Sanford may refer to:

Name

Sanford (name)

People

Adam Sanford

Agnes Sanford

Arlene Sanford

Chance Sanford

Charles S. Sanford, Jr.

Curtis Sanford

Edmund Sanford

Edward Sanford, New York politician

Edward Terry Sanford, U.S. Supreme Court justice

Fred Sanford (musician)

Garwin Sanford

Henry Shelton Sanford, American diplomat and businessman, founder of the city of Sanford, Florida.

Isabel Sanford

Jack Sanford

James Sanford (born 1957), American track and field sprinter

John Sanford (author), American author and screenwriter, born Julian Lawrence Shapiro

John Elroy Sanford, birth name of comedian Redd Foxx

John A. Sanford, also known as Jack Sanford, Jungian psychoanalyst and Episcopal priest

John C. Sanford, horticulture associate professor at Cornell University and inventor of the gene gun

Kiki Sanford, science podcaster

Kirsten Sanford

Leonard Cutler Sanford (1868–1950), American surgeon and ornithologist

Lillias Rumsey Sanford

Lucius Sanford, Georgia Tech and National Football League linebacker

Maria L. Sanford

Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina (assumed office in 2003)

Mike Sanford

Mitchell Sanford (1799–1861), New York politician

Nathan Sanford (1777–1838), New York politician, US Senator

Reuben Sanford (1780–1855), New York politician

Roscoe Frank Sanford

T. Denny Sanford, South Dakota businessman and philanthropist

Thomas Sanford, nuclear physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, awarded the Hannes Alfvén Prize in 2005

Terry Sanford, Governor and Senator from North Carolina

William Eli Sanford

;Fictional characters

Fred G. Sanford

Sanford Scolex/Dr. Claw, the main villain of ''Inspector Gadget''

Places

;United States

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* Orlando Sanford International Airport

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Mount Sanford (Alaska), a volcano

Sanford Stadium, Athens, Georgia

;Canada

Sanford, Manitoba

Other

Sanford (writing products), a unit of Newell Rubbermaid that manufactures the Sharpie marker

''Sanford'' (TV series), a 1980–81 American TV series which was a revival of ''Sanford and Son''

Sanford Health-MeritCare, a large health care system headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

See also

Sandford (disambiguation)

Samford (disambiguation)

Stanford

Category:English-language surnames

ca:Sanford de:Sanford fr:Sanford it:Sanford nl:Sanford pl:Sanford pt:Sanford sv:Sanford vo:Sanford

Name	Lena Horne
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Lena Mary Calhoun Horne
Birth date	June 30, 1917Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Death date	May 09, 2010New York City, New York, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals
Genre	Broadway, traditional pop, vocal jazz
Occupation	Singer, dancer, actress, civil rights activist, recording artists
Years active	1933–2000
Label	MGM, RCA Victor, United Artists, Blue Note, Qwest/Warner Bros. Records
Associated acts	Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Vic Damone, Judy Garland, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis, Jr., Barbra Streisand, Teddy Wilson}}

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.

Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the films ''Cabin in the Sky'' and ''Stormy Weather''. Due to the Red Scare and her left-leaning political views, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood.

Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, Horne took part in the March on Washington in August 1963, and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs and on television, while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, ''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'', which ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway and earned her numerous awards and accolades. She continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000.

Early life

Horne was born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Reported to be 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 each belonged to what W. E. B. Du Bois called "The Talented Tenth", the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated blacks, though she was of mixed race.

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. Lena 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, who was dean of students at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute in Fort Valley, Georgia and who would later become an adviser to 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 which 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.

Career

Road to Hollywood

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 she 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''. The show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June 1941 for RCA Victor. Horne left the show after only six months to headline a nightclub revue on the West Coast, and was replaced by Linda Keene.

Horne already had two low-budget movies to her credit: a 1938 musical feature called ''The Duke is Tops'' (later reissued with Horne's name above the title as ''The Bronze Venus''); and a 1941 two-reel short subject, ''Boogie Woogie Dream'', featuring pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons. Horne's songs from ''Boogie Woogie Dream'' were later released individually as soundies. Horne was primarily a nightclub performer during this period, and it was during a 1943 club engagement in Hollywood that talent scouts approached Horne to work in pictures. She chose Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and became the first black performer to sign a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio. November 1944 she was featured in an episode of the popular radio series, Suspense, as a fictional nightclub singer, with a large speaking role along with her singing. In 1945 and 1946 she sang with Billy Eckstine's Orchestra.

She made her debut with MGM in ''Panama Hattie'' (1942) and performed the title song of ''Stormy Weather'' based loosely on the life of Adelaide Hall, (1943), which she made at 20th Century Fox, on loan from MGM. She appeared in a number of MGM musicals, most notably ''Cabin in the Sky'' (also 1943), but was never featured in a leading role because of her race and the fact that films featuring her had to be re-edited for showing in states where theaters could not show films with black performers. As a result, most of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing on the rest of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline; a notable exception was the all-black musical ''Cabin in the Sky'', although one number was cut because it was considered too suggestive by the censors. "Ain't it the Truth" was the song (and scene) cut before the release of the film ''Cabin in the Sky''. It featured Horne singing "Ain't it the Truth", while taking a bubble bath (considered too "risqué" by the film's executives). This scene and song are featured in the film ''That's Entertainment! III'' (1994) which also featured commentary from Horne on why the scene was deleted prior to the film's release. She enjoyed the times but Horne was always confused on the arts,but that's her.Magazines said ''well that's Horne for you''

In ''Ziegfeld Follies'' (1946) she performed "Love" by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Horne wanted to be considered for the role of Julie LaVerne in MGM's 1951 version of ''Show Boat'' (having already played the role when a segment of ''Show Boat'' was performed in ''Till the Clouds Roll By'') but lost the part to Ava Gardner, a personal friend in real life, due to the Production Code's ban on interracial relationships in films. In the documentary ''That's Entertainment! III'' Horne stated that MGM executives required Gardner to practice her singing using Horne's recordings, which offended both actresses. Ultimately, Gardner's voice was overdubbed by actress Annette Warren (Smith) for the theatrical release.

Changes of direction

By the mid-1950s, Horne was disenchanted with Hollywood and increasingly focused on her nightclub career. She only made two major appearances in MGM films during the 1950s: ''Duchess of Idaho'' (which was also Eleanor Powell's film swan song); and the 1956 musical ''Meet Me in Las Vegas''. She was blacklisted during the 1950s for her political views. She returned to the screen three more times, playing chanteuse Claire Quintana in the 1969 film ''Death of a Gunfighter'', Glinda in ''The Wiz (film)'' (1978), and co-hosting the 1994 MGM retrospective ''That's Entertainment! III'', in which she was candid about her treatment by the studio.

After leaving Hollywood, Horne established herself as one of the premiere nightclub performers of the post-war era. She headlined at clubs and hotels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. In 1957, a live album entitled, ''Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria,'' became the biggest selling record by a female artist in the history of the RCA-Victor label. In 1958, Horne was nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical" (for her part in the "Calypso" musical ''Jamaica'') which, at Lena's request featured her longtime friend Adelaide Hall. From the late 1950s through the 1960s, Horne was a staple of TV variety shows, appearing multiple times on Perry Como's ''Kraft Music Hall'', ''The Ed Sullivan Show'', ''The Dean Martin Show'', and ''The Bell Telephone Hour''. Other programs she appeared on included ''The Judy Garland Show'', ''The Hollywood Palace'', and ''The Andy Williams Show''. Besides two television specials for the BBC (later syndicated in the U.S.), Horne starred in her own U.S. television special in 1969, ''Monsanto Night Presents Lena Horne''. During this decade, the artist Pete Hawley painted her portrait for RCA Victor, capturing the mood of her performance style.and she also had 2 kids

In 1970, she co-starred with Harry Belafonte in the hour-long ''Harry & Lena'' for ABC; in 1973, she co-starred with Tony Bennett in ''Tony and Lena''. Horne and Bennett subsequently toured the U.S. and U.K. in a show together. In the 1976 program ''America Salutes Richard Rodgers'', she sang a lengthy medley of Rodgers songs with Peggy Lee and Vic Damone. Horne also made several appearances on ''The Flip Wilson Show''.

Additionally, Horne played herself on television programs such as ''The Muppet Show'', ''Sesame Street'', and ''Sanford and Son'' in the 1970s, as well as a 1985 performance on ''The Cosby Show'' and a 1993-appearance on ''A Different World''. In the summer of 1980, Horne, 63 years old and intent on retiring from show business, embarked on a two month series of benefit concerts sponsored by Delta Sigma Theta. These concerts were represented as Horne's farewell tour, yet her retirement lasted less than a year.

On April 13, 1980, Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and host Gene Kelly were all scheduled to appear at a Gala performance at the Metropolitan Opera House to salute the N Y City Center's Joffrey Ballet Company. However, Pavarotti's plane was diverted over the Atlantic and he was unable to appear. James Nederlander was an invited Honored Guest and noted that only three people at the sold out Metropolitan Opera House asked for their money back. He asked to be introduced to Lena following her performance. In May 1981, The Nederlander Organization, Michael Frazier, and Fred Walker went on to book Horne for a four-week engagement at the newly named Nederlander Theatre (formerly the Trafalgar, the Billy Rose, and the National) on West 41st Street in New York City. The show was an instant success and was extended to a full year run, garnering Horne a special Tony award, and two Grammy Awards for the cast recording of her show ''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music''. The 333-performance Broadway run closed on Horne's 65th birthday, June 30, 1982. Later that same week, the entire show was performed again and videotaped for television broadcast and home video release. The tour began a few days later at Tanglewood (Massachusetts) during the July 4, 1982 weekend. ''The Lady and Her Music'' toured 41 cities in the U.S. and Canada through June 17, 1984. It played in London for a month in August and ended its run in Stockholm, Sweden, September 14, 1984.

In 1981, she received a Special Tony Award for her one-woman show, ''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'', which also played to acclaim at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1984. Despite the show's considerable success (Horne still holds the record for the longest-running solo performance in Broadway history), she did not capitalize on the renewed interest in her career by undertaking many new musical projects. A proposed 1983 joint recording project between Horne and Frank Sinatra (to be produced by Quincy Jones) was ultimately abandoned, and her sole studio recording of the decade was 1988's ''The Men in My Life'', featuring duets with Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joe Williams. In 1989, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The 1990s found Horne considerably more active in the recording studio - all the more remarkable considering she was approaching her 80th year. Following her 1993 performance at a tribute to the musical legacy of her good friend Billy Strayhorn (Duke Ellington's longtime collaborator), she decided to record an album composed largely of Strayhorn's and Ellington's songs the following year, ''We'll Be Together Again''. To coincide with the release of the album, Horne made what would be her final concert performances at New York's Supper Club and Carnegie Hall. That same year, Horne also lent her vocals to a recording of "Embraceable You" on Sinatra's ''Duets II'' album. Though the album was largely derided by critics, the Sinatra-Horne pairing was generally regarded as its highlight.

In 1995, a 'live' album capturing her Supper Club performance was released (subsequently winning a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album). In 1998, Horne released another studio album, entitled ''Being Myself''. Thereafter, Horne essentially retired from performing and largely retreated from public view, though she did return to the recording studio in 2000 to contribute vocal tracks on Simon Rattle's ''Classic Ellington'' album.

Civil rights activism

Horne was long involved with the Civil Rights movement. In 1941, she sang at Cafe Society and worked with Paul Robeson. During World War II, when entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform "for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of African American servicemen", according to her Kennedy Center biography. Because the U.S. Army refused to allow integrated audiences, she wound up putting on a show for a mixed audience of black U.S. soldiers and white German POWs. Seeing the black soldiers had been forced to sit in the back seats, she walked off the stage to the first row where the black troops were seated and performed with the Germans behind her. She was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, the weekend before Evers was assassinated. She also met President John F. Kennedy at the White House two days before he was assassinated. She was at the March on Washington and spoke and performed on behalf of the NAACP, SNCC, and the National Council of Negro Women. She also worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Tom Lehrer mentions her in his song "National Brotherhood Week" in the line "Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek" referring (wryly) to her and to Sheriff Jim Clark, of Selma, Alabama, who was responsible for a violent attack on civil rights marchers in 1965.

Personal life

Horne married Louis Jordan Jones in January 1937 in Pittsburgh. On December 21, 1937, their daughter, Gail (later known as Gail Lumet Buckley, a best-selling author) was born there. and a son, Edwin Jones (born February 7, 1940 – September 12, 1970) who died of kidney disease. Horne and Jones separated in 1940 and divorced in 1944.

Horne's second marriage was to Lennie Hayton, one of the premier musical conductors and arrangers at MGM, in December 1947 in Paris. They separated in the early 1960s, but never divorced; he died in 1971.

In her as-told-to autobiography ''Lena'' by Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the enormous pressures she and her husband faced as an interracial couple. She later admitted in an ''Ebony, May 1980'' interview she had married Hayton to advance her career and cross the "color-line" in show business, but had learned to love him in a way.

Screenwriter Jenny Lumet, known for her award-winning screenplay ''Rachel Getting Married'', is Horne's granddaughter, the daughter of filmmaker Sidney Lumet and Horne's daughter Gail. Horne's other grandchildren include Gail's other daughter, Amy Lumet, and her son's four children, Thomas, William, Samadhi and Lena.

Death

Horne died on Mothers Day, May 9, 2010, in New York City of heart failure. Horne's funeral took place at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue in New York City. Thousands gathered to mourn her, including Leontyne Price, Dionne Warwick, Jessye Norman, Chita Rivera, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Lauren Bacall, Audra McDonald, Vanessa L. Williams .

Legacy

In 2003, ABC announced that Janet Jackson would star as Horne in a television biopic. In the weeks following Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the 2004 Super Bowl, however, ''Variety'' reported that Horne demanded Jackson be dropped from the project. "ABC executives resisted Horne's demand", according to the Associated Press report, "but Jackson representatives told the trade newspaper that she left willingly after Horne and her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a 2005 interview on ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'' that she might possibly consider producing the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.

In January 2005, Blue Note Records, her label for more than a decade, announced that "the finishing touches have been put on a collection of rare and unreleased recordings by the legendary Horne made during her time on Blue Note." Remixed by her longtime producer Rodney Jones, the recordings featured Horne in remarkably secure voice for a woman of her years, and include versions of such signature songs as "Something to Live For", "Chelsea Bridge", and "Stormy Weather". The album, originally titled ''Soul'' but renamed ''Seasons of a Life'', was released on January 24, 2006.

In 2007, Horne was portrayed by Leslie Uggams as the older Lena and Nikki Crawford as the younger Lena in the stage musical ''Stormy Weather'' staged at the Pasadena Playhouse in California (January through March 2009).

In 2011 Horne was also portrayed by actress Ryan Jillian in a one woman show titled "Notes from A Horne" staged at the Susan Batson studio in New York City, From November 2011 to February 2012.

The 83rd Academy Awards presented a tribute to Horne by actress Halle Berry at the ceremony held February 27, 2011.

Awards and recognition

Grammy Awards

{| class=wikitable |+Lena Horne Grammy Award History''' ! Year ! Category ! Title ! Genre ! Label ! Result |- align=center | 1995 | Best Jazz Vocal Performance | ''An Evening with Lena Horne'' | Jazz | Blue Note | Winner |- align=center | 1989 | Lifetime Achievement Award | | | | Winner |- align=center | 1988 | Best Jazz Vocal Performance – Female | ''The Men in My Life'' | Jazz | Three Cherries | Nominee |- align=center | 1988 | Best Jazz Vocal Performance – Duo or Group | "I Won't Leave You Again" | Jazz | Three Cherries | Nominee |- align=center | 1981 | Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female | ''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'' | Pop | Qwest | Winner |- align=center | 1981 | Best Cast Show Album | ''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'' | Pop | Qwest | Winner |- align=center | 1962 | Best Female Vocal Performance | ''Porgy and Bess'' | Pop | RCA | Nominee |- align=center | 1961 | Female Solo Vocal Performance | ''Lena at the Sands'' | Pop | RCA | Nominee |- align=center |}

Other awards

{| class=wikitable |- ! Year ! Organization ! Category ! Result ! Notes |- align=center | 2006 | Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site | International Civil Rights Walk of Fame | Inducted |- align=center | 1999 | NAACP Image Award | Outstanding Jazz Artist | Winner |- align=center | 1994 | Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award | Songwriters Hall of Fame | Winner |- align=center | ? | Hollywood Chamber of Commerce | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Winner | Honor (motion pictures) |- align=center | ? | Hollywood Chamber of Commerce | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Winner | Honor (recordings) |- align=center | 1987 | American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers | The ASCAP Pied Piper Award | Winner | Given to entertainers who have made significant contributions to words and music |- align=center | 1985 | Emmy Award | ''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'' | Nominee |- align=center | 1984 | John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts | Kennedy Center Honors | Winner | For extraordinary talent, creativity, and perseverance |- align=center | 1980 | Howard University | Honorary doctorate | Honored |- align=center | 1980 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actress – Musical | Winner | ''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'' |- align=center | 1980 | New York Drama Critics Circle Awards | Special Citation | Winner | ''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'' |- align=center | 1981 | Tony Awards | Special Citation | Winner | ''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'' |- align=center | 1957 | Tony Awards | Best Actress | Nominee | "Jamaica" |- align=center |}

Filmography

Film

''The Duke Is Tops'' (1938)

''Panama Hattie'' (1942)

''Cabin in the Sky'' (1943)

''Stormy Weather'' (1943)

''Thousands Cheer'' (1943)

''I Dood It'' (1943)

''Swing Fever'' (1943)

''Boogie-Woogie Dream'' (1944)

''Broadway Rhythm'' (1944)

''Two Girls and a Sailor'' (1944)

''Studio Visit'' (1946)

''Till the Clouds Roll By'' (1946)

''Ziegfeld Follies'' (1946)

''Words and Music'' (1948)

''Some of the Best'' (1949)

''Duchess of Idaho'' (1950)

''Meet Me in Las Vegas'' (1956)

''The Heart of Show Business'' (1957)

''Now'' (1965) (includes Horne's performance of the song "Now!")

''Death of a Gunfighter'' (1969) (includes Lena Horne's vocals on the song "Sweet Apple Wine")

''The Wiz'' (1978)

''That's Entertainment! III'' (1994)

Television

''What's My Line?'' (as Mystery Guest, September 27, 1953)

''The Judy Garland Show'' (as herself, October 13, 1963)

''Sesame Street'' (as herself, 1971)

''Sanford & Son'' ("A Visit from Lena Horne" as herself, #2. January 12, 1973)

''The Muppet Show'' (as herself, 1976)

''Sesame Street'' (as herself, Episode 11, November 1, 1976)

''The Cosby Show'' ("Cliff's Birthday" as herself, May 9, 1985)

''A Different World'' ("A Rock, a River, a Lena" as herself, July 1993)

Discography

Albums

''Moanin' Low'' (1942; A Victor Musical Smart Set)

''Little Girl Blue'' (1947; Black & White)

''Classics in Blue'' (1947; Black & White)

''It's Love'' (1955; RCA)

''Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria'' (1957; RCA) - Live

''Stormy Weather'' (1956–1957; RCA)

''Lena Horne at the Cocoanut Grove'' (1957; RCA) - Live

''Jamaica [Original Cast Recording]'' (1957; RCA)

''Give the Lady What She Wants'' (1958; RCA)

''Porgy & Bess'' (1959; RCA) - with Harry Belafonte

''Songs by Burke and Van Heusen'' (1960; RCA)

''Lena Horne at the Sands'' (1961; RCA) - Live

''Lena on the Blue Side'' (1962; RCA)

''Lena...Lovely and Alive'' (1962; RCA)

''Lena Horne Sings Your Requests'' (1963; Charter)

''Lena Like Latin'' (later retitled ''Lena Goes Latin'') (1963; Charter)

''Here's Lena Now!'' (1964; 20th Century)

''Feelin' Good'' (1965; United Artists)

''Lena in Hollywood'' (1966; United Artists)

''Merry from Lena'' (1966; United Artists)

''Soul'' (1966; United Artists)

''Lena & Gabor'' (1970; Skye) - with Gábor Szabó

''Harry & Lena'' (1970; RCA) - with Harry Belafonte

''Nature's Baby'' (1971; Buddha)

''Lena & Michel'' (1975; RCA) - with Michel Legrand

''Lena: A New Album'' (1976; RCA)

''Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'' (1981; Qwest) - Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance

''The Men in My Life'' (1988; Three Cherries) - with Joe Williams and Sammy Davis, Jr.

''We'll Be Together Again'' (1994; Blue Note)

''An Evening with Lena Horne'' (1995; Blue Note) - Live, Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album

''Being Myself'' (1998; Blue Note)

''Seasons of a Life'' (2006; Blue Note; recorded 1994-2000)

''Lena Horne Sings - The MGM Singles'' (2010; Verve; recorded 1946-1947)

Singles

As featured vocalist

A:"That's What Love Did To Me" ''(Sammy Cahn, Saul Chaplin)'' / B:"I Take To You" ''(Mack Gordon, Harry Warren)''

Issued in 1936 on 78rpm 10" vinyl by Decca Records on Decca 778B. Credits Noble Sissle and His Orchestra, Lena Horne was credited as Helena Horne for this recording. Recorded on the 3rd of November 1936 in New York.

"Stormy Weather" (1943)

"Love Me or Leave Me" (1955) #19 U.S. Pop

References

Bibliography

Horne, Lena and Schickel, Richard, ''Lena'', Doubleday, 1965 ISBN 978-0-385-08034-7

Haskins, James and Benson, Kathleen ''Lena'', Stein and Day, 1984 ISBN 0-8128-2853-4

Gavin, James, ''Stormy Weather, The Life of Lena Horne,'' Atria 2009 ISBN 978-0-7432-7143-1

External links

Lena-Horne Tribute Site

Entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia

Biography

Remembering Lena Horne - slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne

Lena Horne turns 80

Remembering the great Lena Horne

Pioneering African American Actress, Singer and Civil Rights Activist Lena Horne, 92, Dies - video report by ''Democracy Now!''

Literature on Lena Horne

Category:1917 births Category:2010 deaths Category:20th-century actors Category:African American female singers Category:African American film actors Category:African American singers Category:African Americans' rights activists Category:American female singers Category:American jazz singers Category:American people of European descent Category:American people of Native American descent Lena Category:Deaths from multiple sclerosis Category:Drama Desk Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Hollywood blacklist Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Musicians from New York City Category:Musicians from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Category:Qwest Records artists Category:Skye Records artists Category:Spingarn Medal winners Category:Tony Award winners Category:Torch singers Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:Female jazz musicians Category:Georgia Music Hall of Fame inductees

ar:لينا هورن bg:Лена Хорн da:Lena Horne de:Lena Horne es:Lena Horne fr:Lena Horne ko:레나 혼 hr:Lena Horne it:Lena Horne nl:Lena Horne ja:レナ・ホーン no:Lena Horne nn:Lena Horne nds:Lena Horne pl:Lena Horne pt:Lena Horne ru:Хорн, Лена fi:Lena Horne sv:Lena Horne yo:Lena Horne zh:蓮納·荷恩

birthname	Sanford Meisner
birth date	August 31, 1905
birth place	New York City, New York
death date	November 26, 1997
death place	Sherman Oaks, California
spouse	Peggy Meredith (1948-1950)
domesticpartner	James Carville }}

Sanford Meisner (August 31, 1905 – February 2, 1997), also known as Sandy, was an American actor and acting teacher who developed a form of Method acting (based on the 'system' of Constantin Stanislavski) that is now known as the Meisner technique.

Early life

Born in Brooklyn, Meisner was the oldest of four children. Sanford, Jacob, Ruth, and Robert were the children of Hermann Meisner, a furrier, and Bertha Knoepfler, both Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from Hungary. In an attempt to improve Sanford's health, the family took a trip to the Catskills, where Jacob was fed unpasteurized milk. As a result, Jacob contracted bovine tuberculosis and died shortly thereafter. In an interview many years later, Meisner later identified this event as "the dominant emotional influence in my life from which I have never, after all these years, escaped." Blamed by his parents for his brother's death, the young Meisner become isolated and withdrawn, unable to cope with feelings of guilt for his brother’s death.

He found release in playing the family piano and eventually attended the Damrosch Institute of Music (now the Juilliard School) where he studied to become a concert pianist. When the Great Depression hit, Meisner's father pulled him out of music school to help in the family business in New York City's Garment District. Meisner later recalled that the only way he could endure days spent lugging bolts of fabric was to entertain himself by replaying, in his mind, all the classical piano pieces he had studied in music school. Meisner believed this experience helped him develop an acute sense of sound, akin to perfect pitch. Later, as an acting teacher, he often evaluated his students' scene work with his eyes closed (and his head dramatically buried in his hands). This trick was only partly for effect; the habit, he explained, actually helped him to listen more closely to his students' work and to pinpoint the true and false moments in their acting.

After graduation from high school, Meisner pursued acting professionally, which had interested him since his youth. He had acted at the Lower East Side's Chrystie Street Settlement House under the direction of Lee Strasberg, who was to play an important role in his development. At 19, Meisner heard that the Theatre Guild was hiring teenagers. After a brief interview, he was hired as an extra for ''They Knew What They Wanted.'' The experience deeply affected him and he realized that acting was what he had been looking for in life. He and Strasberg both appeared in the original Theatre Guild production of the Rodgers and Hart review ''The Garrick Gaieties'', from which the song "Manhattan" came.

The Group Theater

Despite his parents' misgivings, Meisner continued to pursue a career in acting, receiving a scholarship to study at the Theatre Guild of Acting. Here he encountered once again Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg. Strasberg was to become another of the century’s most influential acting theorists and the father of Method acting, an acting technique derived, like Meisner's own, from the 'system' of Konstantin Stanislavski. The three became friends. In 1931, Clurman, Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford (another Theatre Guild member) selected 28 actors (one of whom was Meisner) to form the Group Theatre. This company exerted an influence on the entire art of acting in the United States. Meisner summered with the Group Theater at their rehearsal headquarters at Pine Brook Country Club in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut. Meisner, along with a number of other actors in the company, eventually resisted Strasberg's preoccupation with Affective memory exercises. In 1934, fellow company member Stella Adler returned from private study with Stanislavski in Paris and announced that Stanislavski had come to believe that, as part of a rehearsal process, delving into one's past memories as a source of emotion was only a last resort and that the actor should seek rather to develop the character's thoughts and feelings through physical action, a concentrated use of the imagination, and a belief in the "given circumstances" of the text. As a result, Meisner began to focus on a new approach to the art of acting.

When the Group Theatre disbanded in 1940, Meisner continued as head of the acting program at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, at which he had taught since 1935. In teaching he found a level of fulfillment similar to that which he had found in playing the piano as a child. At the Playhouse he developed his own form of Method acting that was based on Stanislavski's 'system,' Meisner's training with Lee Strasberg, and on Stella Adler's revelations about the uses of the imagination. Today that approach is called the Meisner technique.

The Actors Studio was founded in 1947 by two ex-Group Theatre actors – the then successful directors, Elia Kazan and Robert Lewis. Meisner was one of the first teachers to teach at the studio. Ironically, at first Strasberg was not asked, but by 1951 he had become its artistic director. Many students of the Actors Studio became well known in the film industry. Strasberg's later insistence that he had trained them distressed Meisner enormously, creating an animosity with his ex-mentor that continued until Strasberg's death.

The Meisner technique

Meisner's unusual techniques were considered both unorthodox and effective. Actor Dennis Longwell wrote of sitting in on one of Meisner’s classes one day, when Meisner brought two students forward for an acting exercise. They were given a single line of dialogue, told to turn away, and instructed not to do or say anything until something happened to make them say the words (one of the fundamental principles of the Meisner technique). The first student’s line came when Meisner approached him from behind and gave him a strong pinch on the back, inspiring him to jump away and yelp his line in pain. The other student’s line came when Meisner reached around and slipped his hand into her blouse. Her line came out as a giggle as she moved away from his touch.

The goal of the Meisner technique has often been described as getting actors to "live truthfully under imaginary circumstances." The technique emphasizes that in order to carry out an action truthfully on stage, it is necessary to let emotion and subtext build based on the truth of the action and on the other characters around them, rather than simply playing the action or playing the emotion. One of the best known exercises of the Meisner technique is called the Repetition exercise, where one person spontaneously makes a comment based on his or her partner, and the comment is repeated back and forth between the two actors in the same manner, until it changes on its own. The object is always to react truthfully, allowing the repetition to change naturally rather than by manipulation.

The Meisner/Carville School of Acting

In 1983, Sanford Meisner and his life partner James Carville founded the Meisner/Carville School of Acting on the Caribbean island of Bequia. Students from all around the world came every summer to participate in a summer intensive with Meisner. The Meisner/Carville School of Acting operated on the island and, beginning in 1985, also in North Hollywood, California. Meisner split his time between the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and the two school locations.

Notable students

Throughout his career, Meisner worked with, and taught, students who became well known, such as Sandra Bullock, Dylan McDermott, Eileen Fulton, James Caan, Steve McQueen, Robert Duvall, Gregory Peck, Jack Lord, Bob Fosse, Diane Keaton, Peter Falk, Jon Voight, Jeff Goldblum, Grace Kelly, James Doohan, Manu Tupou, Tony Randall and Sydney Pollack. Pollack together with Charles E. Conrad served as Meisner's senior assistants. The technique is helpful not just for actors, but also for directors, writers, and teachers. A number of directors also studied with him, among them Sidney Lumet and John Frankenheimer, and writers such as Arthur Miller and David Mamet.

Film appearances

Though he rarely appeared on film, he performed in ''Tender Is the Night'', ''The Story on Page One'', and ''Mikey and Nicky''. His last acting role was in the Season One episode of the television medical drama ''ER'', "Sleepless In Chicago". Actor Noah Wyle worked with him and referred to the experience as the highlight of his career.

Meisner quotes

"Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances."

"The seed to the craft of acting is the reality of doing."

"You know it's all right to be wrong, but it's not all right not to try."

"There's no such thing as nothing."

"Less is more!"

"An ounce of behavior is worth more than a pound of words."

"Silence has a myriad of meanings. In the theater, silence is an absence of words, but never an absence of meaning."

"May I say as the world's oldest living teacher, 'Fuck Polite!'"

"Find in yourself those human things which are universal."

"Acting can be fun. Don't let it get around."

"Every little moment has a meaning all its own."

Notes

Sources

''Sanford Meisner: The American Theatre’s Best Kept Secret''. Dir. Nick Doob. Perf. Sanford Meisner, Robert Duvall, Gregory Peck, Sydney Pollack. 1985.

Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre.'' Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN 0521434378.

Hodge, Alison, ed. 2000. ''Twentieth Century Actor Training''. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415194520.

Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. 2002. ''The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives.'' Vol. 5. [S.l.]: Gale Group. ISBN 978-0684806631.

Krasner, David. 2000. "Strasberg, Adler and Meisner: Method Acting." In Hodge (2000, 129-150).

Longwell, Dennis, and Sanford Meisner. 1987. ''Sanford Meisner on Acting.'' New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0394750590.

Postlewait, Thomas. 1998. "Meisner, Sanford." In Banham (1998, 719).

Silverberg, Larry. 1994. ''The Sanford Meisner Approach: An Actor’s Workbook.'' Workbook One. New Hampshire: Smith and Kraus. ISBN 978-1880399774.

External links

The Neighborhood Playhouse

Category:1905 births Category:1997 deaths Category:Acting theorists Category:American actors Category:American Jews Category:Drama teachers Category:Gay actors Category:Jewish actors Category:People from Brooklyn

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