Lena Mary Calhoun Horne, born in New York on June 30, 1917, was an American singer, dancer, actress and human rights activist.
In the late 1930s, Horne moved to Hollywood to try her luck in the film business. She received several smaller roles and two larger ones in the films Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather (the soundtrack to the latter film earned her a world hit). During World War II, black American soldiers were also disadvantaged and discriminated against within the military by white officers and soldiers. Once, when Lena Horne performed in an American camp where there were white, black, and POW German soldiers, she did a performance for the blacks and then left in protest.
However, as an African-American, Horne was systematically discriminated against in the further development of her career, which discouraged her and further matured her leftist ideas.
After World War II, Horne spent several years in Western Europe, performing in the Netherlands and Belgium, among other countries. After returning to the United States, during the era of Mccarthyism, she was blacklisted by Hollywood because of her leftist sympathies. However, she was able to continue working in nightclubs and regularly for television. In the 1960s, she increasingly acted as a human rights activist and participated in the peace march to Jackson (1966) with Martin Luther King, among others.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Horne again appeared with regularity on television shows, including The Muppet Show and The Cosby Show. In the early 1980s, she shone more than 100 times on Broadway in the one-woman show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music.
Horne was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1991 and received many awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989.
Horne was married to pianist, composer and arranger Lennie Hayton. The singer died in May 2010 at the age of almost 93.