vaughn. That would open up opportunities for actors who aren't light-skinned...

• 

  rhapsodyinbooks

  10 May 2010 Reply

  No, you're right. I meant the white movies in which she gets a cameo role singing, like Till the Clouds role by. She did a lot of those!

3. 

   elliottzetta

   10 May 2010 Reply

   I see--you're right. That NYT obit says her scenes were even cut sometimes when those white films toured in the South...

4. 

   Karen Strong

   11 May 2010 Reply

   That is a gorgeous picture of Lena Horne that you've posted.

   I loved the quote that they included in the NYT obit: "...I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”

5. 

   Doret

   11 May 2010 Reply

   I was watching something a few years back on TV. on Lena Horne, and she did get passed over for many movie rolls for being Black.

   At some point I couldn't watch any more. Its was the same o same o, Lena Horne had the talent but was still turned away.

   There is a biography on Lena Horne called Stormy Weather by James Garvin. It was written in the last 2 yrs.

   92 yrs old. Lena Horne, Lived.

6. 

   elliottzetta

   11 May 2010 Reply

   She sure did, despite all the obstacles...it's ironic that she got a movie contract *because* she was a nearly white-looking black actress, but then had to have brown makeup applied sometimes so that moviegoers would know she WAS black, and not white...she got bit parts in white films and even those were cut sometimes...smart move, the one-woman show.