Lena Horne

LENA HORNE d2010. American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer. She joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies. She later enjoyed more substantial parts in the films Cabin in The Sky and Stormy Weather. However due to the Red Scare and her left-leaning political views she found herself blacklisted and unable to find work in Hollywood. Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, she took part in the March on Washington in August 1963 and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs and on television, while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne The Lady and The Music which ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway and earned her numerous awards and accolades. She continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s before disappearing from the public eye in 2000. She died aged 92 from heart failure in 2010.