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"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 iconic entertainer tragically died on May 10 — three years ago that is. After a newspaper incorrectly reported that Lena died yesterday, May 10, 2013, Twitter blew up and mourned the sultry singer’s death all over again.

A song for Lena Horne 1917-2010 Don’t know why There’s no sun up in the sky... If there's no sun up in the sky, it's because he's mourning the passing of the great Lena Horne, a few weeks shy of her 93rd birthday. Miss Horne was born on June 30th 1917 into a middle-class black family in Brooklyn. Her father left in 1920, and her mother turned to acting, touring in all-black productions of white shows, in one of which - Madame X - her young daughter made her stage debut. For the next six decades, she was rarely off-stage....

In the 40s Lena wasn't singing much to mixed audiences. She fought for the right to perform for mixed audiences. In the 50s the name Lena Horne could be found blacklisted. Her association with a man called Paul Robeson was one reason and the belief that Horne was a "Communist Sympathizer" was another.

Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan. Her death was announced by her son-in-law, Kevin Buckley. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin, although she was so light-skinned that, when she was a child, other...

LENA HORNE ZAPS JANET Mon Feb 23, 7:00 PM ET MICHAEL FLEMING and JOSEF ADALIAN (Variety) In the latest ripple caused by Janet Jackson (news)'s Super Bowl exposure, the singer has abruptly withdrawn from an ABC biopic about Lena Horne (news) ---putting the project in limbo. Storyline Entertainment partners Craig Zadan and Neil Meron have ankled as exec producers in solidarity with Jackson, who was due to play Horne. A spokeswoman for Jackson said she was effectively dis-invited from the movie by Horne and her daughter Gail Lumet Buckley, who were incensed when Jackson flashed during the halftime show. Horne...