Legend Lena Horne Died At The Age Of 92

Posted by mysta on May 10, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Jazz singer, actress and civil rights fighter Lena Horne died yesterday, May 9, at the age of 92.

Horne’s career had stretched over a period of more than six decades, in which she starred in every aspect of films, television, radio, nightclubs, Broadway and recording. With her death, the era of popular music, which was led by artists such as Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, nearly comes to an end.

Her path started at the age of 16 as a chorus girl in Harlem, and by 1941, when she got her first movie contract with MGM, she had already managed to get some recordings done, to become a cabaret sensation in Greenwich Village and to perform as a vocalist for the Noble Sissle and Charlie Barnet orchestras. Over the next decade she appeared in a dozen films, mostly in singing roles. By 1943 she was one of the highest-paid black entertainers in America, and was one of the best-known African–American performers in the country. In 1944 she became the first black to appear on the cover of a movie magazine after being a World War II pin-up girl.

Over the years she became more and more active in the civil rights movement, received a Kennedy Center Honor, and a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Art and Science in 1998.