Miss Lena Horne
June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010
"My life has been about surviving.
Along the way I also became an artist.
It's been an interesting journey.
One in which music became first my refuge and then my salvation."
June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010
"My life has been about surviving.
Along the way I also became an artist.
It's been an interesting journey.
One in which music became first my refuge and then my salvation."
5 comments:
The quality and raw emotion expressed in songs from people who have struggled against prejudice, ignorance and oppression is amazing. Unsurprisingly this is often the case for black females like Lena Horne and people like Ella Fitzgerald and Tina Turner who have suffered double doses of discrimination! Their contribution to our culture is under-rated.
What is especially shocking about black performers of Lena Horne's generation (and subsequently, I'm sure) is that even when they were established 'stars' they still experienced all kinds of discrimination. Horne was passed over in favour of Ava Gardner for Show Boat because portraying an 'inter-racial marriage' on screen was taboo. When Horne was later asked why, in real life, she had married a white, she replied simply, "To get revenge!"
She was a fabulous performer.
How revolting and illogical prejudice is.
Jack Benny, despite his wealth did support minorities!
SHARON M - She was and, yes how right you are, it is.
DAVID WEEKS - That's true: when the cast of the Jack Benny radio show went to New York, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson (like all the show members a 'star') was refused a room at one of the swanky hotels because he was black; so Benny declined to have any of the cast stay there and they all moved to another hotel where there was no colour-bar.
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