Velvet-voiced singer, actor and activist who broke new ground for black performers
A handful of decades ago the roles for black performers in Hollywood movies were deliberately kept peripheral to the plots, so that their appearances could easily be edited out for screenings in the American south. Black singers and musicians were barred from taking rooms in the same hotels in which they were performing. Partners in an interracial marriage might decide to leave the Us and move to more hospitable locations, such as Paris, to avoid hate mail and threats. All this and more happened to the singer and actor Lena Horne, who has died aged 92.
Horne not only rose above it all, but also significantly contributed to changing the situation. The velvet-voiced, multi-talented Horne first negotiated, and then resisted, the worst that a racist entertainment industry could throw at her. She rose to its summit as an original...
A handful of decades ago the roles for black performers in Hollywood movies were deliberately kept peripheral to the plots, so that their appearances could easily be edited out for screenings in the American south. Black singers and musicians were barred from taking rooms in the same hotels in which they were performing. Partners in an interracial marriage might decide to leave the Us and move to more hospitable locations, such as Paris, to avoid hate mail and threats. All this and more happened to the singer and actor Lena Horne, who has died aged 92.
Horne not only rose above it all, but also significantly contributed to changing the situation. The velvet-voiced, multi-talented Horne first negotiated, and then resisted, the worst that a racist entertainment industry could throw at her. She rose to its summit as an original...
- 5/10/2010
- by John Fordham
- The Guardian - Film News
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