RIP Lena Horne

Lena Horne, "who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer," has died at age 92.

Ms. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin... Ms. Horne was stuffed into one "all-star" musical after another — "Thousands Cheer" (1943), "Broadway Rhythm" (1944), "Two Girls and a Sailor" (1944), "Ziegfeld Follies" (1946), "Words and Music" (1948) — to sing a song or two that could easily be snipped from the movie when it played in the South, where the idea of an African-American performer in anything but a subservient role in a movie with an otherwise all-white cast was unthinkable.

"The only time I ever said a word to another actor who was white was Kathryn Grayson in a little segment of 'Show Boat'" included in "Till the Clouds Roll By" (1946), a movie about the life of Jerome Kern, Ms. Horne said in an interview in 1990.

...Looking back at the age of 80, Ms. Horne said: "My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I'm free. I no longer have to be a 'credit.' I don't have to be a symbol to anybody; I don't have to be a first to anybody. I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else."

I know the exact moment I saw Lena Horne for the first time. I was 11, and she made a guest appearance on "The Cosby Show," as herself, in an episode where Claire (Phylicia Rashad) took Cliff (Bill Cosby) to see her perform for his birthday. I remember thinking how beautiful and glamorous she was, and falling utterly in love with her voice, which has remained to this day one of my absolute favorites—totally recognizable, totally unmistakable, totally butter.

RIP Ms. Horne.

[Note: If there are less flattering things to be said about Ms. Horne, they have been excluded because I am unaware of them, not as the result of any deliberate intent to whitewash her life. Please feel welcome to comment on the entirety of her work and life in this thread.]