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Programming

A Tribute to a Lena Horne to air Sunday

Posted by Greg Petersen on 05/14 at 12:10 PM

Performer, Groundbreaker, Activist.

In tribute to her passing on May 9th at the age of 92, WPSU will rebroadcast a tribute to Lena Horne (that was originally broadcast in 1998) on Sunday, May 16 at 7:00 p.m.

LENA HORNE: IN HER OWN VOICE, AN “AMERICAN MASTERS” SPECIAL, tells the story of her journey to reluctant stardom. In addition to exclusive interviews with Horne and her family, the show includes interviews with Ossie Davis, Alan King, Dionne Warwick, Ricardo Montalban, Liz Smith and more. Clips from signature movies like “Stormy Weather” and MGM films of the 1940s are interwoven with her early TV appearances to accentuate a fascinating life story. Lena Horne died on May 9 at the age of 92.

Even in her eighties when this special originally aired, Horne had a quality of timelessness about her. Elegant and wise, she personified both the glamour of Hollywood and the reality of a lifetime spent battling racial and social injustice. Pushed by an ambitious mother into the chorus line of the Cotton Club when she was sixteen, and maneuvered into a film career by the N.A.A.C.P., she was the first African-American signed to a long-term studio contract. In her rise beyond Hollywood’s racial stereotypes of maids, butlers, and African natives, she achieved true stardom on the silver screen, and became a catalyst for change even beyond the glittery fringes of studio life.