"Lena Horne: The Voice of Victory" - a post by HepClassic

Today marks five years since we lost one of entertainment's greatest treasures, Ms. Lena Horne.

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In her honor, a fellow classic film lover and blogger, HepClassic, shared a post he'd originally written in 2010, not long after her passing:

"I was twelve and I just watched "Funny Girl" for the first time, and really enjoyed the movie and its stars so much, I wanted to dig deeper and see if there was any other presence of Ziegfeld on film, so I went to the library and picked up "Ziegfeld Follies". It was there in this musical revue similar to the actual theatre experience of a Ziegfeld show that I saw her in her prime, performing a song about the complexity of love. In a sea of performers of equal talent who were also white, she was the only person of color to blaze the screen in a very sensual performance to say the least.

 

I recognized her as the same singer who I saw when I was younger watching “Sesame Street” and she sang with Kermit, Grover, and other Muppets the alphabet and other songs that supplemented my learning. I also recognized her from an episode of “The Cosby Show” where she performed for Cliff Huxtable’s birthday. I grew up with her, which is why paying tribute to her may be very hard for me to do since her passing is still fresh to me. I always thought she’d reach one hundred. But I digress. Fast-foward to 2002, watching the Oscar ceremony, and Halle Berry wins the Oscar for Best Actress and dedicates her win to her, who, though wasn’t nominated for her acting in film, but pioneered the way so that the reality of being a woman of color in Hollywood being recognized by her peers with an honor such as this could happen. This person is Lena Horne..."

You can read the rest of HepClassic's post on his blog, "All About The Classics In Film". 

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