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Helena Mary Calhoun Horne was born in Brooklyn New York in 1917 to an upper class African American family. Her maternal grandfather was the inventor Samuel R. Scottron and her uncle, Frank S. Horne, and adviser to Franklin Roosevelt. Lena’s mother Edna Scottron, was a actress in an African American theater company. Lena followed her mother into show business, singing with Charlie Barnett’s orchestra and then replacing Dinah Shore in the radio program The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. Her career was remarkable, in that she often was given the opportunity crossed racial lines, where other black performers were not. Horne moved to Hollywood and began appearing in films in 1942.

This clip shows Lena singing her signature song in the 1943 film of the same name, “Stormy Weather,” in which she starred alongside Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, seen here, sitting at a nightclub table. This film had a predominantly African American cast and was made as a vehicle for Robinson’s dancing. Both Cab Calloway and Fats Waller made cameo appearances, singing their own songs in the movie. The dancer appearing at the the end of this clip is Katherine Dunham. Horne did some dancing sequences with Robinson and appears in the brief, almost psychedelic street scene as song ends.

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