Lena Horne: racism and resilience in the Golden Age of Hollywood

History this week, February 1905. A quiet morning at the Railyard until the ground gives way, an entire locomotive is swallowed whole. It is another setback for an audacious project to tunnel under the Hudson River. And today, 115 years later, these tunnels are a national emergency

waiting to happen. Listen to history this week from the History Channel, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to your dead to me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian author and broadcaster. And today we are dawning our glad rags and finding our spotlight as we learn all about the

legendary singer and Hollywood actress, Lena Horne. And to help us we have two very special fellow performers in history corner. There are associate professor in popular music and director of Black Studies at the University of Nottingham. There are an expert on musical theatre and especially

“race and gender identity in popular culture. You'll remember them from our episode on the history”

of Broadway, it's Dr. Hannah to rise in robins. Welcome back, Hannah. Thanks for having me back. I delighted to have you back and in comedy corner. An introduction feels completely redundant for such a stalwart of your dead to me. She's a comedian, actor and writer. You've seen all of the TV on Taskmaster, Frankie Bulls' New World, Order, Qy to Hot to Handle. Maybe you've

seen her incredible new stand-up show, The Golden Roth. And you'll know her from so many episodes

of this very podcast, including recent highlights to Jonah Truth and the history of Broadway, not one episode, what an episode that would be. Yes, we're getting the band back together. It's Desirey Burch. Welcome back Desirey. Thanks so much for having me back, Greg. It's so nice to be back and find out what the heck happened before. That's the alternative name of the show. What the heck happened before? Desirey, we have covered several of our performers before. We

have done shows from Baker together, Paul Robson, Petty Barnum to an extent. Yeah, it's real. Yes, we performed being a human and just about. Just about. So if I come to you and I say the name Lena Horne, come to mind. So what comes to mind is a Glenda the Good Witch from the Whiz, because I grew up that was that was that was the Black Wizard of Oz that we grew up on in the 80s.

“And so that's sort of I think was my introduction to her and also seeing her perform on the Cosby”

show RIP. Where am I? I mean, I'm just saying, but those were my interactions with her. And she kind of, I think in my head, occupies a similar sort of like Harry Belafonte status and being a performer and an activist as well. Yeah, this is good knowledge. Okay, yeah, no, that's that's some spot on with it. Yeah, it's quite the life. I mean, I, I didn't know half of this stuff and I'm really excited. So we'd better crack on. So what do you know?

This is the so what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you. Our lovely listener might know about today's subjects. And I'm guessing there's a lot of people who've heard the name Lena Horn, but maybe don't quite know who she is. Maybe it's the deseray thing of the whiz. If you're a fan of classic Hollywood movies, maybe you've seen her in cabin in the sky or stormy weather, or you watched a start-up as deseray did as Glinda in the Wizard of Oz adaptation.

The whiz music lovers might recognize the song Stormy Weather, which is how I know about Lena Horn

or know her incredible voice from her dozens of albums. And of course, if you were a kid or a

grown up, you may be grew up watching Sesame Street and the Muppets and saw Lena Horn there. But what about Lena Horn's life story? How did she become the star of stage and screen? And what color exactly? His light Egyptian. Let's find out. Right. Professor Hannah, starting at the beginning.

“When was Lena Horn born? And what was her family background? We're a 20th century, right?”

Yeah, absolutely. So she was born on June the 30th, 1917 to what was a middle class black family. Her father Edwin was kind of a Renaissance man. He spoke six languages. He owned a restaurant and a hotel. But eventually he got caught up in gambling. Her mother Edner was an actress, however her parents separated when she was three and she went to live with her paternal grandparents.

Lena's grandmother, Chorra, was an amazing character. She was an early feminist. She was a community

activist and she took Lena to organizing events and meetings alongside her schooling. She was very restrictive about Lena's original education and Lena remembered that as the period of sort of stability and comfort during her childhood living with her grandparents. So we're dealing with what we would describe as professionals. We're thinking about lawyers, people who've been to university, people with considerable wealth, we're thinking debutant balls. This is not the sort of stereotypical

representation of black life in Harlem, but it's sometimes attributed to the stories of people who achieve fame as black musicians in the early 20th century. Okay, so it does, right? Well,

Could have been extraordinarily aware. Yeah, absolutely. But actually, yeah, do you know,

“well, can you guess what happened to upset this sort of the quite happy and bumbling along?”

I mean, any number of things could have happened. I mean, literally racism at every turn could have happened, but probably a war, I'm guessing, as well, because of the timing of it, if she was born in 1917, they were a couple of them around then, if it was all. It was pretty big one. At least one size of all one fairly large world war. But actually, even earlier in that, I mean, how do we have, I want to say the sub-sad kind of break up with the family and the mother,

sort of kidnapping her daughter? I mean, is that fair? Yes, sort of say Lena couldn't cry. So I was pretty modern day. Was there a car chase? Well, sort of, Lena Horne's grandparents or parental grandparents were estranged from her parents. And they took Lena,

but had basically no contact with Edna, her mother, and her mother was really unhappy with the

sort of straight-laced middle-class education, not exposing her to the arts that she felt Lena was getting. So essentially, she kidnapped her on the street and took her on the road as a touring actress. But actually, she left Lena with her friends, with other carers, she sent her to stay with her brother Frank, rather than actually keeping Lena with her the whole time. And eventually, when she was 12, Lena was returned to Brooklyn, to her grandparents in New York.

“So she picked her up off the street at what age? This was, I think, six. So far six years,”

she was like, "Hey kid, you're coming with me. She went to go pick her up from school and she ain't going home." Then she takes her on the road and then she's like, "Uh, bye. I got to go on stage. I got two shows a night." Yeah, absolutely. She picked her up when she was young. And left her with

everyone else. And left her with everybody else, but her grandparents, and that caused a really

complicated relationship between her and her mother. She learned a lot about the arts, though. That is true. She learned a lot about the arts, though. That is true. She learned a lot about the arts. She learned a lot about the arts, though. That is true. She learned a lot about the arts. She learned a lot about the arts, though. That is true. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. That is true.

She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. That is true. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though.

She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She learned a lot about the arts, though. If you can just win money. So this is it. Sometimes he was extremely successful. And sometimes he was extremely not successful. And so that sort of polarity meant that he stepped out of her life for most of her formative years.

And she said later on that she only really knew her father as an adult. And he was not closely connected with her grandparents. So when her grandmother died, she was forced to go back to living with her mother and her new stepfather, Mike. And she said that she couldn't really relate to this white man that her mother had married. And they fell on fairly hard times. Obviously, this was the depression, as you mentioned.

And that led to them relocating from a fairly nice house, initially to the Bronx. And then to Harlem, and trying to figure out how to make ends meet with both Edna and Mike losing their jobs in the same. Because when she was 12 and she was restored to her grandparents care, that's the great crash, right? That's the Wall Street crash in 1929. So that is a, that's a bad time to be in the economy.

This is a bad. Let's meet Teenage Lena. Tina the Lena, Lena the Lena. I don't know. I haven't I haven't worked out what I'm doing with that yet, but let's meet her. What does she do to revive the family finances does it right? Lena, Lena the Tina. I mean, if she got an education in the arts from the age of six, I am guessing that she has figured out some kind of song and dance situation to kind of help out like she's performing or doing something in the family business.

No, you're spot on a thing. We start our story with not singing yet, dancing? Yeah, absolutely. So she's 16 years old. Neither her mother or her stepfather have a job. So she secures an audition at Harlem's legendary cotton club. Yes. And this is also important to say much to the disapproval of her middle class family. This was not someone who was raised the way she was. It's a problem. I'm gambling father and her mother who's there five seconds a year. Okay. Oh, okay.

So her mother approved her mother thought this was phenomenal. She saw an opportunity to kind of

“build her own success. Through. Through. Oh, you're gonna honey boo boo. Yeah, I think it's worth”

saying that the cotton club, although kind of legendary to us now, was a really complicated space. It didn't allow black patrons in. And for example, the black musicians and chorus people were not allowed to use the bathrooms. They could only rehearse the final rehearsals in the building. It was quite a tense setup. But at the same time, a number of major artists like Cab Calaway,

Yes, you're crucially making a welcoming space for black people. You don't call it the cotton. Well, there is that. Guessing it's not a vibe. Like, hey, come on down the cotton club. Yeah. And these amazing performers are there. And they are barely welcome. And there are no black patrons. There's no customers sitting down enjoying a beer and watching. It is white people watching

“black performers. Yeah, absolutely. And I think in the bigger story, Felina Horne, the meeting with”

Duke Helington is the really essential thing that happens at the cotton club, because he identifies

her as a talent that is going to be marketable and he pops up a number of times in her career going forwards. And he starts introducing her to other singers who begin to mentor her. She starts. I should say at the cotton club, earning quite a lot of money. So she earned more than double the average African American weekly wage at about $25 a week, which sounds like nothing now, but actually was quite a considerable sum in the depression. And Edna particularly,

Edna and Mike her mum and her stepfather were really excited at this opportunity and started to push the management of the cotton club to try and give her better spots to give her opportunities to leave the cotton club and perform in other places and to give her more money. So actually, what happened was that the cotton club became quite earned hostile and unrewarding environment Felina, because she had kind of unhappy conditions in general. And then her caregivers,

basically hustling the management to the point that the step has stepfather actually got beaten up

by some heavies, because he was getting on management's nerve same much. I mean, you know what's going to make your boss really pleased is your mom and dad calling every day and being like, how come you're not paying her more for the same work? You know, I think they're going to really treat you well while you're working there the whole time. Was she working solely as a dancer? Was she singing at this point and dancing as well? She's been there for a while.

So she began as a dancer, but she was singing as well. The chorus was multifaceted and she certainly started to get spots during this time. She stars in her first Broadway musical called Dance with Your Gods and she would go do that and then come back and perform at the cotton club. So in 1935 aged 18 or so, she does leave the cotton club and she's off on tour and in what capacity? You know, who is she touring with and what is she doing on tour? Is she now the kind of, you know,

song and dance lady or is there a bit of dance theatre variety? But what do you need? I mean, I would describe this as the main transition into her like musical career. She decides

“the only way to break her contract at the cotton club given the environment is to run away.”

So she flees and she runs off to, I think, Philadelphia and she's not that far. I mean, yeah, it was times, I mean, that was more than just in the name track. Oh yeah. And she's a queues, an audition with Noble Sissel, who some listeners may remember from his involvement in shuffle along and various other high-limiting activities. He is now running a major orchestra called the Society Orchestra and he signs her as a new attraction and she

becomes the star figure, but she draws particular attention for being one of few women allowed to lead or what we would now go conduct the orchestra. Oh. But truth be told, she claims that she just weighed to stick in the orchestra actually followed one of the other musicians. She's a pretty lady with a stick and they're like, great, you should be at the front. And I guess during this time, she releases

her first records with Dekka. So she's transitioning from the stage environment to a sort of

bigger portfolio of work. But here they come again. She was under considerable pressure because her stepfather Mike and her mother traveled with the band. Right. And she was constantly on edge expecting that Mike was going to lose his cool and cause a problem. And actually, he does yell at Noble Sissel for letting the musicians use the kitchen exit in a segregated hotel and not respecting his players and eventually Mike has kicked off the tour. This is so complicated because first of all,

it's like a do her does her mom and her stepdad have a job at this point or is there only job annoying home Julia? She's the, yes, you know, the production model. But then he's like, okay, you know, lots of people. I mean, Mike doesn't have necessarily skin in the game. It sounds like he's a white guy. And but he's like, you can't just let your black entertainers be treated like second class citizens because there'd be no show. And that's a thing that a lot of black artists

historically have had to do and like put their foot down about. So he is doing something quite useful.

“But he's doing it in the most stage dad way. We're just like, can you just please let me work?”

Why did you follow me to Philly? Do you understand running away? I'm running away. And you're coming so age 19, she manages to escape her parents does her own what is the classic escape her parents move at 19. She picks up a lime bike and just floors it. She's like, this is the only way

you'll never catch me. She doesn't eat teeth. Cycles away from the government. Just a scooter.

He holds in a big dress like that. He doesn't pick up a bike. Okay, he picks up a fair. She's like, oh, okay. You see original bike. She's the right. Hannah, who is her beloved hubby? Yeah. In 1937, she runs away to Pittsburgh this time and she marries

“this guy, Louis Jordan Jones or Louis Jordan Jones. I think it is actually and he is from a similar”

middle class black background. He's the son of a minister. He's a college graduate. He's an aspiring politician. But their marriage is made challenging by the fact that Leanne Horn continues to work and he was looking for a different kind of wife who's going to support his political aspirations rather than make her a money. They have two children, Gayle and Teddy. Yeah. Teddy's named after her father, yeah. Okay. Why do people with the name Ed or Edward think that Ted is a useful,

suitable nickname. That's a totally different name. What are we doing? You already have Ed, Eddie, where's Ted with? Come on. Thank you. So many options. Well, let's just call you Fred. Moving to Gayle and Teddy as siblings. The sad thing here, the thing I find particularly affecting is this, they're separated when the marriage fails and Leanne, you know, that they split apart. The children are split apart. Yes. So Leanne goes back to New York and she is allowed. That's

how the language goes to take Gayle her daughter. But her husband wants to keep the son with him.

So she basically doesn't see her son apart from him some more holidays, really until he's an adult.

He stays behind and Gayle goes with her. So we have a replication at the exactly the same time. She loses contact with her father when she's three years old and she leaves her son when he's three. She moves to New York and that does go well. Or at least that's the plan. She doesn't get work immediately. I've got once she does, it starts to gain momentum just through her sheer force of personality. She bugs everyone she ever met during the cotton club. She goes for

tons of auditions. And eventually she secures this singing job with a white trumpeter called Charlie Barnett who runs this orchestra. However, this is the first time she's touring with what's an all white orchestra. And that confronted her with a whole set of new problems. So for example, some hotels would claim they hadn't booked the band when they arrived with her. At other times she was left behind when they went to play in venues that where she wasn't permitted to

perform. So this is quite a complicated environment for her and after about six months she's decide she needs to get out. And she secures an audition via the record producer John Hammond who's aware of her from Decker to audition at Cafe Society downtown. So there were two cafe societies. One up down and one down down as a solo artist. And it is the up and coming cabaret venue in New York and it boasts artists like Billy Holiday who first performed strange fruit there. Poor robes

“and is a regular performer and that's how they become friends. And it is really the beginning of”

Lena Horne becoming Lena Horne. And this is as an establishment this is interesting because they allow mixed audiences. So it's a mixed bill on stage, right? You've got black and white musicians, but also the audiences can be anyone who wants to come see music. Is this in the village? Where is this? They're allowing this to happen. It's downtown Manhattan. It was pioneering. They were in some ways trying to create an antidote to the cotton club environment by having a

multi-racial environment. But actually when you look at the lineup, they were clearly poaching. Quite a lot of the performers there, Duke Ellington, was there regularly and he gets, you know, back in connection with Lena Horne. It's like we'll let you walk in the front door here. I mean, it's done. And they build all these new relationships. Exactly. When you come, you can weed. I mean, think about it. It's exactly that straightforward. Suddenly people are allowed

to hang out. They're able to get to know each other. They make a massive amount of connections.

“This is also important in Lena Horne's later story because she meets people like the”

film director Vincent Manelli. During this time, so there's a lot. There's a lot of opportunity for her, but this is also how she gets reconnected with, for example, black unions and black organising because she becomes great friends with groups. Yeah. And obviously, listen as we've done an episode with Desiree, about Paul Robeson, who was an extraordinary figure and, you know, go listen to that because it's quite the life. This is a very beautiful glamorous young woman in

her mid-twenties. Also Desiree, obvious question, you know, is showbiz all about image first,

technique later. Yes. Okay. I mean, look, there's an incredible amount of talent I think,

already making quite a bit of money on the image factor. So I imagine that that, and just sort of a general being comfortable around artists in that world got her a lot further than actually needing to employ talent. You know, it would be great if she had this like well-spring of like dramatic, you know, life and upbringing and pain that she could draw from. So put it to that song. All right. So we have Lena Horne. We're now into 1940s. She pretent she can't sing, but we

she can sing. She's a singer. She's a performer. But in 1942, she did what every performer with her song and their heart and dream in their soul does. She headed to Tinseltown to go shake her

“tail feathers. Was it a wild goose chase? Does she have what you need to be a movie star? Because”

that's a whole other category of fame. Yeah. It's really interesting. She always said,

"She never wanted to be a film star." She was never interested in Hollywood. She didn't like California. But her agent... One is a runaway from her parents. Yeah. And that's far as you can get in there. Well, there's quite a lot of like running away from California that comes actually, but her agent persuades her to go to LA to a venue that Duke Helington is working at. There's a new up and coming space called The Little Trock. And it became the go-to place for Hollywood's

great and good. So people like Marlene Adiotri, Cole Porter, Greta Garbo, were in the audience watching. Wow. And at that time, Horne inevitably gets spotted by numerous film producers and film scouts. And actually, that led initially to her having a screen test for the film Casa Blanca. Wow.

“But actually, that character is then played by a man in the actual... Oh, no way. Yeah. And in”

the end, it's MGM. The producer Roger Edens, who sees Horne and takes her seriously and decides to take her to meet Arthur Fried. Arthur Fried is the head of the division, producing screen musicals. And they decide together, along with Vincent Manale, who they bump into, who she already

knows, that she should go an audition for L.B. Mayer, the second MGM in MGM. Yeah, himself.

I would say that her transition into Hollywood is a reluctant one. And she decides to take her father Edwin, who she's reconnected with at this point. So he's back in the picture. She's now successful. She's an adult. She's able to make some, you know, agent decisions. Is he still gambling? I know that this isn't like the major overarching question, but when you bring a parent back into your life that you cut yourself off from, you'd like to hope that they've

like seeing the error of their ways and what took them away or is he planning on running off of the lottery money? I just don't know if my heart's going to get better. He's not planning to run off with a lot of money. I'm poor shadowing again. It was a very surprising audition. L.B. Mayer is immediately taken with her. He can see the appeal. He immediately understands what Roger Eden's who is an associate producer has recognized, but they are not prepared for her

and Edwin to come in and negotiate what she isn't going to do. Right. So with his help, she says that they're not going to accept any old part and he says that he could just hire Lena Horner, a maid with his own money. So she's not going to be playing servants on screen. They also negotiate that she won't play any illiterate or uneducated part and she won't play any jungle or Tarzan stereotype. Thank God. So Horner's kind of background that we talked about

before her class identity, but also I think actually her lack of investment in making films allowed her to advocate here. She wasn't desperate. She wasn't immediately wanting whatever they offered her and that did allow her on some level to advocate for herself. So the dad's sort of running the show a bit. So is he her agent? He acts sort of as her agent. She uses him as an advocate for her. I think there are a lot of factors in her life. She has her agent. She also has pressure

from outside to try and forge a path in Hollywood for other black actors and I think she really

“needed someone to back her and that's what he comes in to do. And she gets an extraordinary”

contra. For a first time debut aunt. Seven-year gig. So she'd done a couple of independent

black films at the end of the 30s, but you're basically those have not been widely distributed. They were not prominent movies. She had the appeal. I think that's the thing we can say. She had the appeal, but also they saw an opportunity to represent a different kind of music within some of these film musicals that are made. So she gets in the end a seven-year film contract which and she was the first black actor of any gender to get such a major deals. This was that one year

they were really doing DI and they just really knocked it out of the park and nobody else ever got a deal ever. 1942 to 1943. This is also based on her previous experience. She has had this

won't stay in hotels unless they're where her white co-star stay and she has to be allowed to

eat in the same restaurant. So she actually drives MDM to put their money in more liberal spaces and fought that Lena Horne gets $350 a week which is increased to $100 a week every year and it's really important to say that while that is more than 10 times what she got at the cotton club, actually Freda Stair's signing rate with MDM was $1,500 a week. So although this was not small money it was also not the equivalent of what the big stars were making and Freda Stair's

contract is from the early 30s. So this is a decade later. Do we know what white women were making because obviously they were probably making less than Freda Stair's well like where does her salary compared to other women? Well if we use Hattie McDaniel as another black woman, Hattie McDaniel who is already famous when she makes gone with the wind makes $700 a week but I do think that's worth saying that what Lena Horne has is a permanent contract so she's getting this every week.

Sure. Whereas for example Freda Stair was never on retainer with MDM, he did a higher cost

contract but for shorter times but you're absolutely right there is a wealth of this

“pregnancy in this if you think take the film top hat that Freda Stair is in. He has paid I think”

it's four times the amount that Ginger Rogers has paid and she has paid in costumes partially. So there's a gender component and then a black tax for one of about a way of programming. So Lena Horne's debut, MGM debut is a film called Panama Hattie and she's playing herself. Panama Hattie is an adaptation of a stage musical by Cole Porter and I think it's a really interesting insight into what MGM attempted to do with her and it's kind of a oblique insights

simultaneously apologies but she is split between portrayal of just a singer in a cafe and also

performs a new song written specifically for the film called The Spin and The Spin is this bizarre exotic splurge of references to Cuba to the Caribbean more broadly to southern America to Latin culture they deliberately immediately start to lean on the idea of her being slightly ethnically ambiguous and this then feeds into sort of her wider marketing across film in general

“but I think it's also really important to say that this is also a time where black actors were”

sometimes listed as props and not as cast people in the paperwork at the studios so the complexity of the ways in which they are conceptualizing race cannot be overstated. Can you give me an example of how they were listed as props? It's like starring, you know, Tid as the broom? I was produce these documents outlining the contents of the films this would include the list of scenes, the number of songs, who the cast were and then they would have a

prop list where they would have table, kettle, six chairs and in one and Louis Armstrong. It's a bleak act but it is a really important nuanced understanding what it might have been like to be making a film for her at that time. I mean that's horrific but also just absurd isn't the idea

“he's not even a human in the cast list he's just absolutely. He's in that furniture. I think when”

we talk about her race identity and weaponizing her race identity we also have to recognize that they start doing it right away and whether we want to perceive that as mobilizing light skin privilege or whatever it is being set against this really bleak dehumanizing context for all black performers. And that brings us to an important point actually. Almost immediately Leena Holland's big break was somewhat sad because she was caught in the crossfire between two

sort of organisations right the civil rights movement and then the film unions and these are both organisations with noble intentions and yet they are disagreeing and Leena is sort of the battle ground. How does that work? Yeah absolutely I think she gets caught in the middle of a lot of different political priorities during her sort of decade at MGM the NAACP and a couple of other black unions were particularly invested in addressing representation in Hollywood at this point and

they saw Leena Horn as a tool as an opportunity they felt that she had an aesthetic her visual appearance her vocal style would appeal to the white executives and they sort of saw her as a Trojan horse if you like to quote unquote break the color line and to get an actor who was not white into multiracial films. History this week February 1905. A quiet morning at the rail yard until

project to tunnel under the Hudson River and today 115 years later these tunnels are a national emergency waiting to happen. Listen to history this week from the history channel wherever you get your podcasts. I have filmed that sort of I've stood the test of time I suppose would be stormy weather and cabin in the sky those are the classic early movies that you can still watch now I guess those are all black cast or predominantly black cast these are films with great stars in all the main roles

so she's part of a black ensemble. Yeah and if you look at her filmography really those two films cabin in the sky which is an adaptation of a hip stage show and stormy weather which was an original film made by Fox are really the highlights of her film career in the forties and yeah as you say they

“are all black cast so it's important to say that everybody behind the camera was white and what”

happened there was they got the great and good of black performance into these films and created

these amazing sort of back and out if you like celebrations in those films they are the only

examples where Lina Horn has dialogue where she gets to interact with other people and she actually has character arcs after that she basically loses the opportunity to have a meaningful interaction with the plot of any musical film and you said when we did our preparatory zoom call you said something quite shocking she would sometimes not be allowed to stand too close to fellow actors so they could physically cut her out of movies yes there's an amazing that's right your eyes are you're eyes

went very well yeah yeah yeah this is like before CGI they're just literally like we will just place the film just in case they literally just had a sort of frame around her so they could

“what when they're playing in the south or I recommend you watch the first five minutes of till the”

clouds roll by from nineteen forty six this is the biopic about the composer during the current and in it they stage a sequence from the musical show boat oh they cut together several scenes actually and that is one of the few scenes in which Lina Horn appears with a mass of white people but what happens is every actor in that gets a freeze frame for a two five seconds and then is in a group they briefly show Lina Horn and then she literally backs out of shot and then

is not in the wide frame wide angle group shots so there was literal removal from physical action taking place but she became what was really the fate of all black actors at the time which is referred to as a feature actor she would be given a song number sometimes with some dance it would be irrelevant to the plot she wouldn't have often a named character she would often be appearing as Lina Horn and those scenes could just be I mean she could just be cut those scenes could just

be cut from the film so for example she made a joke in her the 80s about the fact that when she

went to Texas for the first time no one had ever seen her in the film she was in the other thing

I suppose we have to talk about in terms of racism or at least you know prejudice on set would be her hair and makeup does the right do you know what I mean we I'm like I know her hair makeup was bad because that's not good now so I mean we mentioned it very early on you may have you may recall light Egyptian oh my god do you know what I'm referring to a light Egyptian I imagine that that was the makeup color skin tone that they were going for and not like that some of the

perm they were using and what is light Egyptian and how does this you know how was her hair makeup sort of in some ways othering of her in other ways of glamorizing in the 40s the white press couldn't decide what her skin tone was but one of the ways in which she was racialized

is that they always refer to her skin color in headline she was referred to as CPR as copper

“as chocolate like these are not the same shades of foundation to put it a horrible way and I think”

there's a really important point about how she was lit and how she was represented so yeah you're right the Max Factor Max Space Factor was working for MGM and was used to making spespoke foundation shade so he made one called platinum for gene hollow and he makes light Egyptian for Lena Horn but this is just one part of the reality of the hair and makeup environment for when she does her screen test they only have the makeup for bill by Drangles Robinson on hand people who know

what bill by Drangles Robinson looked like know that he's a much darker skinned actor and so she actually looked like she was in a minstrel show in her screen test and that is actually what leads them to develop the Max Factor shade but we also have the reality that the hairdressers union banned their members from touching her head and so the head of hairdressing has to design all her styles himself hired a black woman off the books she's called tiny Kyle and she becomes

part of like Lena Horn's like course yeah but there's a really important point here that

done in the same room as the white actors who are being treated by union members so some of the

“stories about her being isolated about her being cold and aloof from other performers and particularly”

from other black performers was specifically to do with the way in which the hairdresser union

treatment need your repeat half of that because I went for a tail spin the second we said that

the hairdresser was not allowed to touch her head is this like a Jim Crow thing like no water fountain's no hair you can't touch your head because it'll bite your fingers off and you'll be like okay so they just had to put design the wigs and then she had to do it herself so they didn't design the wigs they wouldn't have anything to do with that head of hairdressing designed her wigs she wants referred to him deciding to make her look like head Eva Lamar as a result like

it actually this became part of the racial uttering of hers because she ended up having someone who didn't know anything about her hair or how she would look design quite quite white hair styles that would then put on her head they then hired this black woman tiny to look after her and they've ever come sort of for a long time friends tiny helps look after her kids and you know right yeah that is a tiny happy nugget in a very bleak amazing moment Hannah and when we

talk about the Jim Crow laws you know these are segregation laws that keeping white and black people apart in public spaces yeah the Jim Crow laws were about protecting quote unquote white interests they were about restricting interracial marriage they were about restricting employment rights post the abolition of slavery and they existed well into the 20th century I mean we do know that the the shape the light Egyptian foundation was also used by Liz Taylor as clear patrera and Eva

gardener in showboat which was a role in a horn really wanted so she's playing a character called Julie who is a white passing mixed race well you know speaking as a white passing mixed race

person that I find it kind of funny how that role is always played by white actresses but yet

they used her foundation shade to try and add quote unquote ethnic ambiguity or imply non-whiteness on white actors we need to talk about we've already well she was born in 1917 during one of those big old wars he mentioned as we right of course she was working through the second world war America joined the war in December 1941 so do we get a sense of leaner horn as the kind of you know does she go and do the big she had a U.S. so yeah it's actually like behind

with her horns and it's all dressed looking in a hat first because she didn't talk about that look actually she was she was often described as the first black pin up particularly for white soldiers at that point when she went on tour with the USA and Hannah USO is the kind of entertainment arm of the army what were two yeah this is the united service organizations and they were specifically thinking about getting entertainment to people who were fighting in the war but she soon discovered

in her words that Jim Crow existed or was alive and well in the army so she was expected to do separate shows for the white officers than for black soldiers but she noticed that prisoners of war were sat in front of the black soldiers so initially she would go to the back of the the performance space and sing directly to the black soldiers but eventually she just started to refuse to perform so leaner parted ways with the USO because of her sort of feelings of concern about the way

the black soldiers were being treated and that led her to reach out and find new ways of accessing service people and that included working with the NAACP but also through the army special service so segregation in the army and she'd already faced that because cotton club she'd already sort of lived there at once and so she here she was certainly saying bringing sort of 20 years of progress

“and the army was still way behind is that fair yeah absolutely I think the the reality of”

imprisoned people fighting on the other side getting a better seat was really challenging to confront and all of these black service people fighting for America not being treated and it's not like with the black service members at like the back of the trenches you know like they said the bride in right up front exactly yeah so she's the first black pin-up girl but for perhaps for white soldiers which again is it's interesting in terms of her identity and black soldiers

and but of course but in just in terms of how she's marketed as a glamorous beautiful woman and of course you know the war ended in 1945 and our our unlucky in love miss horn does get married again so I've got good news there and hubby number two is this someone lina can lean on is he gonna be a kind of loyal loving hubby who lets her be the star who is he certainly at the beginning yes okay and lina horn marries the mgm arranger and conductor Lenny Hayton initially they

don't get on she didn't trust white men in her words and he didn't trust singers but eventually

“they get a coin that's the best way that sentence could have ended yeah because I was worried yeah”

yeah I couldn't frame that better never mind they build this relationship together and eventually

and private because interracial marriages still illegal in California so they're married in Paris

“simply because it's illegal in the birthday living work so they married interracial marriage is made”

legal in California the year later in 1948 okay this comes at a time where lina's film career is starting to stall she's refusing to play these anti-black stereotypes and they're trying to push her to do it she amatly said to be suspended from mgm's payroll for a period in 1945 because she won't take the part she's being given she's also got these associations with radical black group she's pouring her income into union organizing and she's known to be

a friend of poor robes and so they have a context in which the studio is starting to see her as a problem and then she goes and marries Lenny I mean if she's hanging out with Paul Robinson and doing all the organizing as she's about to get a big sea stamped all over her because this is that time okay absolutely right I mean let's suppose the sentence has been accompanied not cancer kids no you know I mean we're talking here about the communist witch and then Holly okay okay that is what

brings down Paul Robinson to a certain extent she dodges it by going abroad right is that is that fair or did she force the broad I mean her and Lenny I'm gonna call them Lenny that's their couple names Lenny Lenny Lenny Lenny Lenny Lenny Lenny Lenny Lenny Lenny there overseas right from 50 to 52

yeah so lina horn is named in red channels as a communist and that's basically the end of her time

at mgm for a number of years she goes to Europe as you say Lenny uses his skills to arrange these bespoke versions of songs for her and she sets up as one of the premiere night's club performers really in the world and releases a live album in 1957 and that becomes the biggest selling record by a solo female artist on the RCA victory label so that is 57 so she's 40 by that point obviously that's a still a young woman by you know that standard terms but in terms of in terms of showbiz 40's fairly mature so

this is their greatest hits this is a sort of you know she's in the gram on it by that point it's at this point is she now hailed as a great vocalist yeah because she used to say that she wasn't but she's now 57 best selling artists on the record label is she now a brilliant singer

“yeah i think by the peak of fame of stormy weather in 43 she was definitely known as a singer”

and her relationship with dukellington allowed her to really apply herself to her singing star but the relationship with Lenny allows her to explore her voice and being away from mgm where they were very restrictive about where in her voice they would place her songs to force her not to belt to stop her from opening her mouth too wide there is all of those kind of know she's aware this is it there were all of these kind of racial coatings in terms of how she heard

music was arranged to mgm once she and Lenny go on tour she's able to be free and a lot of

that musical space that was restricted with open to her again amazing and of course by the 1960s

the civil rights movement moves into that era where we're all familiar with what's happening we talked before about Josephine Baker we've talked about robes and she's not necessarily front and centre in terms of like giving big speeches but she's involved big time now but she's back in american now yeah okay so she's the 50s she's all throughout europe she's like not really based anywhere she's just performing in a recording yeah so how involved is she in the civil

rights movement through the late 50s into the 60s because it's the million man marches 63s it yeah so like what level of involvement does she have so she moves back to the US sort of the end of the 50s um where she does an obscure musical called Jamaica and becomes the first black woman to be nominated for Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and yeah they start to put down roots

“but ultimately I think the civil rights movement is a turning point in her life and she meets Martin”

Luther King early on that process who are still to sing at a rally and through that she becomes involved in fundraising for him fundraising for the student nonviolent coordinating committee she works with Ellen the Roosevelt on anti lynching legislation she attends the march on Washington with Josephine Baker there's a beautiful photo of them standing in front of the money in the life and and this is kind of the beginning of her being very prominently vocal about you know

political activism in the 1970s she speaks out for black women radicals like Angela Davis when she's incarcerated fantastic and in 1983 and the NAACP award her the spring on medal which is a big deal right yeah absolutely and for outstanding achievement by an African American so she was recognized for having a longstanding investment but I think it's also worth saying that through the 40s she had been supporting radical politicians helping with union fundraisers and thinking about the ways in

which like black political organizing could function and then in civil rights she came to understand that the way she'd been used as a figurehead or an aspirational symbol of blackness was actually

radical consciousness again and the NAACP I know that's an important organization but I'd love

“just definition of what that stands for so it's the national association for the advancement”

of colored people and it was a wide-ranging political organization that operated across the U.S. part of it was a political agenda functioning kind of as a union but it also had an education arm it was thinking about moving black rights, black employment, black education forwards and obviously came out when we used to say colored people yes yeah because they didn't want to change the acronym like that we were a black yeah they sort of stormy weather that she'd sung about in in 43 unfortunately

stormy weather came for her in 1971 she had a sort of a really tragic 18 months or so which she lost a lot of people she loved yeah so by this point she and Lennie have separated um because she was just less interested in her music career and in more involved in political activism no idea what Lennie did or what he was like he was just a white man she didn't trust but then she did enough to marry him he gave her a career in Europe and then he dipped he was just like I'm a

part of ice by you well sometimes yeah nice of it goes that way for Lennie my girlfriend he's just over you and Lennie passed away so they separate and then her father and her son both passed away within six months of each other so her son Teddy her son Teddy and Edwin both passed in very close proximity and she'd really thought she'd only reconnected with them as they were adults obviously she didn't see her son very much when he was a child and it's only during her

success at MGM that she's able to bring him into her life star because she has the money to offer him the kind of education that her father his father wanted him to have so yeah this is a really difficult time and she is in a big transition refays having done her films she's recovered partially three television and three her touring and is now kind of at a juncture of doing something new.

“I think she might be the first person on your dead to me history who had a sort of TV career”

we don't tend to come into the 60s and 70s that much I think she might be our first TV star

so I mean I'll have to check and you mentioned the whiz at the beginning that's yeah that's 1978 yeah do you know who else is in the cast? oh I mean Diana Ross knows notably and Michael Jackson yeah and I got nipsy Russell yeah I'm like I'm just listing the credit loads of people she's playing Glinder so she's she's sort of you know that's the kind of the Ariana Grande role now I suppose but it's obviously a huge thing for her tell us about her

music career in the 80s so the appearance on the whiz is really symbolic because she has transitioned into being essentially an industry veteran and she gets to basically sing a song that Diana Ross has just performed and we have a kind of classic version and then we have this blues, gospel, re working of it specifically for her and that throws it out what she sounded like mgm and completely re-forms her sound as a result she starts working live again and she has a

one woman show called the lady in her music which opens in 1981 and runs on Broadway for a year she has some time in Las Vegas as well and from that she wins a special Tonya Ward that is a speech worth watching if anyone has five minutes and she wins two gramis and in this moment she really moves from interpreting music by other people kind of being told where to stand and what to

“sing to becoming Lina Horn truly herself on stage I think amazing so actually there's spring”

arm medal from the NAACP at Grammese Tonya Ward I'm getting a sense here that she's reached icon status like yeah important to the community but important to culture institutions they're all going this person deserves awards when you see her in the whiz there is no question that she's gotten icon status because she just appears like etherealy and is like believe in yourself I'm out yeah my drop yeah I think it's such a magical performance because she just appears as like

this ball of hope yes but it's also of survival right and you know she gets a Kennedy Center on her quite soon after there she's recognised by the NAACP she's doing still recording quite late into her life as well so she kind of takes on this presence taking her experience from when she was working in film and from what went on in the 50s and supporting all these young artists talking to them about film conditions helping them figure out their working contracts so she's both a

off stage or off screen becomes a sort of mental figure to various people I mentioned she doesn't win that Tonya Ward Diane Carroll does in four years time and credits Lina Horn with helping her

find her way in film and on the stage so we have the slight double edge she's still this amazing

scenes as well she lived until 92 so she's born in 1917 she lived to why presumably to vote for

“Barack Obama right she is because I'm like she I remember her dying like in a whole different millennia”

yeah yeah so she lived to see a black president and still be an icon and receive all of her flowers and get all her awards it's the real end of the story wanted right yeah and I helped everyone and yeah was a comment isn't that wasn't yeah he's just born during segregation before any woman could vote yeah she was mentored by Billy holiday and Diana Washington she marched on Washington she sang with Michael Jackson and she lived to see Barack Obama become president so I think it's a remarkable

life's fam but as you say she also died rich and I hope happy which is unusual in this she had two husband she was no longer with so I'm guessing she was pretty happy so she died in 2010 aged 92 important question here does it really I can't believe I'm gonna ask this who's more important leaner horn or Alex horn from time to time sorry I had to do

“see here's the thing I mean I think we all know the correct answer although my fan base is going to”

say please say Alex please say and I will say I think that if Alex horn him we're here himself he would say leaner horn I hope so to not be so silly for once I mean genuinely extraordinary life leaner horn and it's not a story I knew it's all other than the song stormy weather that's all I knew is a reference point and you had your own reference point so yeah from encountering that and also like when you talked about her at the beginning like obviously I live long enough to see

her in her later years in her pathway so I knew that like things were relatively happy but when you talked about her beginning being sort of like oh things were actually pretty well set up in black middle class that usually goes one of two ways like usually it's sort of like stable or it's like a miles Davis version where it's like everything just sort of corines into insanity yeah I was waiting to see if there was ever any of that element but it seemed like she was just trying to be

resilient against like being buffeted by society and all of these various odds like being expelled from Hollywood as a communist and going to a Europe and coming back from that and having a whole renewed phase of your career where everyone's like oh actually here's all of your flowers

and a broadway show and you know all of this work is really incredible and rarely happens absolutely

the new ones window what it's time now for the new ones window this is where it doesn't write an eye stand quietly in the chorus line for two minutes doing some jazz hands but you know no singing while a professor Hannah takes center stage to tell us something we need to know about Lena Horne so my stopwatch is ready take it away professor Hannah so Lena Horne relentlessly talks about the loneliness and isolation that she felt at MGM and that it made her seem like she didn't

want to be in community with other black performers she came to believe that she was chosen by movie executives so that they could capitalize on her perceived racial ambiguity and that made her work and the profile of her success understandably contentures for a really long time and yet the

peaks of her career and I would say her story more generally were always in community with other

black artists meanwhile she balanced pouring her fortune into grassroots movements she got involved

“in national organizing and she was essential in helping up and coming black performers make choices”

about their contracts they're working conditions based on her experience Lena Horne became a star because she was crowded by support and whatever storm she was weathering unlike many others she was willing to admit her mistakes and to grow intellectually in public her story shows the appeal of having had a figurehead but also the limitations of having one person in body such a diverse community of people and Horne really tried to pay that investment back to others but while making

the most of the platform she was given I would say her custodian ship and her commercial impact paved the way for public acceptance of a lot of black artists including the mega-stardom of Diana Ross who took over from Horne as the world's most photographed black woman her survival and endurance was remarkable but it was also sometimes messy she reminds us to embrace the complex stories behind the successes and the however exceptional and isolated people tried to make her she

relentlessly return to her people her values and to paying her luck forward amazing thank you so much that's right any final thoughts um that's really incredible what an amazing woman I mean I

she never called me and helped me out that's why my so Alex Horne is my bug so what are you know now

see how much she has learned you know I took notes and I think I don't know if they've helped

“because there's too many notes and I think I've maybe able miss the forest for the truth”

but let's find your good at quizzes normally you were like your memory yeah I know but I'm 46 so what's a memory so so I decided to write things down but now there's too many facts because normally people die young she went to 92 she made it through was eight decades before so ten questions yeah here we go question one what was the profession of Lena Horne's mother

oh she was an actress she was traveling actress yes um question two 16-year-old Lena first

performed in which Harlem club oh the unfortunately named but purposely named cotton club absolutely question three during World War II Lena Horne was often described as the first what for the troops oh pinup girl yeah yeah first black pinup girl yeah the first black pinup again okay what were they pinning up before question four who helped Lena negotiate a better contrast with Louis B. Maya and GM oh I wrote this down in my notes please

hold your call is important to us yes exactly okay wait a second oh of course her dad yeah dad showed up and yeah they go shaded all of them yeah yeah question five what was the name of the foundation shade designed for Lena Horne oh this one I had to write down because every time I heard it I just my eyes rolled so far back in my head that I didn't remember anything so wait no the bronze venus was the film that she did but it was Egyptian it was uh what was it it was an Egyptian

goal it was Egyptian where did I write this down I need a search feature on this control that

yes seriously I definitely will wait a second I wrote down Max Factor's name light Egyptian well done

“right you can't just be a regular Egyptian that is far too black you remember that country's”

in Africa don't wait light Egyptian it's a classic very good question six what did Lena Horne objective when playing for US troops for the USo during World War II wow well that the POWs were placed up front but the black member placed in the back and they wouldn't just let her start up from the back but also they should not be absolutely in segregation also with officers too question seven what was the name of Lena's musical arranger second husband oh um Lenny Lenny it was it was

a Lenny Lenny production Lenny Lenny Lenny Lenny yeah question eight in 1983 Lena Horne was awarded the spring on metal by which famous organization the NACPA the NAACPA the NAACPA the NAACP my friend there you can find is a terrible thing the waste absolutely did you guys have that you didn't have that here because that's an American thing but that was the all through the 80s and the commercials because the mind is a terrible thing to waste that's a good line question nine what 1978 musical film

did Lena Horne star in oh wait what 1979 78 oh go with like the one and only yeah absolutely and this for perfect score of course what year did Lena Horne die out 2010 yeah absolutely bonkers she was like you're welcome America we should have come for a pretty mind when we were still and then she I mean thank god she got out before everything got bonkers trying

“again well does it right 10 out to never end out I think the note system did work it did work”

there was some fairly intense shuffling like this no I mean you know I like I got Tony nomination she knew too many people with the name Diana Diane or Diana it's a lot of that going around amazing well thank you so much Desiree thank you so much Hannah listener if you want more musical

icons with Desiree we've always got episodes on Josephine Baker Paul Robeson the Broadway musicals

episode with Dr Hannah and Desiree I think we also talked today about all sorts of other things intersecting that the Harlem and Ace on episode you can go back to that too for more film actors we've got the history of Bollywood episode and the Sarah Burnheart episode if you've enjoyed the podcast please share the show with your friends subscribe to your dead to me on BBC sounds to hear new episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else and if you're outside the UK you can listen at BBC.com or

wherever you get your podcasts and I'd just like to say huge thank you to our guest in history corner we have the incredible Dr Hannah to rise in rubbins from the University of Nottingham thank you Hannah thank you and in comedy corner we had our leading lady Desiree Birch thank you so much Desiree with apologies to Alex Horan he knows where I am yeah he's gonna find you in the street spray and so you lovely listen I join me next time as we launch our comeback tour for another forgotten

historical star but for now I'm off to going get my dad to renegotiate my BBC contract bye you're dead to me it's a BBC studio is production for BBC radio 4 this episode was researched by Rosalind Sclar it was written by Dr Emirose Price Good Fellow Dr Emma Negose and me the audio producer was Steve Hanky our production coordinator was Jill Huggett it was produced by Dr Emirose Price Good Fellow me and senior producer Dr Emma Negose and our executive editor was

theaters around the UK this spring you can join him in London Cardiff Edinburgh and Manchester

“and for more information and ticket details go to your dead to me live dot com”

hello Alex von Tunderman here with a brand new series of histories heroes people with purpose

brave ideas and the courage to stand alone including the little known story of a famous author

“caught up in a horrific accident which would require all his courage Dickens remained in the river”

helping the rescue assisting the wounded he didn't search out to be heroic he didn't play on his

heroism subscribe to history's heroes on BBC sounds history this week February 1905

“a quiet morning at the rail yard until the ground gives way an entire locomotive is swallowed whole”

it is another setback for an audacious project to tunnel under the Hudson River and today 115 years later these tunnels are a national emergency waiting to happen listen to history this week from the history channel wherever you get your podcasts