Actress Lena Horne is the first black woman to have a Broadway theatre named after her.
The theater, on West 47th Street, was built in 1926 and currently hosts the popular British musical Six.
It comes just weeks after another Broadway Theatre was named after Star Wars actor James Earl Jones.
Horne, who died in 2010, fought racial segregation to secure a major Hollywood film deal and later gained international fame as a singer.
She later became the first black woman to be nominated for a Tony Award, Broadway’s highest honor, for her starring role in the 1957 calypso musical Jamaica. In 1981, she received a special Tony Award for Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, a Broadway solo show in which she sang and talked about the ups and downs of her life.
“She has opened so many doors for us that we people of color can thank her for being a beacon,” said singer and actress Vanessa Williams.
Horne’s niece Jenny Lumet attended the presentation on Wednesday night and said she was blown away by her honor.
“I didn’t realize how exciting she was until I started talking about it,” she said.
“My grandmother would pretend she wasn’t as horny as she was. But she would have been completely, completely delighted.
Born in 1917, Horne began singing as a teenager in the choir of Harlem’s famous Cotton Club. She quickly became a popular singer and MGM signed her in 1942 to perform in its musicals.
She wasn’t the first black woman to land a studio contract — MGM signed actress Nina Mae McKinney to a five-year deal in 1929 — but she was the first to make an impression.
In 1943, she played Selina Rogers in the all-black musical Stormy Weather, and the title track became both a huge hit and her signature song. However, she never became a full-fledged movie star. She later recalled that her appearances in all-star musicals like “Two Girls And A Sailor” and “Ziegfeld Follies” often amounted to a few minutes of screen time that could easily be cut when the films were shown in the South. . United States.
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When Horne’s contract ended, she became a successful theater star, recording artist, and civil rights activist and participated in the historic 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his speech.” I have a dream”.
She won four Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 1989, while her 1957 live album, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria, was the best-selling album by a female singer in history, by RCA Victor.
When actress Halle Berry became the first black woman to win the Best Actress Oscar in 2002, she credited Horne as the trailblazer who paved the way for her breakthrough.
However, Horne often downplayed the magnitude of his accomplishments.
“I was unique in that I was the kind of black guy that white people could accept,” she once said. “I was his daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never about how awesome I was or what I contributed. It was because of my appearance.
The new Lena Horne Theater was originally the Mansfield Theatre. It was renamed in 1960 after New York Times critic Justin Brooks Atkinson.
Horne’s name was chosen to fulfill a promise made by Broadway’s three biggest landlords as black performers pushed for more recognition in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. In September, the Shubert organization renamed its Cort Theater in honor of two-time Tony Award winner James Earl Jones.
“It means a lot. It’s too hard for me to pin down,” said the actor, who has appeared in 21 Broadway shows and is best known as the voice of Darth Vader.
The Jujamcyn Theaters already had a room named after the American playwright August Wilson, who died in 2005.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams welcomed the changes to what is known as The Great White Way, the Broadway neighborhood with 41 professional theaters. “What we are saying is that The Great White Way must contain chocolate,” he told reporters.
