WWWAG: From what I can gather, there is a period from around 1951 to about 1955-56 where I can’t find any imdb credits for her. That might be the period that is meant by “during the 1950s,” or it could be that the blacklist was a not entirely successful one, either by Hollywood or MGM. I’ll have to check her autobiography later to be sure who exactly attempted to blacklist her.
ETA: I see a Your Show of Shows credit from 1953.
• “Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium: Episode #5.5” (1959) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• “The Perry Como Show: Episode dated 21 February 1959” (1959) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• “The Perry Como Show: Episode dated 25 October 1958” (1958) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• “The Steve Allen Show: Episode #3.25” (1958) TV Episode [Actress … Herself - Singer]
• “What’s My Line?: Episode dated 2 March 1958” (1958) TV Episode [Actress … Herself - Mystery Guest]
• The Heart of Show Business (1957) [Actress … Herself]
• “Ed Sullivan Show: Episode #10.31” (1957) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• “Ed Sullivan Show: Episode #10.23” (1957) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• “The Frank Sinatra Show: Episode #1.9” (1957) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) [Actress … Herself] [Soundtrack] (performer: “If You Can Dream”)
• “Music 55: Episode #1.1” (1955) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• A.N.T.A. Album of 1955 (1955) (TV) [Actress … Herself]
• “What’s My Line?: Episode dated 27 September 1953” (1953) TV Episode [Actress … Herself - Mystery Guest]
• “Your Show of Shows: Episode dated 19 September 1953” (1953) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• “Toast of the Town: Episode #5.1” (1951) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• “The Colgate Comedy Hour: Episode #1.25” (1951) TV Episode [Actress … Herself - Singer]
• “Your Show of Shows: Episode dated 20 January 1951” (1951) TV Episode [Actress … Herself]
• Duchess of Idaho (1950) [Actress … Herself - Cameo appearance] [Soundtrack] (performer: “Baby Come Out of the Clouds”)
Your Show of Shows was the Sid Caesar Show, and Toast of the Town was the Ed Sullivan Show.
See above, which points out that phrase does not appear to mean “all of the 50s.” Even your last post only contains two more one-appearance credits for that period than I mentioned in my post.
This really is not worth quibbling over – a wonderful entertainer has passed – but I do note a full schedule and C.V. on either side of the period I mentioned, indicating someone willing to work hard and making me think something happened during that slow time.
She couldn’t get movie roles, and in the 50’s, TV was the equivalent of local theater. Or, better put, it was more like youtube is now - emerging and growing in popularity, but considered mostly rabble, with some stuff leading to crossover fame like Steve Allen, Milton Berle and Lucy and Desi. She did TV because, from her perspective and the perspective of the time, she was willing to compromise and do TV…because she was shunned for the types of starring movie roles she was more than capable of doing…
Number of TV Households in America, 1950–1963
So, yes, television was the equivalent of local theater, if your local theater held 20 million people.
deleted.
You do realize that I am speaking of the *regard *with which TV was held? Until pretty recently, working on TV was considered a big step down vs. the movies. That was hugely true in the 50’s - sure TV was growing, but it wasn’t nearly as respected. Is that new or surprising? I guess I assume it was an established fact - again, until recently…
Lena Horne also had the “scandal” of being in an interracial marriage when that was still illegal in many states of the union. Her second husband, Lennie Hayton, was white and Jewish- neither an endearment when combined to “married to a black woman”, even if that black woman was acknowledged as a classy and beautiful broad the world over.
A great biopic could be made about her second marriage. She made few if any secrets of the fact she didn’t love him when they married and saw it as a marriage of convenience: a white and Jewish husband/manager could help her career in ways that a black husband/manager could not, plus her first marriage (to a black man) had been miserable (she was frank about the fact she was as much at fault as her first husband had been) and her parents marriage had failed so she didn’t see marriage as that sacred an institution anyway. Over time however she came to love him very much.
During the 1960s as she became more involved with the Civil Rights movement her marriage suffered. She’d encountered racism all of her life of course in the north, in the south, and in the west (when she moved into a nice neighborhood of L.A. most of the neighbors tried to get a petition against her; her across the street neighbors, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, told them to shove it and made every effort to include her at every party and treat her like any other neighbor). When she was a star there were venues in the south and in Vegas when she had to sleep in private houses because the hotels wouldn’t allow her. Her second husband’s family was pretty horrible to her since she was black and non-Jewish.
Probably the most famous encounter she had with racism was when she was on a USO tour of U.S. army bases and played in Arkansas. She was already mad at the fact she had to do two shows- one for white soldiers and one for blacks- but when she came onstage to the black show and found German P.o.W.s seated in front of black American soldiers she stormed off stage. (Today that’s pretty much an “Of course she would, why wouldn’t she?” but at the time it was considered unprofessional.)
Anyway, during the late 1950s and through the 1960s she began- her term- “feeling my blackness” more than ever before and her husband’s race (and her son-in-law’s race) became embarassing to her plus she needed to pull over and take stock for other reasons as well. Throughout this time and for a long time before she was also- again, by her own admission- very much in love with Billy Strayhorn (most famous today for his work with Duke Ellington) even though she not only knew he was gay but was friends with his lover, and his death in 1967 shattered her. She grew close again to her husband, though, and was with him when he died in 1971.
I love unconventional love stories and her second marriage is a good 'un that I’d love to see written and filmed.
The scene from the movie with Lena standing by the open window and singing “Stormy Weathere” – I think that is one of the best things on film. I am mesmerized by it. It brings tears to my eyes to think of it.
The world has grown a little shabbier because she has left us.
