This was released by her son-in law Kevin Buckley.
From the NYT
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, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan.
Here is a rendition of Stormy Weather
Lena Horne was progressive to her own detriment losing work in the USO and later being blacklisted.
Touring Army camps for the U.S.O., Ms. Horne was outspoken in her criticism of the way black soldiers were treated. “So the U.S.O. got mad,” she recalled. “And they said, ‘You’re not going to be allowed to go anyplace anymore under our auspices.’ So from then on I was labeled a bad little Red girl.”
Ms. Horne later claimed that for this and other reasons, including her friendship with leftists like Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois, she was blacklisted and “unable to do films or television for the next seven years” after her tenure with MGM ended in 1950.
This woman continued to be a voice of progress despite being shunned professionally. From American Masters
Even in her eighties, the legendary Lena Horne has a quality of timelessness about her. Elegant and wise, she personifies 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 lifeIn 1963, she participated in the march on Washington and performed at rallies throughout the country for the National Council for Negro Women. She followed that with a decade of international touring, recording, and acting on both television and the silver screen. Horne had found in her growing audience a renewed sense of purpose. All of this came crashing down when her father, son and husband died in a period of twelve months during the early 1970s. Horne retreated almost completely from public life. It was not until 1981 that she fully returned, making a triumphant comeback with a one-person show on Broadway. LENA HORNE: THE LADY AND HER MUSIC chronicled Horne’s early life and almost fifty years in show business. It ran for fourteen months and became the standard by which one-woman shows are judged. Throughout the past twenty years, Horne’s performances have been rare yet welcome occurrences.
Here is a scene discribing her work in Too Wong Foo Thanks for Everything
Here are some facts from her home page
Fun Facts about Lena:
She has five grandchildren: Thomas Jones, William Jones, Lena Jones, Amy Lumet and Jenny Lumet.
Is a descent from John C. Calhoun family. John C. Calhoun was the 7th. Vice President of the United States under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
She's a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1991.
Ranked #62 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock N Roll.
She has a weakness for La Maison Du Chocolate.
Lena received an honorary doctorate from Howard University in 1980. She also received an honorary
Doctorate of Humane Letters at Yale's 297th Commencement on May 25, 1998.
Per the October 1944 Issue of Motion Picture Magazine - Lena is 5 feet 6 1/2 inches and her weight at that time was 126lb.
R.I.P. Lena Horne