Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was the first Black woman to sign a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio — and then spent her career fighting the industry that hired her. MGM signed her in 1942 but largely confined her to musical numbers that could be easily cut when films were shown in Southern theaters. Horne refused to play maids and slaves, the only roles typically available to Black actresses, and paid the price in limited screen time. But she turned that limitation into a different kind of power, becoming one of the most glamorous and outspoken entertainers of her generation.

Born in Brooklyn in 1917 to a prominent middle-class Black family, Horne began performing at the Cotton Club at 16. She was stunningly beautiful and possessed a crystalline singing voice, but she never let her beauty become a cage. She was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for her progressive politics and civil rights activism, which cost her years of her career.

Horne's comeback was one of the great stories in entertainment. Her 1981 one-woman Broadway show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, ran for 333 performances — the longest-running one-woman show in Broadway history at the time — and won her a special Tony Award. She continued performing into her eighties, a living reminder that grace and resistance could coexist in the same breath.