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Lena Horne dies at 92; singer and civil rights activist who broke barriers
latimes.com ^ | May 10, 2010 | DENNIS MCLELLAN AND VALERIE J. NELSON

Posted on 05/12/2019 11:01:00 AM PDT by lowbridge

"Stormy Weather" was Lena Horne's signature song as well as a chillingly apt metaphor for her career. Long celebrated for her striking beauty and silky voice, she overcame profound racism on her way to becoming one of the best-known African American performers in the country.

At MGM, she had a seven-year contract in the 1940s when no other African American had such long-term deals. But her movie scenes were filmed so they could be easily excised for release in the Jim Crow South.

As a singer in the 1950s, Horne often performed for white audiences in supper clubs then cursed the audience under her breath as she took her bows, her biographer wrote last year.

The glamorous Horne would go on to be "one of the legendary divas of popular music," jazz critic Don Heckman wrote in The Times in 1997, with a voice that almost caressed "with its warm timbre and seductive drawl,"

Horne, whose career spanned more than 60 years, died Sunday of heart failure at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, said her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley. She was 92.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Miscellaneous; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: 2010; flashback; lenahorne; lenahorneobit; reallyoldnews
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To: lowbridge

That’s two.

RIP


21 posted on 05/12/2019 11:37:08 AM PDT by headstamp 2
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To: PIF

You know, I thought so.

Peggy Lipton just died. (72)


22 posted on 05/12/2019 11:38:10 AM PDT by headstamp 2
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To: lowbridge

She would have been 101 if she just died.


23 posted on 05/12/2019 11:39:30 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: lowbridge

Sweet Georgia Brown.


24 posted on 05/12/2019 11:39:39 AM PDT by BipolarBob (AOC is the Democrat prophecy come true : "A bartender will lead them".)
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To: lowbridge

She cursed the people paying for her comfortable lifestyle. Sounds very modern.


25 posted on 05/12/2019 11:42:20 AM PDT by Midwesterner53
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To: All

Lena’s granddaughter, screenwriter Jenny Lumet, accused Russell Simmons of assaulting her in his New York apartment in 1991 after she accepted a ride from him, and he refused to let his driver drop her at home. In an article for the Hollywood Reporter, written as an open letter to Simmons, Lumet said he used his size to force her into the elevator of his apartment building. She said he assaulted her in his bedroom, where she feared he would use violence against her if she didn’t “stay as contained as [she] could.”

“There is so much guilt, and so much shame,” Lumet wrote. “There is an excruciating internal reckoning. As a woman of color, I cannot express how wrenching it is to write this about a successful man of color. Again, shame about who I was years ago, choices made years ago. In this very moment, I feel a pang to protect your daughters. I don’t think you are inclined to protect mine.”

Lumet is the daughter of director Sidney Lumet and journalist Gail Lumet Buckley, and granddaughter of the singer and actress Lena Horne. She started her career as an actress and then became a screenwriter, best known for her script for the Jonathan Demme-directed Rachel Getting Married.


The full statement from Russell Simmons is listed below:

I have been informed with great anguish of Jenny Lumet’s recollection about our night together in 1991. I know Jenny and her family and have seen her several times over the years since the evening she described. While her memory of that evening is very different from mine, it is now clear to me that her feelings of fear and intimidation are real. While I have never been violent, I have been thoughtless and insensitive in some of my relationships over many decades and I sincerely and humbly apologize.

This is a time of great transition. The voices of the voiceless, those who have been hurt or shamed, deserve and need to be heard. As the corridors of power inevitably make way for a new generation, I don’t want to be a distraction so I am removing myself from the businesses that I founded. The companies will now be run by a new and diverse generation of extraordinary executives who are moving the culture and consciousness forward. I will convert the studio for yogic science into a not-for-profit center of learning and healing. As for me, I will step aside and commit myself to continuing my personal growth, spiritual learning and above all to listening.


26 posted on 05/12/2019 11:43:27 AM PDT by Liz ( Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: lowbridge

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0395043/


27 posted on 05/12/2019 11:53:11 AM PDT by morphing libertarian ( Use Comey's Report; Indict Hillary now; build Kate's wall. --- Proud Smelly Walmart Deplorable)
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To: originalbuckeye

I had no idea that she was still living. Sorry she didn’t like whites


28 posted on 05/12/2019 12:06:28 PM PDT by Theodore R.
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To: lowbridge

Please post obits on Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, too.


29 posted on 05/12/2019 12:11:35 PM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: lowbridge
She was beautiful and a great singer and actress, but she was as Red as a tail light--and I don't mean Red as in Red State. Her entry in Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television (New York: Business Consultants, 1950) runs to more than a page.
30 posted on 05/12/2019 12:14:43 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: lowbridge

I would like to nominate this thread for procrastinator of the decade. See Jim for your trophy.


31 posted on 05/12/2019 12:24:17 PM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D)
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To: originalbuckeye

At the time those same white people would not have allowed her to sit at the same dinner table with them, or even use the front door to enter the singing venue. I don’t blame her, the insults suffered by black entertainers in those days make me wonder why they bothered to entertain at all.


32 posted on 05/12/2019 12:31:15 PM PDT by cbvanb
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To: mason-dixon

Pretty funny to see how many people didn’t realize she was dead for 9 years already...this should be tried with the MSM to see if one could get them to post a death remembrance article of some sort.


33 posted on 05/12/2019 12:37:05 PM PDT by frogjerk (We are conservatives. Not libertarians, not "fiscal conservatives", not moderates)
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To: originalbuckeye

died Sunday of heart failure

A bad ‘heart’ is fatal.


34 posted on 05/12/2019 12:41:48 PM PDT by Scrambler Bob (You know that I am full of /S)
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To: Bigtigermike
Life was tough all over in the 30's, 40's and 50's. It wasn't a "Black Depression". It wasn't a "Black WWII". Crackers, white trash, WOPS, spics, etc.,

My heart's bleeding

35 posted on 05/12/2019 12:54:51 PM PDT by j.argese (/s tags: If you have a mind unnecessary. If you're a cretin it really doesn't matter, does it?)
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To: All

May she RIP while soloing with the angels.


36 posted on 05/12/2019 12:55:05 PM PDT by Retvet (Retvet)
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To: lowbridge

I thought she’d been dead for 15 years or more.


37 posted on 05/12/2019 1:04:31 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady ( Political correctness forbids discussing any negative outcomes of Left-wing ideology. -PMcL)
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To: A_perfect_lady
I thought she’d been dead for 15 years or more.

She got better.

38 posted on 05/12/2019 1:06:59 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: dfwgator
38 replies and NOBODY posted 1943 Stormy Weather
39 posted on 05/12/2019 1:13:28 PM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true, I have no proof, but they're true)
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To: Midwesterner53

If I were black back then I’d be pretty bitter, too.

No reason to be bitter today, though.


40 posted on 05/12/2019 1:14:52 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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