Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne
by James Gavin
List Price:
Our Price: $4.50
You Save: $22.50 (83%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: James GavinEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-06-23
ISBN: 0743271432
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Atria Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780743271431
- Condition: USED - Good
- Notes: 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne
Book Review: The Lady and Her Tumultuous Life Portrayed Meticulously in an Excellent Biography
Summary: 5 Stars
I have the cherished memory of seeing Lena Horne in her one-woman Broadway show back in 1981, The Lady And Her Music. At 64, she was a phenomenal force of nature perfectly in command onstage, and yet the source of her conviction, according to biographer James Gavin, appears borne out of anger as much as pure talent. In his meticulous account of her long life, full of well-documented archival material, Horne had good reason to be angry as she was deeply conflicted about her racial identity. The lightness of her skin was the source of constant taunting, and so traumatized was she that she separated herself from her darker-skinned relatives. Horne's middle-class childhood in Brooklyn is described in sharp contrast to her unstable, self-conscious adolescence. However, it was her unearthly beauty that forged her escape route, first as a chorus girl in the Cotton Club, then a meteoric rise to full-fledged Hollywood star, and finally as an unparalleled nightclub entertainer.
Her WWII-era MGM years prove to be a painful case study in racial discrimination at a time when African- American women were portrayed either as "yes'em" maids or mammy-type servants. Horne was the sole exception until Dorothy Dandridge in the 1950's, a beautiful token figure usually posed against a column wedged into big MGM musicals like Panama Hattie and Ziegfeld Follies. She would sing a song independent of the movie's narrative in order to allow studio honchos to edit her out of the film for theaters in the Deep South. Studio chief Louis B. Mayer liked Horne, but he just wouldn't cast her in a role that would have been ideally suited to her talents, Julie LaVerne, the biracial riverboat singer, in the 1951 remake of Jerome Kern's Show Boat. She saw her dream role given to her close off-screen friend, the more marketable Ava Gardner, whose singing had to be dubbed. Horne also lost the title role to Elia Kazan's Pinky to a white actress (Jeanne Crain) who played a black woman passing for white. Gavin asserts that her growing disenchantment with Hollywood dovetailed with her awakening political consciousness in the 1950's when she was blacklisted primarily for her association with supposed Communist sympathizer Paul Robeson.
Horne's second marriage to MGM musical arranger Lennie Hayton, a white Jewish-American, brought enormous pressure to the interracial couple. Her increasing resentment found an outlet in the 1960's when she became active in the civil rights movement, surprisingly favoring the more radical practices of Malcolm X over Martin Luther King Jr.'s more pacifist approach to racism. The downside to her dual focus on career and civil rights was an estrangement from her two children, although she later got closer to her daughter Gail (who was once married to director Sidney Lumet). The author paints an involving portrayal of a complicated woman that dismantles the myths that surround her, and yet, he still celebrates her considerable talents with admirable respect and historical accuracy. If she exaggerated her mistreatment for dramatic effect late in her life, Horne is understandably given license to do so by Gavin. With her mixed heritage, angular Caucasian features and exalted stature, the legendary entertainer became imprisoned by what was expected of her as an African-American. Now 92, she has reason to seal herself from a world that couldn't help her resolve her identity crisis.
Summary of Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne
At long last, the first serious biography of entertainment legend Lena Horne -- the celebrated star of film, stage, and music who became one of the first African-American icons.
At the 74th annual Academy Awards in 2002, Halle Berry thanked Lena Horne for paving the way for her to become the first black recipient of a Best Actress Oscar. Though limited, mostly to guest singing appearances in splashy Hollywood musicals, "the beautiful Lena Horne," as she was often called, became a pioneering star for African Americans in the 1940s and fifties. Now James Gavin, author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, draws on a wealth of unmined material and hundreds of interviews -- one of them with Horne herself -- to give us the defining portrait of an American icon.
Gavin has gotten closer than any other writer to the celebrity who has lived in reclusion since 1998. Incorporating insights from the likes of Ruby Dee, Tony Bennett, Diahann Carroll, Arthur Laurents, and several of Horne's fellow chorines from Harlem's Cotton Club, Stormy Weather offers a fascinating portrait of a complex, even tragic Horne -- a stunning talent who inspired such giants of showbiz as Barbra Streisand, Eartha Kitt, and Aretha Franklin, but whose frustrations with racism, and with tumultuous, root-less childhood, left wounds too deep to heal. The woman who emerged was as angry as she was luminous.
From the Cotton Club's glory days and the back lots of Hollywood's biggest studios to the glitzy but bigoted hotels of Las Vegas's heyday, this behind-the-scenes look at an American icon is as much a story of the limits of the American dream as it is a masterful, ground-breaking biography.
Composers & Musicians Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Composers & Musicians Books
Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams--The Early Years 1903-1940by Gary Giddins
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2001-01-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.46
Price in other shops:
Willie Nelson: An Epic Lifeby Joe Nick Patoski
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2008-04-21; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.90
Price in other shops:
Stoned : A Memoir of London in the 1960sby Andrew Loog Oldham
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2001-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $72.99
Belle and Sebastian: Just a Modern Rock Storyby Paul Whitelaw
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2005-08-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops:
Elvis: My Best Man: Radio Days, Rock 'n' Roll Nights, and My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presleyby George Klein, Chuck Crisafulli
Crown Archetype; Published: 2010-01-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $114.72
Johnby Cynthia Lennon
Crown; Published: 2005-09-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.09
Price in other shops:
Aaron Copland: THE LIFE AND WORK OF AN UNCOMMON MAN (Music in American Life)by Howard Pollack
University of Illinois Press; Published: 2000-03-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $37.49
Price in other shops:
Visions of Jazz: The First Centuryby Gary Giddins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-05-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.75
Price in other shops:
The Oxford Companion to JazzOxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-10-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.93
Price in other shops:
Elvis Aaron Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafiaby Alanna Nash, Billy Smith, Marty Lacker, Lamar Fike
Harpercollins (Mm); Published: 1996-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $89.75
Similar Books and other products
Oprah: A Biographyby Kitty Kelley
Crown Archetype; Published: 2010-04-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.98
Price in other shops:
Dorothy Dandridgeby Donald Bogle
Amistad; Published: 1997-01-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.49
Price in other shops:
My Song: A Memoirby Harry Belafonte, Michael Shnayerson
Knopf; Published: 2011-10-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.84
Price in other shops:
Lena Horne - Lena Horne: The Lady And Her Music (Original Cast)Release date: 1981-01-01; Music CD
Best price: $24.98
Cabin in the SkyWarner Brothers; Release date: 2006-01-10; DVD
Best price: $12.25
Price in other shops:
The Hornes: An American Familyby Gail Lumet Buckley
Applause; Applause Books; Published: 2002-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.12
Price in other shops:
Foxy: My Life in Three Actsby Pam Grier
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2010-04-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
The Legs Are the Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying, and Other Things I Learned the Hard Wayby Diahann Carroll
Amistad; Published: 2008-09-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.68
Price in other shops:
Stormy WeatherFox; Release date: 2006-01-10; DVD
Best price: $7.01
Price in other shops:
The Hornesby Gail Lumet Buckley
Knopf; Published: 1986-06-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.84
Price in other shops: