BORN ON THIS DAY: LENA HORNE

One of the most beautiful and most talented of the African American singers to come out of the 1930s was the great Lena Horne. Her recordings, especially the ones from 1940s and 1950s showed what a mega talent she was. Sadly, during her short movie career and even monumental singing career, she faced prejudice and racism that complicated her legacy. Lena Horne was born on this day in 1917.

Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Reportedly descended from the John C. Calhoun family, both sides of her family were a mixture of European American, Native American, and African-American descent, and belonged to the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated people.

Her father, Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne, Jr. (1892–1970), a numbers kingpin in the gambling trade, left the family when she was three and moved to an upper-middle-class black community in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron (1895–1985), daughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron, was an actress with a black theatre troupe and traveled extensively. Scottron's maternal grandmother, Amelie Louise Ashton, was a Senegalese slave. Horne was mainly raised by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.

When Horne was five, she was sent to live in Georgia. For several years, she traveled with her mother. From 1927 to 1929 she lived with her uncle, Frank S. Horne, Dean of Students at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute (now part of Fort Valley State University) in Fort Valley, Georgia, who would later serve as an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From Fort Valley, southwest of Macon, Horne briefly moved to Atlanta with her mother; they returned to New York when Horne was 12 years old. She then attended Girls High School, an all-girls public high school in Brooklyn that has since become Boys and Girls High School; she dropped out without earning a diploma. Aged 18, she moved in with her father in Pittsburgh, staying in the city's Little Harlem for almost five years and learning from native Pittsburghers Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others.

In the fall of 1933, Horne joined the chorus line of the Cotton Club in New York City. In the spring of 1934, she had a featured role in the Cotton Club Parade starring Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing. A few years later Horne joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with which she toured and with whom she recorded her first record release, a 78rpm single issued by Decca Records. After she separated from her first husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1940–41, but disliked the travel and left the band to work at the Café Society in New York. She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC's popular jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. More hit records and a contract with MGM would follow in 1942. The rest of Lena Horne's life, both good and bad, is musical history...

GUEST REVIEW: CABIN IN THE SKY

Movie fan and critic Bruce Kogan is back with a review of the MGM musical Cabin In The Sky from 1943. The movie as important now to African American entertainers now as it was some 70 years ago...

Cabin In The Sky marked Vincente Minnelli's feature film debut as a director and he certainly started on a grand scale. Louis B. Mayer was purportedly reluctant to do black cast feature film with an A Budget, but Minnelli and Arthur Freed's faith in Minnelli paid off big time.

Cabin In The Sky, musical fantasy, with score by John LaTouche and Vernon Duke ran for 156 performances in the 1940-1941 Broadway season. The only two members of the cast who made it to the screen version was lead Ethel Waters and Rex Ingram as Lucifer, Jr. Unless of course you count the Hall Johnson Choir.

It would have never been made if MGM could not get Ethel Waters to repeat her role as the wise and faithful Petunia Johnson praying ever so that her husband Little Joe Johnson gets saved from his evil ways of drinking and gambling and carousing with that no good Georgia Brown on whom no gal made has got a shade. Come to think of it, that song should have been interpolated in the score, MGM should have paid any price for it.

MGM got their work out of Ethel though. She appeared in Cairo with Jeanette MacDonald and Robert Young and the contrasting styles of MacDonald and Waters is something to see in that film.

On Broadway Little Joe's part was played by someone who would make a big splash in Hollywood this same year of 1943. Because Dooley Wilson was playing piano at Rick's place in Casablanca, I guess he missed repeating his role. Stepping in for Wilson was America's most well known butler, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson who did the impossible, get rich working for Jack Benny.

Sweet Georgia Brown was played by Lena Horne, the devil had no better temptress ever on screen, not even Gwen Verdon in Damn Yankees. She does a mean version of Honey In The Honeycomb.

The plot's a simple one. Petunia brings her husband Little Joe to church for the hundred and umpteenth time to get himself saved, but he slips away for a crap game and gets himself shot in the process. He's about to enter the devil's domain, but Petunia's prayers get him a six month stay of his sentence to see if he can mend his ways. After that both heavenly and hellish forces work overtime to have claim to his soul.

LaTouche and Duke gave Ethel Waters two of her best known numbers to sing, the title song and Taking A Chance On Love. Cabin In The Sky has a unique distinction of being one of the few Broadway musicals that came to the screen. Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg wrote some new material including a song for Eddie Anderson Life's Full of Consequences and another song uniquely identified with Ethel Waters, Happiness Is Just A Thing Called Joe.

Louis Armstrong is in Cabin In The Sky as Lucifer's Trumpeter and while we get a couple of licks from Satchmo, I do so wish that someone at MGM would have given him a number for himself. He doesn't standout as he usually does because of that.

Still Cabin In The Sky is a delightful film, a real treat with some of the best talent in the human race in it...

Bruce's rating: 9 out of 10

THE REAL MR. BOJANGLES

Many people do not truly know who Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was. He has been dead 65 years now, and most of his film roles were dated by the 1950s. However, Robinson was a gifted dancer, and like so many otherAfrican-American performers, he deserved to have been given better roles in the musicals. His long career though mirrored changes in American entertainment tastes and technology, starting in the age of minstrel shows, moving to vaudeville, Broadway, the recording industry, Hollywood radio, and television. 

Robinson was born in Richmond, Virginia on May 25, 1878. His parents were Maxwell, a machine-shop worker, and Maria Robinson, a choir singer. His grandmother raised him after both parents died in 1885 when he was 7 years old—his father from chronic heart disease and his mother from natural causes. Details of Robinson's early life are known only through legend, much of it perpetuated by Robinson himself. He claimed he was christened "Luther"—a name he did not like. He suggested to his younger brother Bill that they should exchange names. Eventually, the exchange between the names of both brothers was made. The brother subsequently adopted the name of “Percy” and under that name achieved recognition as a musician.

In 1890, at the age of 12, Robinson ran away to Washington, DC, where he did odd jobs at Benning Race Track and worked briefly as a jockey. He teamed up with a young Al Jolson, with Jolson singing while Robinson danced for pennies or to sell newspapers. In 1891 he was hired by Whallen and Martel, touring with Mayme Remington's troupe in a show titled The South Before the War, performing again as a pickaninny, despite his age. He traveled with the show for over a year before growing too mature to play the role credibly.

In 1898 he returned to Richmond where he joined an army unit as a drummer when the Spanish–American War broke out. He received an accidental gunshot wound from a second lieutenant who was cleaning his gun.

On March 30, 1900, Robinson entered a buck-and-wing dance contest at the Bijou Theater in Brooklyn, NY, winning a gold medal and defeating Harry Swinton, star of the show In Old Kentucky and considered the best dancer of his day. The resulting publicity helped Robinson to get work in numerous traveling shows, sometimes in a troupe, more frequently with a partner, though not always as a dancer (Robinson also sang and performed two-man comedy.

When the U.S. entered World War I, the War Department set up a series of Liberty Theaters in the training camps. The Keith and Orpheum Circuits underwrote vaudeville acts at reduced fees, but Robinson volunteered to perform gratis for thousands of troops, in both black and white units of the Expeditionary Forces, receiving a commendation from the War Department in 1918. Throughout the early 1920s, Robinson continued his career on the road as a solo vaudeville act, touring throughout the country and most frequently visiting Chicago, where Marty Forkins, his manager, lived. From 1919–1923 he was fully booked on the Orpheum Circuit, and was signed full-time by the Keith in 1924 and 1925. In addition to being booked for 50–52 weeks (an avid baseball fan, he took a week off for the World Series), Robinson did multiple shows per night, frequently on two different stages.

Robinson’s film debut was in the RKO Pictures 1930 musical Dixiana. RKO was formed in part by a merger of the Keith and Orpheum theater circuits, with whom Robinson had performed as a headliner for many years. He was cast as a specialty performer in a standalone scene. This practice, customary at the time, permitted Southern theaters to remove scenes containing black performers from their showings of the film. Dixiana was followed by Robinson’s first starring role, in Harlem is Heaven (1932), the first film made with an all-black cast. The movie was produced in New York and did not perform well financially, leading Robinson to focus on Hollywood-produced movies after that.

The idea for bringing a black dancer to Fox to star with Temple in The Little Colonel was actually first proposed by Fox head Winfield Sheehan after a discussion with D. W. Griffith. Sheehan set his sights on Robinson, but unsure of his ability as an actor, arranged for a contract that was void if Robinson failed the dramatic test. Robinson passed the test and was brought in to both star with Temple and to teach her tap dancing. They quickly hit it off, as Temple recounted years later:

“Robinson walked a step ahead of us, but when he noticed me hurrying to catch up, he shortened his stride to accommodate mine. I kept reaching up for his hand, but he hadn't looked down and seemed unaware. Fannie called his attention to what I was doing, so he stopped short, bent low over me, his eyes wide and rows of brilliant teeth showing in a wide smile. When he took my hand in his, it felt large and cool. For a few moments, we continued walking silence. "Can I call you Uncle Billy?" I asked. "Why sure you can," he replied... "But then I get to call you darlin.'" It was a deal. From then on, whenever we walked together it was hand in hand, and I was always his "darlin."

Robinson and Temple became the first interracial dance partners in Hollywood history. The scene was controversial for its time, however, and was cut out in the south along with all other scenes showing Temple and Robinson making physical contact. Robinson and Temple became close friends as a result of his dance coaching and acting with her. Robinson carried pictures of Temple with him wherever he traveled, and Temple considered him a lifelong friend, saying in an interview "Bill Robinson treated me as an equal, which was very important to me. He didn't talk down to me, like to a little girl. And I liked people like that. And Bill Robinson was the best of all.”

Robinson appeared opposite Will Rogers in In Old Kentucky (1935), the last movie Rogers made prior to his death in an airplane crash. Robinson and Rogers were good friends, and after Rogers’ death, Robinson refused to fly, instead travelling by train to Hollywood for his film work. Robinson’s final film appearance was a starring role in the 1943 Fox musical Stormy Weather. Lena Horne co-starred as Robinson’s love interest, and the movie also featured Fats Waller in his final movie appearance before his death, playing with Cab Calloway and his orchestra,. The Nicholas Brothers are featured in the film’s final dance sequence, performing to Calloway’s "Jumpin' Jive," in what Fred Astaire called "the greatest movie musical number he had ever seen".

Robinson’s final public appearance in 1949, a few weeks before his death, was as a surprise guest on a TV show, Ted Mack’s The Original Amateur Hour, in which he emotionally embraced a competitor on the show who had tap-danced for the audience. A friend remarked, “he was handing over his crown, like him saying, 'this is my good-bye. '”

Despite being the highest-paid black performer of the first half of the twentieth century, earning more than US$2 million during his lifetime, Robinson died penniless on November 25, 1949, at the age of 71 from heart failure. He was married numerous times, but never had any children. His funeral was arranged and paid for by longtime friend and television host Ed Sullivan, co-star Shirley Temple, and fellow dancer Fred Astaire. Robinson's casket lay in state at the 369th Infantry Regiment Armory in Harlem, where an estimated 32,000 people filed past his casket to pay their last respects. The schools in Harlem were closed for a half-day so that children could attend or listen to the funeral, which was broadcast over the radio. Bill Robinson might not have gotten the recognition he deserved due to race relations in the 1930s and 1940s, but his dancing inspired a generation and influenced countless dancers to this day…

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD AFRICAN-AMERICAN BEAUTIES

February is National Black History Month and throughout this month, I am going to spotlight articles on African-Americans in entertainment. Sadly many African-Americans had a hard time in classic Hollywood, and the racism of that era is still around today. However, there were some beautiful African American actresses that I want to spotlight...

Dorothy Dandridge (1922-1965)

Thelma Harris (1906-1985)

Lena Horne (1917-2010)

Eartha Kitt (1927-2008)

Nina Mae McKinley (1912-1967)

Ruby Dee (1922-2014)

FILM BIOS AND THEIR CASTING

Since almost movies began, the industry was interested in making film biographies of famous people. Especially in classic Hollywood, the movies were not truly factual, but "based on" the life of a famous person. Some of those film biographies like Pride Of The Yankees (Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig) or The Spirit Of St. Louis (Jimmy Stewart as Charles Lindbergh) are famous to this day.

I have always been interested in who can be cast as a famous person. For years I said to people that Kevin Spacey bears a striking resemblance to crooner Bobby Darin. Then Spacey (although too old) made and starred in a movie of Darin's life called Beyond The Sea (2004). My wife gets tired of me constantly telling her I had the idea for the movie even before Spacey did!

Through the years interesting casting has been announced like Tom Hanks as Dean Martin, Forest Whitaker as Louis Armstrong, and Reese Witherspoon as Peggy Lee. As of this article, the movies have not came to be - but the casting ideas are still interesting.

Here are some movie casting ideas I have been thinking about for years and you heard it here first if they ever happen!

STEVE BUSCEMI as PETER LORRE
No two actors in film history are more bug eyed and sickly looking than Steve Buscemi and the great Peter Lorre (1904-1964). Lorre's life might not be the story Hollywood is looking for, but Buschemi could play him. Lorre's later years was filled with constant gall bladder pain and an addiction to morphine, so maybe there is a movie there.

NATHAN LANE as LOU COSTELLO
I think both Nathan Lane and legendary comedian Lou Costello (1906-1959) are truly great entertainers. At one point in Lane's career I think he could have played funny man Costello. The time might have passed now that Lane is in his mid 50s, but I think the similarities and even voice to a degree are uncanny.

HALLE BERRY as LENA HORNE
Berry has already played famous actresses like Dorothy Dandridge (1922-1965), but of all of the great black actresses out there I think only Berry could play legendary singer Lena Horne (1917-2010). When Horne was alive it was proposed that Janet Jackson would play her life, but Horne was against it. Berry of course can not sing, but she can act.

CHRIS ROCK as RICHARD PRYOR
Now I know this is stretching it a bit, but I always thought Chris Rock has more acting chops than his movies have shown. He is a great comedian, and I believe he can capture the essence of fellow funny man Richard Pryor (1940-2005). Pryor's life could make a trilogy of movies not just one film, but again Chris Rock is not yet viewed as a capable dramatic actor.

KELSEY GRAMMER AS JACK BENNY
I am a big fan of both Kelsey Grammer and Jack Benny (1894-1974), and it is amazing at the similarities in the comic styles of both actors. Looking at Grammer on the television series "Cheers" and "Frasier", you see a lot of Jack Benny in Grammer's mannerisms. Grammer even hosted a great special on Benny for NBC in 1995. I am not sure of Kelsey Grammer looks enough like Jack Benny, but I think it would be a great role to do. Unfortunately, Jack Benny was such a nice guy, it would probably be boring doing his life story.

For every great film movie like Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004), there is Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest (1981). Still Hollywood will continue to make film biographies because where else but Hollywood could the town get the best ideas and stories. The stars' lives are often more interesting than the movies they were in.

What casting ideas do you have...

LENA HORNE'S APARTMENT FOR SALE

NEW YORK – The estate of sultry jazz singer and actress Lena Horne is selling some of the fancy gowns, jewelry, fine art and books that filled her New York City apartment.

More than 200 items are for sale at the Doyle New York auction house Wednesday. They include a sequined cardigan evening coat estimated to sell for as little as $100 and an abstract painting by artist Charles Alston expected to bring up to $50,000.

A reversible mink coat by Horne's favorite designer, Giorgio di Sant' Angelo, is estimated to sell for $300 to $500.

Horne's refined taste extended to the furnishings in her Manhattan apartment. A Rococo-style chandelier could bring $2,500.

Horne's signature song was "Stormy Weather." Horne also was a dancer and civil rights activist. She died last May at age 92.

THE PASSING SCENE OF 2010

As we say goodbye to the year that was 2010, we also say goodbye to some wonderful entertainers. Many of them performed and delighted audiences with their talents for generations. These wonderful entertainers left us this year - they are gone but hopefully not forgotten...

Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis (1925 - 2010)
Actor. Born Bernard Schwartz, his father was a tailor who immigrated from Hungary; he was brought up in poverty in a tough Bronx neighborhood. He would go on to be one of the greatest actors of a generation, starring in films such as Some Like It Hot and The Defiant Ones.

Leslie Nielsen (1926 - 2010)
Actor. Born Leslie William Nielsen, he was a World War II-era Royal Canadian Air Force veteran. He attended the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio Arts and Neighborhood Playhouse (New York City actor's training school) before beginning steady television work in the late 1940s. He gained his greatest fame in comedy movies such as Airplane! and Naked Gun.

Barbara Billingsley (1915 - 2010)
Actress. Born Barbara Lillian Combes, she attended Los Angeles Junior College in the mid 1930s and then moved to New York City, where she worked as a model. In the 1950s she represented a generation of housewives playing Mrs. Cleaver on the television series, Leave It To Beaver.

Tom Bosley (1927 - 2010)
Actor. He will be remembered for his role as the patriarch Howard Cunningham in the popular TV series "Happy Days" (1974 to 1984). Born in Chicago, he served in the US Navy, and attended DePaul University following his return home.

Rue McClanahan (1934 - 2010)
Actress. Best known as the co-star of the popular TV sitcom The Golden Girls. Born Eddi-Rue McClanahan, she grew up in Ardmore, Oklahoma, graduated from the University of Tulsa, and began a career as an actress in 1957.

Art Linkletter (1912 - 2010)
Television and Radio Personality, Author. He hosted two of the longest-running programs in broadcast history and was a presence in American media for more than six decades. "Art Linkletter's House Party," a variety show, debuted on radio in 1944 and was seen on CBS television from 1952 to 1969.

Dennis Hopper (1936 - 2010)
Actor, Director. He was considered one of Hollywood's most outspoken and versatile actors. He appeared in over 150 motion pictures during his lifetime, working as both an actor and film director, in a career that spanned over five decades. He was known in the motion picture industry for his anti-establishm.

Lena Horne

Lena Horne (1917 - 2010)
Entertainer. She broke through racial barriers as the first black performer to sign a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio. Born Lena Mary Calhoun Horne, her grandparents were active in the NAACP and she was a cover girl for the organization's monthly bulletin at the age of two.

Patricia Neal (1926 - 2010)
Actress. Striking, husky-voiced leading lady of stage and screen. She won a Best Actress Academy Award for "Hud" (1963). In 1965 Neal nearly lost her life to a series of crippling strokes, but fought back and triumphantly resumed her career.

Peter Graves (1926 - 2010)
Actor. Born Peter Aurness, he participated in athletics and was an accomplished musician before beginning his career as a radio announcer, where he utilized his robust speaking voice. After studying drama at the University of Minnesota, he followed his older brother James Arness into the entertainment field.

Fess Parker (1924 - 2010)
Actor. Born Fess Elisha Parker, Junior in Fort Worth Texas, he would become famous for playing Davy Crockett on television.

Jimmy Dean (1928 - 2010)
Entertainer. Jimmy Ray Dean was an American country music singer, television host, actor and businessman. Although he may be best known today as the creator of the Jimmy Dean Sausage brand, he first rose to fame for his 1961 country crossover hit "Big Bad John"; and became a national television personality.

Lynn Redgrave (1943 - 2010)
Actress. She had a long career on stage, television, and film. The child of a distinguished British theatrical family, she was raised within the show-business milieu and studied at the London School of Speech and Drama before making her professional stage debut in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

Jean Simmons (1929 - 2010)
Actress. A leading lady of captivating beauty, she appeared in British and American motion pictures. She was only 15 when chosen for the role of 'Heidi' in the 1944 picture "Give Us the Moon", followed with performances in "Great Expectations" as 'Young Estella' (1946) and "Black Narcissus" (1947).

John Forsythe (1918 - 2010)
American Stage, Television and Film Actor. Forsythe starred in three television series, spanning three decades, as single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the 1950s sitcom Bachelor Father (1957–1962); as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend on the 1970s crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–1981).

Gloria Stuart (1910 - 2010)
Actress. Best remembered for her Academy Award nominated role of the more mature, 'Rose Calvert ' in the multi-Academy Award winning motion picture, "Titanic" (1997). Stuart's film career spanned nearly seven decades. During the "Golden Age" of Hollywood she worked along side James Cagney, Claude Rains, and Eddie Cantor.

Dixie Carter

Dixie Carter (1939 - 2010)
Actress. She graduated from the University of Memphis and competed in the 1959 Miss Tennessee pageant, earning first runner-up. She then began an acting career, first on the Memphis stage and later in New York City theaters. Her most famous role was on TV's Designing Women

Kevin McCarthy (1914 - 2010)
Actor. The younger brother of author Mary McCarthy, they were both orphaned when their parents fell victim to the 1918 influenza epidemic, and he would be raised by various relatives. His most famous role was in The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

Gary Coleman (1968 - 2010)
Actor. As a child he appeared in episodes of "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times" before attaining celebrity status as a star of the NBC situation comedy "Diff'rent Strokes", where his character's usual retort to his brother (played by Todd Bridges) "What'choo talkin' 'bout, Willis?" became a national catchphrase.

Jill Clayburgh (1944 - 2010)
Actress. A star of both the large and small screens, she was twice nominated for the Academy Award as Best Actress. Raised in an upper class Manhattan family, she received a degree in theater from Sarah Lawrence College in 1966.

Robert Culp (1930 - 2010)
Actor, Screenwriter. Best known for his work in television, he earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy (1965-1968), the espionage series, where he and co-star Bill Cosby played a pair of secret agents.

James MacArthur (1937 - 2010)
Actor. He is most identified with the role of Detective Danny "Danno" Williams in the long-running police drama "Hawaii Five-O" (1968 to 1979). The line "Book 'em, Danno", often used during the series' run, is one of the most memorable in television history.

Mitch Miller (1911 - 2010)
Conductor, Record Producer. He shall probably be best remembered for getting a large television audience to "Sing Along With Mitch" on Friday nights in the early 1960s.

Blake Edwards (1922 - 2010)
Motion Picture Director, Screenwriter, Producer. He is best remembered for the "Pink Panther" film series. Born William Blake Crump, his parents divorced while he was a child, and his mother would remarry to Jack McEdwards, a Hollywood production manager who helped to get Edwards in the business. He was also married to Julie Andrews.

J. D. Salinger (1919 - 2010)
Novelist, Short Story Writer. His book "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951) is considered the classic 20th Century novel of alienated youth. It has sold over 60 million copies worldwide.

Eddie Fisher (1928 - 2010)
Entertainer. One of America's most popular singers of the 1950s, his career was later overshadowed by his private life. The Philadelphia native began performing as a teen and got his big break in 1949 with an appearance on Eddie Cantor's radio show, which led to a recording contract with RCA Victor.

Zelda Rubinstein (1933 - 2010)
Actress. She is best remembered as the ghost-hunting psychic from the "Poltergeist" movies of the 1980s. The 4'3" Rubinstein, who preferred the designation "little person", attended the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, Berkeley.

Meinhardt Raabe (1915 - 2010)
American Actor. One of the last surviving Munchkin-actors in The Wizard of Oz, he was also the last surviving cast member with any dialogue in the film. At 4'7", he played the coroner in The Wizard of Oz in 1939, with his lines being: "As coroner, I must aver. I thoroughly examined her. And she's no...

Frances Reid (1914 - 2010)
Actress. She is fondly remembered for her role of Alice Horton in the daytime TV serial "The Days of Our Lives", from the show's debut in 1965 until 2007. Raised in Berkeley, California, the daughter of a banker, she studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse and made her Broadway debut in 1939.

Kathryn Grayson

Kathryn Grayson (1922 - 2010)
Singer, Actress. She starred in a number of film and Broadway musicals from the 1940s to the 1960s. Born Zelma Kathryn Hedrick, she moved from North Carolina to St. Louis with her family where, at 12, she was discovered singing on the stage of an empty opera house. She became one of MGM's best loved singing stars.

Agathe Von Trapp (1913 - 2010)
Entertainer. She was a member of the Von Trapp family of singers, who escaped Nazi-occupied Austria and found success in America. Their story was told in the Broadway musical and Oscar-winning film "The Sound Of Music" (1965), in which she was portrayed as Liesl, the daughter who was "16 going on 17.

Billie Richards (1921 - 2010)
Actress. Known primarily for voice characterizations, she shall be remembered as the title lead in the 1964 television special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Raised in Toronto, she was dancing by age two and at five was appearing in a revue titled "The Merry Makers".

Ilene Woods (1929 - 2010)
Actress, Singer. She voiced the title role of Walt Disney's 1950 animated classic "Cinderella". Born Jacqueline Ruth Woods, she originally wanted to be a teacher, but was pushed into show business by an ambitious mother who arranged for her to receive dance and music lessons.

Steve Landesberg (1936 - 2010)
Actor, Comedian. Best remembered as Arthur P. Dietrich, the intellectual, unflappably deadpan detective from the long-running 1970s television series "Barney Miller".

Art Gilmore (1912 - 2010)
Voice Artist, Actor. Best remembered as the 'voice' for such hit television shows as "The Red Skelton Show " and "Highway Patrol", he had a career that spanned over 6 years.

Marie Osborne (1911 - 2010)
Actress. Appearing in around two dozen Hollywood features, she was silent film's first major child star. Born Helen Alice Myers, she was placed at age three months with a foster family named Osborn who changed her name to Marie and later added an "e" to their surname.

Dorothy Provine

Dorothy Provine (1935 - 2010)
Actress. Born to a businessman and an interior designer, she was raised in Washington. She was educated at the University of Washington, where she received a BA in Theater Arts and began performing in several amateur stage productions. Her most famous role was as Milton Berle's wife in the comedy It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in 1963.

These stars have stopped glowing but they will never fade away...

RIP: LENA HORNE (1917-2010)

Lena Horne, the legendary actress-singer who broke new ground in Hollywood, has died. She was 92.

Horne passed away at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York on Sunday night (May 9), as announced by son-in-law Kevin Buckley, reports the New York Times.

As one of the first black performers to significantly infiltrate the studio system by signing a long-term contract with MGM, Horne was instrumental in integrating Hollywood. She appeared in a few well known musicals such as "Stormy Weather" -- which is also one of her signature songs -- and "Ziegfield Follies."

Horne was born in June 1917 in Brooklyn. By her teens she began singing in nightclubs, including the famed Cotton Club as a chorus girl.

Although her Hollywood career spanned six decades, she never really achieved any huge success in that arena often because of her African American heritage was seen by studios as a deterrent when casting for lead roles or roles that might necessitate an interracial relationship on screen.

She was best known in the entertainment world for her singing and showcased that in more nightclubs, on Broadway and on TV variety shows, including "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "The Judy Garland Show." Later in her career she appeared on "The Cosby Show" and "The Muppet Show."

She won several Grammy awards over her career and received a best actress Tony nomination for the musical "Jamaica." Later, she received a special Tony for her one-woman show, "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music."

Horne is survived by her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, and granddaughter Jenny Lumet, screenwriter of "Rachel Getting Married."