"Stormy Weather" was Lena Horne's signature song as well as a chillingly apt metaphor for her career. Long celebrated for her striking beauty and silky voice.
When she arrived in Hollywood in 1941, she had already sung with the orchestra of white bandleader Charlie Barnet, making it one of the era's few integrated swing bands. She also had been a cabaret sensation at the prestigious Cafe Society Downtown club in New York's Greenwich Village.
Refusing to play maids or other stereotypical parts then offered to black actors, Horne had a nonspeaking role as a singer in her first MGM movie, "Panama Hattie," a 1942 comedy.
While with the all-black Noble Sissle Society Orchestra, she made her recording debut in 1936, singing "That's What Love Did to Me" and "I Take You."
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