How Lena Horne Gained Over MGM — and Turned a “Check Case” for Hollywood

Within the early Nineteen Forties, a younger Lena Horne started an engagement at an intimate L.A. membership referred to as Little Troc, the place her silken voice — along with her good enunciation and her subtle interpretation of the lyrics — dazzled the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Cole Porter, Lana Turner and Greta Garbo. Among the many many eyes that noticed her throughout her run have been these of the astute, delicate Roger Edens, who was an integral member of the Freed Unit at MGM Studios. Led by revolutionary producer Arthur Freed, the unit consisted of musical artists who created lots of MGM’s nice musicals from the golden age: It had just lately produced Babes in Arms (1939) and would strike gold with An American in Paris (1951), Singin’ within the Rain (1952) and Gigi (1958). 

Throughout the Freed Unit, Edens stood out as a extremely revered composer, arranger and affiliate producer who ultimately received three Academy Awards. After seeing Lena carry out, he pushed arduous for MGM to signal her and saved up the stress till an appointment was arrange. 

When Freed was knowledgeable that there was an excellent younger Negro singer he ought to see, he was hardly enthusiastic. “Right here we go once more,” he was reported to have mentioned. “I haven’t anyplace for a woman like that proper now.” However he was urged to rethink. “Hear her sing a tune or two,” it was advised. Lastly, Freed relented. “Deliver her in for 15 or 20 minutes.”

In mid-January 1942, Lena arrived at MGM in Culver Metropolis to audition. She was unsure that the assembly would lead wherever. However she had come to know the mild-mannered Edens. Not solely did she like him, she trusted him. Edens would accompany her on the piano and put her relaxed together with his relaxed appeal and reassuring method.

“As a substitute of quarter-hour, we have been in there for 2 hours listening to her,” recalled Freed. He knew instantly that she was wholly completely different from another Black performer — or white one, for that matter — that he had seen. Like everybody else, he discovered her magnificent trying, which was necessary from the studio’s perspective. He determined to instantly contact studio head Louis B. Mayer. “I referred to as L.B. on the cellphone and took her up there,” mentioned Freed. “I had her sing a few songs, and L.B. went loopy.” Additionally on the studio that day was actress Marion Davies, who casually wielded affect and energy, not solely as a significant star however because the mistress of highly effective writer William Randolph Hearst. She too was impressed by Lena. A deal was within the making. “So as a substitute of hiring her for one tune in an image,” mentioned Freed, “we put her beneath a long-term contact.”

Lena herself remembered all of it a bit in another way. Every thing was transferring rapidly, actually too rapidly, and admittedly, she felt she wanted recommendation. Although it was by no means said outright, Lena — like many Black entertainers who made the transfer to mainstream stardom out of the golf equipment and into the studios or major-league theater — discovered herself working in an virtually completely white world. Producers, administrators, brokers, attorneys, advisers have been white. Few African People had been in a position to enter the higher echelons of the leisure world — to develop into the individuals who made selections — regardless of how gifted or expert. Feeling susceptible and remoted, Lena took an uncommon motion that nobody in Hollywood may have anticipated. “I lastly received dwelling that evening, and I referred to as my father in Pittsburgh. Actual shiny, sharp, a stupendous man. I mentioned, ‘Would you come out right here, as a result of these persons are loopy. They’re speaking about placing me within the films.’ ” Teddy agreed to fly to Hollywood.

Actually, Mayer will need to have been stunned by the request that he meet with Lena’s father. But even if the studio chief was feared as a tyrant — demanding, ruthless and insensitive, able to make or break a profession at a minute’s discover — he was additionally recognized to have a sentimental streak when it got here to familial relationships, notably of these between moms and their kids. Lena herself, in public statements, didn’t appear to object to Mayer right now. Thus, the door to his workplace was opened for a gathering with Lena and Teddy Horne, together with representatives by their aspect.

Lena glowed with satisfaction as she remembered her father’s presence that day. “And my dad walks in, and he’s sharp. He had on a diamond stick pin and a really conservative darkish go well with,” she recalled. Mayer and Teddy Horne talked. Cognizant of the historical past of African People being consigned to servant roles within the films, Teddy needed Lena introduced with dignity and sophistication. Lena recalled that her father mentioned, “Mr. Mayer, it’s an excellent privilege you’re providing my daughter.” However Teddy Horne was insistent that she not be forged as a maid. “I should purchase my very own daughter her personal maid,” he mentioned.

“He was simply jiving,” Lena mentioned years later.

However the level had been made. “I don’t assume he [Mayer] had ever been with a Black man like that.” Mayer assured Teddy Horne that Lena could be handled properly — and with respect.

On the similar time, the NAACP’s chief, Walter White, developed a eager curiosity in Lena’s burgeoning movie profession. A staunch opponent of the film trade’s remedy of African People, White had his fill of the laughing maids, the dim-witted butlers, the parade of nonsensical comedian servants who popped their eyes, grinned or made faces and carried out caricatured antics and shenanigans in a single movie after one other. He was particularly perturbed by the roles Hattie McDaniel performed. Although she had reached the top of movieland success along with her Oscar-winning efficiency in Gone With the Wind (1939), he believed her to be detrimental to the decision for brand new roles for African People in U.S. movement photos.

Within the early Nineteen Forties, White traveled to the movie capital with Wendell Willkie — the 1940 Republican presidential candidate who was on the board of twentieth Century-Fox — the place he met with these leaders who agreed to see him and earnestly spoke of a brand new depiction of Blacks in movies. Mayer was conscious that roles should change. Through the battle years, the Negro press additionally began to induce that Hollywood give Black performers several types of elements. Decided that Lena not play maids, White noticed her as a part of a brand new day, ushering in a brand new picture of African People in Hollywood. He additionally sought to combine extra Blacks into technical positions and open up the guilds. When Lena attended the NAACP’s 1942 conference in Los Angeles, White advised her: “You’re our check case, Lena.”

“I used to be only a pawn,” mentioned Lena. However, after all, she was altogether greater than that.

On Jan. 31, 1942, the Pittsburgh Courier introduced that MGM had signed Lena. It was a seven-year contract. Her wage could be $350 every week for 40 weeks her first 12 months; $450 every week the following 12 months; and a $100 every week elevate yearly afterward. Different contract stipulations included a cap on her weight: It couldn’t be greater than 122 kilos. In any other case, in the course of the three months of the 12 months she was not occupied at MGM, she could be free to proceed her thriving nightclub profession. She may additionally play Loews theaters (such because the Capitol in New York) at $700 every week. Loews was the mother or father firm of MGM. In some respects, it was an excellent deal — although her wage would later be a difficulty.

All through the Nineteen Forties, Lena could be MGM’s treasured Black Magnificence in Residence, one of many few African American performers then beneath a significant contract, and would go on to seem in 13 MGM characteristic movies, together with Cabin within the Sky and Swing Fever, each from 1943. However presenting her in the very best gentle — actually — posed difficulties at first.

The studio poured its energies into accurately dealing with her. Make-up exams have been so as as nobody was accustomed to showcasing a stupendous younger Negro girl. MGM strove to focus on her pores and skin tones but give her a comparatively pure however glamorous look. The consequence was a product referred to as Gentle Egyptian. However it proved too darkish. She seemed made up, by no means pure. In the long run, mentioned Lena, the make-up was used solely to make white actresses who performed exotics, akin to Hedy Lamarr in White Cargo (1942), deliberately darker. In the end, it was determined to make use of the identical make-up on Lena as was used with white actresses on the studio, besides after all with a suitably browner base, not an excessive one. MGM’s Jack Daybreak often did her make-up.

Then got here the problem of styling Lena’s hair. The top of MGM’s hairstyling division was the legendary Sydney Guilaroff, who tended to the tresses of everybody from Garbo to Joan Crawford to Ava Gardner. He grew distressed and disturbed by the response of his employees. “Nobody needed to the touch Lena’s hair,” he mentioned. “Nobody!” In the long run, Guilaroff styled Lena’s hair himself. However as a result of he finally wouldn’t be capable to be on set when she filmed, he employed a Black girl named Tiny Kyle to do Lena’s hair. Lena developed a heat relationship with Guilaroff and an enduring friendship with Kyle.

MGM additionally experimented with methods to gentle and {photograph} Lena. Lighting was essential for all stars, however with Black performers of the time — then taking part in supporting roles or bits — its subtleties have been typically missed. Usually, when Black performers appeared with white stars, the scenes have been lit for the white performers, and Black actors may look misplaced in darkness. It was to MGM’s credit score that the very best technicians and photographers labored arduous to correctly showcase Lena.

Curiously, throughout this very early interval at MGM, a check for a brand new film was shot with Lena and one of the widespread Black performers of the time, Eddie Anderson, of radio’s The Jack Benny Program. 

Within the check — for a 1942 film finally referred to as Cairo that starred Jeanette MacDonald and Robert Younger — Lena and Anderson performed the servants Cleona Jones and Hector. Although she would have been forged as a maid, Lena at all times maintained that the character was properly developed and never a stereotype. The check, nonetheless, proved one thing of a catastrophe. Her make-up had not but been perfected, and he or she seemed made up. Satirically, when Cairo was lastly produced, the position of Cleona was given to Ethel Waters, who had forsaken New York and Broadway and now had her sights set on making it within the films. Little question Waters heard that Lena had been thought of for the half, and the hot-tempered, typically suspicious star could have seen Lena even then as a menace, a youthful menace at that. Their paths would ultimately cross. For Lena, two ladies would lengthy loom in her profession path whether or not she favored it or not: at first, Waters, the good tyrannical older star — and later, within the early Nineteen Fifties, the luminous and youthful however emotionally fragile Dorothy Dandridge.

MGM went again to the drafting board on what to do with Lena.

Finally, MGM featured her with the dancing Berry Brothers in two musical sequences in Panama Hattie (1942), starring Ann Sothern and Purple Skelton. Performing “Simply One among These Issues” and a brand new tune, “The Sping,” she was totally charming. The critics raved over her, and Lena’s Hollywood profession had formally begun.

Tailored from Lena Horne: Goddess Reclaimed by Donald Bogle. Copyright © 2023. Accessible from Operating Press, an imprint of Hachette E-book Group Inc.

Donald Bogle is the creator of Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies and Bucks, featured on THR’s listing of the Best Movie Books of All Time.

This story first appeared within the Oct. 11 subject of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to subscribe.