You're Dead to Me - Lena Horne: racism and resilience in the Golden Age of Hollywood

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Greg Jenner is joined in twentieth-century America by Dr Hannah Thuraisingam Robbins and comedian Desiree Burch to learn all about singer and Hollywood actress Lena Horne. Born into a middle class Black family in New York, a young Lena Horne soon followed in the footsteps of her actress mother and made her début at the famous Cotton Club aged only 16. After making her name as a singer and performer – and following the end of her tumultuous first marriage – Horne transferred to the west coast and bagged a Hollywood contract with MGM. There, she appeared in a number of classic films, including Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky. Over the next several years, she would also perform for the troops in the Second World War, fall in love with and marry a white composer and arranger, undertake an international tour, and become one of the most popular nightclub performers of the post-war era. But the racism of segregation-era America would also shape and limit the career of the woman known as ‘the first Black pin-up girl’, eventually leading her to the civil rights movement and Black activism in the 1960s. This episode traces Lena’s journey from young dancer to Hollywood star and renowned vocalist, along the way exploring her connections with figures including Billie Holliday and Martin Luther King Jr., and the injustice she spent so much of her career fighting against. If you’re a fan of the history of cinema, mid-century America, and Black cultural icons, you’ll love our episode on Lena Horne. If you want more musical icons with Desiree Burch, listen to our episodes on Paul Robeson, Josephine Baker, and Broadway Musicals. And for more film history, check out our episodes on the history of Bollywood and Sarah Bernhardt. You’re Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Rosalyn Sklar Written by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Dr Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Dr Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If there was a big rent button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.

My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are donning our glad rags and finding our spotlight as we learn all about the legendary singer and Hollywood actress, Lena Horn. And to help us, we have two very special fellow performers in History Corner. They're Associate Professor in Popular Music and Director of Black Studies at the University of Nottingham. They're an expert on musical theatre and especially race and gender identity in popular culture. You'll remember them from our episode on The History of Broadway is Dr Hannah to Rhicely and Robbins. Welcome back, Hannah.

Thanks for having me back. Delighted to have you back. And in Comedy Corner, an introduction feels completely redundant for such a stalwart of your dead to me. She's a comedian, actor and writer. You've seen her all over the TV on Taskmaster, Frankie Boyle's New World Order, QI, too hot to handle. Maybe you've seen her incredible new stand-up show. The Golden Roth. And you'll know her from so many episodes of this very podcast,

including recent highlights, Sojourna Truth, and the history of Broadway. Not one episode. What an episode that would be. Yes, we're getting the band back together. It's Desiree Birch. Welcome back, Desire. Thanks so much for having me back, Greg.

It's so nice to be back and find out what the heck happened before. That's the alternative name of the show. What the heck happened before? Desiree, we have covered several performers before. We have done Josephine Baker together, Paul Robeson. P.T. Barnum to an extent. Yeah, true. Yes. He performed being a human just about. Just about.

So if I come to you and I say the name Lena Horn, what comes to mind? So what comes to mind is Glinda the Good Witch from The Wiz. Because I grew up, that was the Black Wizard of Us that we grew up on in the 80s. And so that sort of, I think was my introduction to her. And also seeing her perform on the Cosby Show, IP were my I mean, I'm just saying, but those were my interactions with her.

And she kind of, I think, in my head, occupies a similar sort of like Harry Belafonte status of being a performer and an activist as well. Yeah. This is good knowledge. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, that's all spot on, I think.

Yeah, it's quite a life. I mean, I didn't know half of this stuff and I'm really excited, so we better crack on. So, what do you know? This is the so what do you know? is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subjects. And I'm guessing there's a lot of people who've heard the name Lena Horn, but maybe don't quite know who she is. Maybe it's the Desiree thing of The Wiz. If you're a fan of classic

Hollywood movies, maybe you've seen her in Cabin in the Sky or Stormy Weather, or you watched a star turn, as Desire did, as Glinda, in The Wizard of Oz adaptation, The Wiz. Music lovers might recognize the song Stormy Weather, which is how I know about Lena Horn, or know her incredible voice from her dozens of albums and of course if you were a kid or a grown-up you maybe grew up watching Sesame Street and the Muppets and saw Lena Horn there. But what about Lena Horne's life story? How did she become the star of stage and screen and what colour exactly is light Egyptian? Let's find out. Right. Professor Hannah, starting at the beginning. When was Lena Horn born and what was her family background? We're a 20th century, right? Yeah, absolutely. So she was

born on June the 30th, 1917, to what was a middle class black family. Her father, Edwin, was kind of a Renaissance man. He spoke six languages. He owned a restaurant and a hotel, but eventually he got caught up in gambling. Her mother, Edna, was an actress. However, her parents separated when she was three and she went to live with her paternal grandparents. Lena's grandmother, Cora, was an amazing character. She was an early feminist. She was a community activist. and she took Lena to organizing events and meetings alongside her schooling. She was very restrictive about Lena's original education. And Lena remembered that as the period of sort of stability and comfort during her childhood,

living with her grandparents. So we're dealing with what we would describe as professionals. We're thinking about lawyers, people who've been to university, people with considerable wealth. We're thinking debutante balls. This is not the sort of stereotypical representation. of Black Life in Harlem that is sometimes attributed to the stories

of people who achieve fame as black musicians in the early 20th century. Okay, so Desiree, quite a nice start to life. Judging by the, you know, 1917, could have been a lot worse. Could have been extraordinarily a lot worse, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. But do you know, can you guess what happened to upset this sort of quite happy and bumbling along?

I mean, any number of things could have happened. I mean, literally racism at every turn could have happened. but probably a war, I'm guessing, as well because of the timing of it if she was born in 1917. There were a couple of them around then. There was a pretty big one. At least one sizable ones going on. Fairly large war war. But actually, even earlier than that, I mean, how do we have, I want to say, the sort of sad kind of breakup of the family and the mother sort of kidnapping her daughter?

I mean, is that fair? Yeah, sort of. So, Lena Korn. Oh, my gosh, true crime. What happened is it? Sounds pretty modern day. Was there a car chase and everything? Well, sort of.

Lena Horne's grandparents, her parental grandparents, were estranged from her parents. And they took Lena but had basically no contact with Edna, her mother. And her mother was really unhappy with the sort of straight-laced middle-class education, not exposing her to the arts that she felt Lena was getting. So essentially, she kidnapped her on the street and took her on the road as a touring actress. But actually, she left Lena at... with her friends, with other carers.

She sent her to stay with her brother Frank, rather than actually keeping Lena with her the whole time. And eventually, when she was 12, Lena was returned to Brooklyn, to her grandparents in New York. So she picked her up off the street at what age? This was, I think, six. So for six years, she was like,

hey, kid, you're coming with me. She went to go pick her up from school and she ain't going home. Then she takes her on the road. And then she's like, oh, bye. I got to go on stage. I got two shows a night. Yeah, absolutely. She picked her up when she was young.

And left her with everyone else but her grandparents. And left her with everybody else but her grandparents. And that caused a really complicated relationship between her and her mother. She learned a lot about the arts, though. She did. Abandonment and the arts go. And personal experience. Crucial foreshadowing.

We will come back to that. She was restored to her grandparents' care aged about 12. Her father, Edwin, was out of the picture. Yeah. he got, well, Edwin didn't really like working and he discovered gambling. I was going to say, if you start getting into gambling, you start getting really out of working really quickly because why work if you can just win money? Yeah.

So this is it. Sometimes he was extremely successful and sometimes he was extremely not successful. And so that sort of polarity meant that he stepped out of her life for most of her formative years. And she said later on that she only really knew her father as an adult and he was not closely connected with her grandparents. So when her grandmother died, she was forced to go back to living with her mother and her new stepfather, Mike. And she said that she couldn't really relate to this white man that her mother had married. And they fell on fairly hard times. Obviously, this was the depression, as you mentioned. And that led to them relocating from a fairly nice house, initially to the

Bronx, and then to Harlem and trying to figure out how to make ends meet with both Edna and Mike losing their jobs in this time. Because when she was 12 and she was restored to her grandparents care, That's the great crash, right? That's the Wall Street crash in 1929. So that is a, that's a bad time to be in the economy. Let's meet teenage Lena. Tina the Lena, Lena. I don't know.

I haven't worked out what I'm doing with that yet, but let's meet her. What does she do to revive the family finances, Desiree? Lena, Lena, the Tina. I mean, if she got an education in the arts from the age of six, I am guessing that she has figured out some kind of song and dance situation to kind of help out, like she's performing or doing something in the family business. No, you're spot on, I think. We start our story with not singing yet, dancing.

Yeah, absolutely. So she's 16 years old. Neither her mother or her stepfather have a job. So she secures an audition at Harlem's legendary Cotton Club. And this is also important to state much to the disapproval of her middle class family. This was not someone who was raised the way she was. Much to her disapproval of her game. A trembling father and her mother who's there five seconds a year?

Okay. Oh, okay. So her mother approved. Her mother thought this was phenomenal. She saw an opportunity to kind of build her own success through leader. Oh, stage mom. No, you're going to honey boo-boo your daughter now? No.

I think it's worth saying that the Cotton Club, although kind of legendary to us now, was a really complicated space. It didn't allow black patrons in. and for example the black musicians and chorus people were not allowed to use the bathrooms. They could only rehearse the final rehearsals in the building. It was quite a tense setup. But at the same time, a number of major artists like Cab Callaway, Ethel Waters, Louis Armstrong, Adelaide Hall. All working there. And Duke Ellington was crucial.

I guess if you want to make a welcoming space for black people, you don't call it the cotton. Well, there is that. I'm guessing it's not a vibe. We're like, hey, come on down the Cotton Club. Yeah. So these amazing performers are there, but they're barely welcome. And there are no black patrons. There's no customers sitting down, enjoying a beer and watching.

It is white people watching Black performers. Yeah, absolutely. And I think in the bigger story for Lena Horne, the meeting with Duke Ellington is the really essential thing that happens at the Cotton Club. Because he identifies her as a talent that is going to be marketable. And he pops up a number of times in her career going forward. and he starts introducing her to other singers who begin to mentor her.

She starts, I should say at the Cotton Club, earning quite a lot of money. So she earned more than double the average African American weekly wage at about $25 a week, which sounds like nothing now, but actually was quite a considerable sum in the Depression.

And Edna particularly, but Edna and Mike, her mum and her stepfather, were really excited at this opportunity and started to push the management of the Cotton Club to try and get in. give her better spots, to give her opportunities to leave the cotton club and perform in other places,

and to give her more money. So actually, what happened was that the cotton club became quite an hostile and unrewarding environment for Lena because she had kind of unhappy conditions in general, and then her caregivers basically hustling the management to the point that her stepfather actually got beaten up by some heavies because he was getting on management's nerve so much. Right. I mean, you know what's going to make your boss really pleased is your mom and dad calling every day and being like, how come you're not paying her more for the same work, you know? I think they're going to really treat you well while you're working there the whole time. Was she working solely as a dancer? Was she singing at this point and dancing as well if she's

been there for a while? So she began as a dancer, but she was singing as well. Like the chorus was multifaceted and she certainly started to get spots during this time she stars in her first Broadway musical called Dance With Your Gods and she would go do that and then come back and perform at the Cotton Club. So in 1930, 35 aged 18 or so, she does leave the Cotton Club and she's off on tour. And in what capacity? Who is she touring with and what is she doing on tour? Is she now the kind of, you know, song and dance lady?

Or is there a bit of dance theatre variety, bit of what do you need? I mean, I would describe this as the main transition into her, like, musical career. She decides the only way to break her contract at the Cotton Club, given the environment, is to run away. So she flees and she runs off to, I think, Philadelphia. So not that far. I mean, yeah. And those times, I mean, that was more than just an Amtrak.

All right. Yeah, cool. And she secures an audition with Noble Cecil, who some listeners may remember from his involvement in Shuffle Along and various other Harlem Renaissance activities. He is now running a major orchestra called the Society Orchestra and he signs her as a new attraction and she becomes this star figure,

but she draws particular attention for being one of few women allowed to lead or what we would now call conduct the orchestra. But truth be told, she claims that she just waved a stick and the orchestra actually followed one of the other musicians. She's a pretty lady with a stick and they're like, great, you should be at the front.

That's it. And I guess during this time, she releases her first records with Decker, so she's transitioning. from the stage environment to a sort of bigger portfolio of work. But here they come again. She was under considerable pressure because her stepfather, Mike, and her mother traveled with the band.

And she was constantly on edge expecting that Mike was going to lose his call and cause a problem. And actually, he does yell at Noble Cecil for letting the musicians use the kitchen exit in a segregated hotel and not respecting his players. And eventually Mike has kicked off the tour. This is so complicated. because first of all, it's like, do her, does her mom and her stepdad have a job at this point, or is their only job annoying her employers? She's this, yeah, she's sort of, you know, the Kardashian model.

But then he's like, okay, you know, lots of people, and I mean, Mike doesn't have necessarily skin in the game. It sounds like he's a white guy, and, but he's like, you can't just let your black entertainers be treated like second class citizens because there'd be no show. And that's a thing that a lot of black artists historically have had to do and, like, put their foot down about. So he is doing something quite useful, but he's doing it in the most staged dad way. We're just like, can you just please let me work?

Why did you follow me to Philly? Do you understand running away? I'm running away, and you're coming too? So age 19, she manages to escape her parents. Desiree, what is the classic escape your parents move at 19? She picks up a lime bike and just floors it. She's like, this is the only way. They'll never keep up.

Mike's in the back and went running like Tom Cruise, And she's like, you'll never catch me. She does an E.T thing. She just cycles away from the government. Just a scooter. Just her in the heels and a big dress like, I'm going to get out of here. Doesn't pick up a bike. Okay, fine.

Picks up a fair. Oh, okay. She's the original bike. Something else to ride. We did it, guys. Hannah, who is her beloved? Yeah, in 1937, she runs away to Pittsburgh this time. And she marries this guy, Louis Jordan Jones, or Lewis Jordan Jones, I think it is actually. And he is from a similar middle class, black background. He's the son of a minister. He's a college graduate. He's an aspiring politician. But their marriage is made challenging by the fact that Lena Horn continues to work. And he was looking for a different kind of wife. He was going to support his political aspirations rather than make her own money. They have two children, Gail and Teddy.

Yeah. Teddy's named after her father. Yeah. Edwin. Why do people with the name Ed or Edward think that Ted is a useful, suitable nickname. That's a totally different name. What are we doing? You already have Ed, Eddie. Where's Ted? Thank you. So many options. Let's just call you Fred. Moving on. So Gayle and Teddy are siblings. The sad thing here, the thing that I find particularly affecting is they're separated. When the marriage fails and Lena, you know, that they split apart, the children are split apart.

Yes. So Lena goes back to New York and she is allowed. That's how the language goes to take Gail, her daughter. But her husband wants to keep the son with him. So she basically doesn't see her son, apart from in summer holidays, really until he's an adult. He stays behind and Gail goes with her. So we have a replication at exactly the same time. She loses contact with her father when she's three years old and she leaves her son when he's three. She moves to New York and that does go well, or at least that's the plan. She doesn't get work immediately. But once she does, it starts to gain momentum just through her sheer force of personality.

She bugs everyone she ever met during the Cotton Club. She goes for tons of auditions and eventually she secures this singing job with a white trumpeter called Charlie Barnett who runs this orchestra. However, this is the first time she's touring with what's an all-white orchestra. And that confronted her with a whole set of new problems. So, for example, some hotels would claim

they hadn't booked the band when they arrived with her. At other times, she was left behind when they went to play in venues that were she wasn't permitted to perform. So this bit is quite a complicated environment for her. And after about six months, she decides she needs to get out and she secures an audition via the record producer John Hammond, who's aware of her from

Decker, to audition at Cafe Society downtown. So there were two cafe societies, one uptown and one downtown, as a solo artist. And it is the up and coming cabaret venue in New York. And it boasts artists like Billy Holiday who first performed Strange Fruit there. Paul Robeson is a regular performer and that's how they become friends. And it is really the beginning of Lena Horn becoming Lena Horn. And this is an establishment, this is interesting because they allow mixed audiences. So it's a mixed bill on stage, right?

You've got black and white musicians, but also the audiences can be anyone who wants to come see music. Is this in the village? Where is this? But they're allowing this to happen. It's downtown Manhattan. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it was pioneering. They were in some ways trying to create an antidote to the Cotton Club environment by having a multiracial environment.

But actually, when you look at the lineup, they were. clearly poaching quite a lot of the performers there. Duke Ellington was there regularly and he gets, you know, back in connection with Lena Horn. It's not hard to poach performers when it's like, we'll let you walk in the front door here. I mean, he's just done. Yeah. And they build all these new relationships. You can use the toilets.

Yeah, exactly. When you come, you can we. I mean, think about it. Yeah. It's exactly that straightforward. Suddenly people are allowed to hang out. They're able to get to know each other. They make a massive amount of connections.

This is also important in Lena Horne's later story because she meets people like the film director Vincent Manelli during this time. So there's a lot, there's a lot of opportunity for her, but this is also how she gets reconnected with, for example, black unions and black organising because she becomes great friends with Robeson. Yeah, and obviously, listeners, we've done an episode with Desiree, about Paul Robeson, who was an extraordinary figure, and, you know, go listen to that because it's quite the life. This is a very beautiful, glamorous young woman in her mid-20s or so. Desiree, obvious question, you know, is showbiz all about image-first technique later? Yes.

Okay. I mean, look, I, there's an incredible amount of talent, I think, probably. And showbiz at that time, she's meeting them all over the place. But clearly, she was already making quite a bit of money on the image factor. So I imagine that that and just sort of a general being comfortable around artists in that world got her a lot further than actually needing to employ talent. You know, it would be great if she had this, like, wellspring. of like dramatic, you know, life and upbringing and pain that she could draw from to put into those songs.

If only, yeah. All right. So we have Lena Horn in, we're now into the 1940s. She pretends she can't sing, but she can sing. She's a singer. She's a, she's a performer. But in 1942, she did what every performer with a song in their heart and a dream in their soul does.

She headed to Tinseltown to go shake her tail feathers. Was it a wild goose chase? does she have what you need to be a movie star? Because that's a whole other category of fame. Yeah, it's really interesting. She always said she never wanted to be a film star. She was never interested in Hollywood. She didn't like California.

But her agent... She wanted to run away from her parents. And that's as far as you can get in America. It's who you get to see. Well, there's quite a lot of running away from California that comes actually. But her agent persuades her to go to L.A. to a venue that Duke Ellington is working at. This is a new

up-and-coming space called The Little Trock and it became the go-to place for Hollywood's great and good. So people like Marlene Deatry, Cole Porter, Greta Garbo were in the audience watching. And at that time, Horn inevitably get spotted by numerous

film producers and film scouts. And actually, that led initially to her having a screen test for the film Casablanca. Wow. But actually, that character is then played by man in the actual film. Oh, no way. Yeah. And in the end, it's MGM, the producer Roger Edens, who sees Horn and takes her seriously and decides to take her to meet Arthur Freed. Arthur Freed is the head of the division, producing screen musicals, and they decide together, along with Vincent

Manelli, who they bump into, who she already knows, that she should go and audition for L.B. Meyer, the second M in MGM, himself. I would say that her transition into Hollywood is a reluctant one, and she decides to take her father, Edwin, who she's reconnected with at this point. So he's back in the picture. She's now successful. She's an adult. She's able to make some, you know, agent decisions.

Is he still gambling? I know that this isn't like a major overarching question, but when you bring a parent back into your life that you cut yourself off from, you'd like to hope that they've like seen the error of their ways and what took them away. Or is he planning on running off of a lot of my money? I just need to know if my heart's going to get broken now.

He's not planning to run off with a lot of help. money. I appreciate it. It was a very surprising audition. Elbe Meyer is immediately taken with her. He can see the appeal. He immediately understands what Roger Edens, who is an associate producer, has recognized. But they are not prepared for her and Edwin to come in and negotiate what she isn't,

isn't going to do. So with his help, she says that they're not going to accept any old part. and he says that he could just hire Lena Horner are made with his own money, so she's not going to be playing servants on screen. They also negotiate that she won't play any illiterer or uneducated parts, and she won't play any jungle or Tarzan stereotypes.

Thank God. So Horn's kind of background that we talked about before, her class identity, but also I think actually her lack of investment in making films allowed her to advocate here. She wasn't desperate. She wasn't immediately wanting, whatever they offered her, and that did allow her on some level to advocate for herself.

So the dad's sort of running the show a bit. So is he her agent? He acts sort of as her agent. She uses him as an advocate for her. I think there are a lot of factors in her life. She has her agent. She also has pressure from outside to try and forge a path in Hollywood for other black actors. And I think she really needed someone to back her. And that's what he comes in to do. And she gets an extraordinary contract. For a first-time debutante, a seven-year gig. So she'd done a couple of independent black films at the end of the 30s, but you're basically, those had not been widely distributed.

They were not prominent movies. She had the appeal. I think that's the thing we can say. She had the appeal, but also they saw an opportunity to represent a different kind of music within some of these film musicals that are made. So she gets in the end a seven-year film contract, and she was the first black actor of any gender to get such a major deal. This was that one year they were really doing DEI at MGM,

and they just really knocked it out of the park and nobody else ever got that deal ever. 1942 to 1943. It's the golden year. Yeah, the golden year. Oh, my goodness. This is also based on her previous experience. She has had this difficult time in the all-white band, and so one of the other things that she negotiates is that she won't stay in hotels unless there where her white co-stars stay

and she has to be allowed to eat in the same restaurant. So she actually drives MGM to put their money in more liberal spaces. And for that, Lena Horn gets $350 a week, which has increased $100 a week every year. And it's really important to say that while that is more than 10 times what she got at the Cotton Club, actually Fred Astaire's signing rate with MGM was $1,500 a week. So although this was not small money,

it was also not the equivalent of what the big stars were making. And Fred Astaire's contract is from the early 30s. So this is a decade later. Sure. Do we know what white women were making? Because obviously they were probably making less than Fred Astaire as well. Like where does her salary compare to other women? Well, if we use Hattie McDaniel as another black woman,

Hattie McDaniel, who is already famous when she makes Gone with the Wind, makes $700 a week. But I do think that it's worth saying that what Lena Horn is has is a permanent contract. So she's getting this every week. Whereas, for example, Fred Astaire was never on retainer with MGM. He did a higher cost contract, but for shorter times. But you're absolutely right. There is a wealth discrepancy in this.

If you think take the film Top Hat that Fred Astaire is in, he is paid, I think it's four times the amount that Ginger Rogers is paid and she is paid in costumes partially. So there's a gender component and then a black tax for one of a better way of putting in. So Lena Horn's debut, MGM debut, is a first. called Panama Hatti. Yeah. And she's playing herself.

Panama Hatti is an adaptation of a stage musical by Cole Porter. And I think it's a really interesting insight into what MGM attempted to do with her. And it's kind of a bleak insight simultaneously, apologies. But she is split between a portrayal of just a singer in a cafe and also performs a new song written specifically for the film called The Sping. And the sping is this bizarre, exotic splurge of references to Cuba, to the Caribbean, more broadly, to Southern America, to Latin culture. They deliberately immediately start to lean on the idea of her being slightly ethnically ambiguous. And this then feeds into sort of her wider marketing across film in general.

But I think it's also really important to say that this is also a time where black actors were sometimes, listed as props and not as cast people in the paperwork at the studios. So the complexity of the ways in which they are conceptualizing race cannot be overstated. Can you give me an example of how they were listed as props? It's like starring, you know, Ted as the broom? Like, how does, so they would produce these documents outlining the contents of the films. This would include the list of scenes, the number of songs, who the cast were. And then they would have a prop list where they would have table, kettle, six chairs, and in one. And Louis Armstrong.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Like it was, it's a bleak fact, but it is a really important nuance to understanding what it might have been like to be making a film for her at that time. I mean, that's horrific, but also just absurd, isn't it? The idea he's not even a human in the cast list. Yeah, absolutely. He's in those furniture.

I think when we talk about her. identity and weaponising her race identity. We also have to recognise that they started doing it right away. And whether we want to perceive that as mobilising light skin privilege or whatever, it is being set against this really bleak, dehumanising context for all black performers. And that brings us to an important point, actually. Almost immediately, Lena Horn's big break was somewhat soured because she was caught in the crossfire between two sort of organisations

to write the civil rights movement and then the film unions and these are both organizations with noble intentions and yet they are disagreeing and lina is sort of the battleground how does that work yeah absolutely i think she gets caught in the middle of a lot of different political priorities during her sort of decade at mGM the nbacep and a couple of other black unions were particularly invested in addressing representation in hollywood at this point and they saw lina hoarer as a tool, as an opportunity. They felt that she had an aesthetic, her visual appearance, her vocal style

would appeal to the white executives. And they sort of saw her as a Trojan horse, if you like, to quote unquote break the colour line and to get an actor who was not white into multiracial films. If there was a big rent button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead.

From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Her films that sort of have stood the test of time, I suppose, would be stormy weather and cabin in the sky. Those are the kind of classic early movies that, you know, you can still watch now, I guess. Those are all black cast, or predominantly black cast.

These are films with great stars in all the main roles. So she's part of a black ensemble. Yeah. And if you look at her filmography, really those two films, Cabin in the Sky, which is an adaptation of a hit stage show and stormy weather, which was an original film made by Fox, are really the highlights of her film career in the 40s. And yeah, as you say, they are all black cast.

So it's important to say that everybody behind the camera was white. And what happened there was they got the great and good of black performance into these films and created these amazing sort of bacchanals, if you like, celebrations. In those films, they are the only examples where Lena Horn has dialogue, where she gets to interact with other people, and she actually has character arcs. After that, she basically loses the opportunity to have a meaningful interaction with the plot of any musical film. And you said when we did our preparatory Zoom call, at something quite shocking. She would sometimes

not be allowed to stand too close to fellow actors so they could physically cut her out of movies. Yes, that's an amazing... Deserrevely, your eyes went very wide there. Yeah. Yeah, this is like before CGI. They were just literally like, we will just splice the film just in case. So they literally just had a sort of

frame around her so they could, what, when they're playing it in the South or... I recommend you watch the first five minutes of Till the Clouds Roll by from 1946. This is a biopic about the composer, Jerome McCurn. And in it, they stage a sequence from the musical showboat, or they cut together several scenes, actually.

And that is one of the few scenes in which Lena Horn appears with a mass of white people. But what happens is every actor in that gets a freeze frame for a two, five seconds and then is in a group. They briefly show Lena Horn and then she literally backs out of shot and then is not in the wide frame, wide angle group shots. So there was literal removal from physical action taking place,

but she became what was really the fate of all black actors at the time, which is referred to as a feature actor. She would be given a song number, sometimes with some dance. It would be irrelevant to the plot. She wouldn't have often a named character. She would often be appearing as Lena Horn. And those scenes could just be... I mean...

But she could just be cut. Those scenes could just be cut from the film. So, for example, she made a joke in the 80s about the fact that when she went to Texas for the first time, no one had ever seen her... in the film she was in. The other thing, I suppose, we have to talk about in terms of racism or at least, you know, prejudice on set

would be her hair and makeup, Desiree. Do you know what, I mean, we... I'm like, I know her hair and makeup was bad because it's not good now, so I can only imagine. We mentioned it very early on. You may recall light Egyptian. Oh, my goodness. Do you know what that might refer to?

A light Egyptian. I mean, a light Egyptian. I imagine that that was the makeup color, skin tone that they were going for. and not like the name of the perm they were using on the hair, but either way. What is light Egyptian? And how does this, how was her hair and makeup sort of in some ways othering of her, in other ways sort of glamorizing? In the 40s, the white press couldn't decide what her skin tone was,

but one of the ways in which she was racialized is that they always refer to her skin color. But in headlines she was referred to as sepia, as copper, as chocolate. Like these are not the same shades of foundation, to put it, a horrible way. And I think there's a really important point about how she was lit and how she was represented. So yeah, you're right. The max factor, max space factor, was working for MGM and was used to making bespoke foundation shades. So he made one called platinum for Jean Harlow. And he makes light Egyptian for Lena Horn. But this is just one part of the reality of the hair and makeup environment for her when she does her screen test. They only have the makeup for Bilbo-Drangles

Robinson on hand. People who know what Bill Bejangles Robinson looks like, know that he's a much darker-skinned actor. And so she actually looked like she was in a minstrel show in her screen test. And that is actually what leads them to develop the Max Factor shade. But we also have the reality that the hairdressers union ban their members from touching her head. And so the head of hairdressing has to design all her styles himself, hired a black woman off the books. She's called Tiny Kyle and she becomes part of like Lena Horn's like core circle. Tiny Kyle is a great name. Yeah, that is a great name. But there's a really important point here that not only is she subject to this appalling condition,

but she can't have her hair and makeup done in the same room as the white actors who are being treated by union members. So some of the stories about her being isolated, about her being cold and aloof from other performers and particularly from other black performers was specifically to do with the way in which the hairdresser union treated her. I may need you repeat half of that because I went for a tailspin the second you said that the hairdresser was not allowed to touch her head. Is this like a Jim Crow thing? Like no water fountains, no hair, you can't touch your head because it'll bite your fingers off and you'll be black as soon as you touch her hair. Like, okay, so they just had to design the wigs and then she had to do it herself. So they didn't design the wigs.

They wouldn't have anything to do with her. The head of hair dressing designed her wigs. She once referred to him deciding to make her look like Hedie, or Lamar, as a result. Like, actually this became part of the racial othering of her is because she ended up having someone who didn't, know anything about her hair or how she would look, design quote-unquote white hairstyles that would then put on her head. They then hired this black woman, Tiny, to look after her and they become sort of, for a long time, friends, Tiny helps look after her kids. And, you know, yeah, that is a tiny happy nugget in a very bleak moment.

Hannah, when we talk about the Jim Crow laws, these are segregation laws, keeping white and black people apart in public spaces? Yeah. The Jim Crow laws were about protecting quote-unquote white interests. They were about restricting interracial marriage. They were about restricting employment rights post-the-abolition of slavery. And they existed well into the 20th century. I mean, we do know that the light Egyptian foundation was also used by Liz Taylor as Cleopatra. And Ava Gardner in Showboat, which was a role Lena Horn really wanted.

So she's playing a character called Julie. who is a white-passing mixed-race woman, you know, speaking as a white-passing mixed-race person, I find it kind of funny how that role is always played by white actresses. But, yeah, they used her foundation shade to try and add, quote, unquote, ethnic ambiguity or imply non-whiteness on white actors. We need to talk about, we've already, well, she was born in 1917 during one of those big old wars, you mentioned, Ezrae.

Of course, she was working through the Second World War. America joined the war in December 1941. So do we get a sense of Lena Horn as the kind of, you know, does she go and do the big... She had a USO show like I imagine behind with horns and a little dress looking in a hat. You know what I'm talking about, that look. Absolutely she was. She was often described as the first black pin up, particularly for white soldiers at that point. And she went on tour with the USO.

And Hannah, a USO is that kind of entertainment arm of the Army, World War II? Yeah, this is the United Service organisation. and they were specifically thinking about getting entertainment to people who were fighting in the war. But she soon discovered, in her words, that Jim Crow existed or was alive and well in the army. So she was expected to do separate shows for the white officers than for black soldiers,

but she noticed that prisoners of war were sat in front of the black soldiers. So initially she would go to the back of the performance space and sing directly to the black soldiers, but eventually she just started to refuse to perform. So Lena parted ways with, the USO because of her sort of feelings of concern about the way her black soldiers were being treated. And that led her to reach out and find new ways of accessing service people. And that included working with the NAACP, but also through the Army's special services division.

So segregation in the Army. And she'd already faced that with the Cotton Club. She'd already sort of lived through that once. And so here she was to a certain extent bringing sort of 20 years of progress. And the army was still way behind. Is that fair? Yeah, absolutely. I think the reality of imprisoned people fighting on the other side, getting a better seat

was really challenging to confront and all of these black service people fighting for America not being treated. And it's not like they put the black service members at like the back of the trenches, you know. No, exactly. So she's the first black pin-up girl, but perhaps for white soldiers, which again is interesting in terms of her identity. And black soldiers. Of course, but in just in terms of how she's marketed as poses, I'm like, I'm

glamorous beautiful woman. And of course, you know, the war ends in 1945. And our unlucky in love, Miss Horn, does get married again. So I've got good news there. And hubby number two, is this someone, Lena can lean on? Is he going to be a kind of loyal, loving hubby who lets her be the star? Who is he? Certainly at the beginning.

Yes. Okay. He is. Lena Horn marries the MGM arranger and conductor Lenny Hayton. Initially, they don't get on. she didn't trust white men in her words and he didn't trust singers. But eventually they get acquainted.

That's the best way that sentence could have ended. Yeah. Yeah, could have framed that better. Never mind. They build this relationship together and eventually in 1947 they get married in Paris. But their partnership is extremely controversial

in public and private because interracial marriage is still illegal in California. So they're married in Paris simply because it's illegal in the place they live and work. So they marry, interracial marriage is made legal in California a year later in 1948. This comes at a time where Lena's film career is starting to stall.

She's refusing to play these anti-black stereotypes and they're trying to push her to do it. And that leads her to be suspended from MGM's payroll for a period in 1945 because she won't take the part she's being given. She's also got these associations with radical black group. She's pouring her income into union organising and she's known to be a friend of Paul Robeson. So they have a context in which the studio is starting to see her as a problem and then she goes and marries Lenny. I mean, if she's hanging out with Paul Robeson and doing all the organizing, is she about to get a big C stamped all over her?

Because this is that time, right? Absolutely right. I mean, I suppose the Senator Joe McCarthy. Not cancer kits. No, no. I mean, we're talking here about the communist witch hunt in Hollywood. Okay, okay. That is what brings down Paul Robeson.

To a certain extent, she dodges it by going abroad, right? Is that fair? Or is she forced abroad? I mean, her and Lenny, I'm going to call them Lini. That's their couple name. Lena and Leena and Lenny, Leany. They're overseas, right, from 50 to 52. Yeah.

So, Lena Horn is named in Red Channels as a communist. And that's basically the end of her time at MGM for a number of years. She goes to Europe, as you say, Lenny uses his skills to arrange these bespoke versions of songs for her. And she sets up as one of the premiere nights. Club performers really in the world and releases a live album in 1957 and that becomes the biggest selling record by a solo female artist on the RCA Victory label. So that is 57. So she's 40 by that point.

Obviously, that's still a young woman by, you know, standard terms. But in terms of in terms of showbiz, 40's fairly mature. This is her greatest hits. This is her right. Yeah, sort of, you know, she's in the grandma knit by that point. At this point, is she now hailed as a great vocalist? Yeah. Because she used to say that she wasn't,

but she's now 57 best-selling artist on the record label. Is she now a brilliant singer? Yeah, I think by the peak of fame of Stormy Weather in 43, she was definitely known as a singer, and her relationship with Duke Ellington allowed her to really apply herself to her singing style. But the relationship with Lenny allows her to explore her voice and being away from MGM,

where they were very restrictive about wearing her voice, they would place her songs to force her not to belt to stop her from opening her mouth too wide. There is all of those kind of... Well, if she belts are going to know she's black. This is it. There were all of these kind of racial codings in terms of how her music was arranged at MGM.

Once she and Lenny go on tour, she's able to be free. And a lot of that musical space that was restricted was open to her again. Amazing. And of course, by the 1960s, the civil rights movement moves into that era where we're all familiar with what's happening we've talked before about Josephine Baker,

we've talked about robes. She's not necessarily front and center in terms of like giving big, big speeches, but she's involved big time now, right? But she's back in America now? Yes. Okay, so she's, the 50s, she's all throughout Europe. She's like not really based anywhere.

She's just performing and recording. Yeah. So how involved is she in the civil rights movement through the late 50s into the 60s? Because is the Million Man Marches is 63, is it? Yeah. So, like, what level of involvement does she have? So she moves back to the US, sort of the end of the 50s.

where she does an obscure musical called Jamaica and becomes the first black woman to be nominated for Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. And yeah, they start to put down roots, but ultimately I think the civil rights movement is a turning point in her life. And she meets Martin Luther King early on that process, who asks her to sing at a rally.

And through that, she becomes involved in fundraising for him, fundraising for the student non-violent coordinating committee. She works with Eleanor Roosevelt on anti-lynching legislation. She attends the march on Washington with Josephine Baker. There's a beautiful photo of them standing in front of the monument. And this is kind of the beginning of her being very prominently vocal about political activism in the 1970s. She speaks out for black women radicals like Angela Davis when she's incarcerated. Fantastic.

And in 1983, the NAACP awarded her the Spring Arm Medal, which is a big deal, right? Yeah, absolutely. And for outstanding achievement by an African-American. So she was recognised for having a longstanding investment. But I think it's also worth saying that through the 40s, she had been supporting radical politicians, helping with union fundraisers and thinking about the ways in which black political organising could function.

And then in civil rights, she came to understand that the way she'd been used as a figurehead or an aspirational symbol of blackness was actually really negatively loaded and started to talk publicly about that and kind of relearn her black radical. consciousness, I guess. And the NAACP, I know that's an important organisation, but I'd love just definition of what that stands for. So it's the National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People and it was a wide-ranging political organisation that operated across the US. Part of it was a political agenda functioning kind of as a union, but it also had an education arm. It was thinking about moving black rights, black employment, black education forwards. And obviously came out when we used to say, coloured people. Yes. Yeah, because they didn't want to change the acronym later when we were black. Yeah. The sort of stormy weather that she'd sung about in 43,

unfortunately stormy weather came for her in 1970, 71. She had a sort of a really tragic 18 months or so, which she lost a lot of people she loved. Yeah, so by this point, she and Lenny have separated because she was just less interested in her music career and more involved in political activism. I have no idea what Lenny did or what he was like. He was just a white man.

She didn't trust, but then she did enough to marry him. He gave her a career in Europe and then he dipped. He was just like, I'm a plot device, byeie. What the heck? Well, sometimes nice that it goes that way. Lenny McGuffin. And Lenny passed away. So they separate.

And then her father and her son both pass away within six months of each other. So her son Teddy? Her son Teddy and Edwin both pass in very close proximity. And she'd really felt she'd only reconnected with them as they were adults. Obviously she didn't see her son very much when he was a child. And it's only during her success at MGM that she's able to bring him into her lifestyle. Because she has the money to offer him the kind of education that his father wanted him to have. So yeah, this is a really difficult.

time and she is in a big transitionary phase having done her film she's recovered partially through television and through her touring and is now kind of at a juncture of doing something new. I think she might be the first person on your Detimue history who had a sort of TV career. We don't tend to come into the 60s and 70s that much. I think she might be our first TV star. So I mean I'll have to check and you mentioned the

whiz at the beginning, doesn't it? That's 1978. Do you know who else is in the cast? Oh, I mean Diana Ross, most notably, and Michael Jackson and, oh my God, Nipsey Russell and Ted Ross. Yeah, I'm like, I'm just listing the credits. Loads of people. She's playing Glinda. So she's sort of, you know, that's the kind of the Ariana Grande role now, I suppose. But it's obviously a huge thing for her.

Tell us about her music career in the 80s. So the appearance on The Wiz is really symbolic. Because she has transitioned into being essentially an industry veteran. and she gets to basically sing a song that Diana Ross has just performed and we have a kind of classic version and then we have this blues, gospel reworking of it specifically for her and that throws out what she sounded like at MGM and completely reforms her sound.

As a result, she starts working live again and she has a one woman's show called The Lady and Her Music which opens in 1981 and runs on Broadway for a year. She has some time in Las Vegas as well. And from that, She wins a special Tony Award. That is a speech worth watching if anyone has five minutes. And she wins two Grammys.

And in this moment, she really moves from interpreting music by other people, kind of being told where to stand and what to sing, to becoming Lena Horn truly herself on stage, I think. Amazing. So actually, the Spring Arm Medal from the NACP, Grammy's Tony Award. I'm getting a sense here that she's reached icon status, like important to the community,

but important to come. cultural institutions. They're all going, this person deserves awards. When you see her in The Wiz, there is no question that she's got an icon status, because she just appears like ethereally and is like, believe in yourself, I'm out. And you're like, yes. Mike Draft. Yes. I think it's such a magical performance because she just appears as like this ball of hope.

Yes. But it's also of survival, right? And, you know, she gets a Kennedy Center on her quite soon. After this, she's recognized by the NWACP. She's doing still recording quite late into her. life as well. So she kind of takes on this presence, taking her experience from when she was working in film and from what went on in the 50s and supporting all these young art of and coming artists, talking to them about film conditions, helping them figure out their

working contracts. So she's both off stage or off screen becomes a sort of mental figure to various people. I mentioned she doesn't win that Tony Award. Diane Carroll does in four years time and credits Lena Horn with helping her find her way in and on the stage. So we have this like double edge. She's still this amazing public figure. But she is actually really thinking about how to unravel the industry behind the scenes as well. She lived until 92.

So she was born in 1917. She lived to, well, presumably to vote for Barack Obama, right? Yeah. Because I'm like, I remember her dying like in a whole different millennia. Yeah. Yeah. So she lived to see a black president and still be an icon and receive all of her flowers and get all her awards. Yeah.

It's the real end of the story. wanted, right? Yeah, exactly. And I helped everyone. And yeah, it was a communist and that I wasn't. Yeah, I mean, she was born during segregation before any woman could vote. Yeah. She was mentored by Billy Holiday and Diana Washington. She marched on Washington. She sang with Michael Jackson. And she lived to see Barack Obama become president. So I think it's a remarkable lifespan. But as you say, she also died rich and I hope happy. Which is unusual in this. She had two husband she was no longer with, so I'm guessing she was pretty happy. No comment.

So she died in 2010, age 92. Important question here, Desiree. I can't believe I'm going to ask this. Who's more important? Lena Horn or Alex Horn from Taskmaster? Oh my God. Sorry, I had to do it. See, here's the thing.

I mean, I think we all know the correct answer, although my fan base is going to say, please say Alex, please say Alex. And I will say, Alex. And I will say, I think that if Alex Horn were here himself, he would say Lena Horn. I hope so. To not be so silly for once. I mean, genuinely extraordinary life, Lena Horn. And it's not a story I knew at all other than the song Stormy Weather.

That's all I knew is a reference point. And you had your own reference point. Yeah. From encountering that. And also, like, when you talked about her at the beginning, like, obviously I live long enough to see her in her later years and her passways. So I knew that, like, things were relatively happy. But when you talked about her beginning being sort of like, oh, things. were actually pretty well set up in black middle class.

That usually goes one of two ways. Like usually it's sort of like stable, or it's like a Miles Davis version where it's like everything just sort of careens into insanity. I was waiting to see if there was ever any of that element. But it seemed like she was just trying to be resilient against being buffeted by society and all of these various odds.

Like being expelled from Hollywood as a communist and going to Europe and coming back from that and having a whole renewed, nude phase of your career where everyone's like, oh, actually, here's all of your flowers and a Broadway show and, you know, all of this work is really incredible and rarely happens. Absolutely. The nuance window!

Well, it's time now for the nuance window. This is where Desiret and I stand quietly in the chorus line for two minutes, doing some jazz hands, but, you know, no singing. While Professor Hannah takes centre stage to tell us something we need to know about Lena Horn. So my stopwatch is ready. Take it away, Professor Hannah. So Lena Horn relentlessly talked about the loneliness and isolation that she felt at MGM

and that it made her seem like she didn't want to be in community with other black performers. She came to believe that she was chosen by movie executives so that they could capitalize on her perceived racial ambiguity and that made her work and the profile of her success understandably contentious for a really long time. And yet the peaks of her career and I would say her story more generally were always in community with other black artists. Meanwhile, she balanced pouring her fortune into grassroots movements. She got involved in national organizing, and she was essential in helping up-and-coming black performers make choices about their contracts, their working conditions, based on her experience.

Lena Horn became a star because she was crowded by support and whatever storm she was weathering. Unlike many others, she was willing to admit her mistakes and to grow intellectually in public. Her story shows the appeal of having had a figurehead, but also the limitations of having one person embody such a diverse community of people. And Horn really tried to pay that investment back to others, but while making the most of the platform she was given. I would say her custodianship and her commercial impact paved the way for public acceptance of a lot of black artists, including the megastardom of Diana Ross,

who took over from Horn as the world's most photograph black woman. Her survival and endurance was remarkable, but it was also sometimes messy. She reminds us to embrace the complex stories behind the successes and that however exceptional and isolated people tried to make her, she relentlessly returned to her people, her values, and to paying her luck forward. Amazing. Thank you so much. That's right.

Any final thoughts? That's really incredible. What an amazing woman. I mean, she never called me and helped me out. That's why I am I. So Alex Horn is my book. So what do you know now? Well, it's time now for the so what do you know now.

This is our quickfire quiz for Desiree to see how much she has learned. You know, I took notes and I think, I don't know if they've helped. Because there's too many notes and I think I'll maybe will miss the forest for the trees, but let's try this. Famously you're good at quizzes. Normally you rely on your memory. Yeah, I know. But I'm 46. what's a memory?

So I decided to write things down, but now there's too many facts because normally people die young. It's true. It's true. We gave you the old... She lived to 92. Yeah, she made it to 92. She made it through. It was eight decades performance.

So 10 questions. Here we go. Question one. What was the profession of Lena Horn's mother? Oh, she was an actress. She was a traveling actress. Question two. 16-year-old Lena first performed in which Harlem club?

Oh, the unfortunately named, but purposely named Cotton Club. Absolutely. Question three, during World War II, Lena Horn was often described as the first what for the troops? Oh, pinup girl. Yeah. Yeah. The first black pinup girl. Yeah.

The first black pinn up? I mean, okay, what were they pinning up before? Okay. Question four. Who helped Lena negotiate a better contract with Louis B. Meyer at MGM? Oh, I wrote this down in my notes. Please halt. Your call is important to us. Yes, yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Okay, wait a second. Oh, of course, her dad did. Her dad showed up. Yeah, her dad showed up and, yeah, negotiated all of that and cool stuff. Question five, what was the name of the foundation shade designed for Lena Hall? Oh, this one I had to write down because every time I heard it, I just my eyes rolled so far back in my head that I couldn't remember anything. So, wait, no, the Bronze Venus was the film that she did. But it was Egyptian, it was, it was, it wasn't Egyptian gold.

It was Egyptian, where did I write this down? I need a search feature on this. Control F. Yeah, seriously. I definitely, wait a second. I wrote down Max Factor's name, light Egyptian. Well done.

Because she can't just be a regular Egyptian. That is far too black. We remember that country's in Africa, don't we? Light Egyptian. God's sake. Very good. Question six, what did Lena Horn object to when playing for US troops for the USO during World War II?

Oh, well, the POWs were placed up front, but the black men were placed in the back and they wouldn't just let her start from the back, but also they shouldn't all be at the back. Absolutely. Segregation also with officers. Question seven. What was the name of Lena's musical arranger second husband? Oh, Lenny. Lenny, Leighton. It was a Lenin' Lenin. It was a Lennie and Lenny production.

Lenny and Lena. Yeah. Lenny and Lena. Yeah. Question eight. In 1983, Lena Horn was awarded the Spring Arm Medal by which famous organization? The NACP, my friend. Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Absolutely. Did you guys have that? You didn't have that here because that's an American thing. But that was all through the 80s. They had the commercials because of mine is a terrible thing to waste. That's a good line. Question nine, what 1978 musical film

did Lena Horn star in? Oh, wait, what, 1979? 78. Oh, the whiz. Like the one and only. Yeah, absolutely. And this is for a perfect score, of course, in what year did Lena Horn die?

Oh, 2010. Yeah, absolutely. Which is bonkers. She was like, you're welcome America. Mission accomplished. Pretty much. My work here is done. I mean, thank God she got out

before everything got bonker-tron again. Well, Desiree 10 out of 10, never in doubt. I think the note system did work. It did work. There were some fairly intensive shuffling of pages. No, I mean, you know, I got Tony nomination. She knew too many people with the name Diana, Diane, or Dinah. It's a lot of that going around.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Desiree. Thank you so much, Hannah. Listener, if you want more musical icons with Desiree. We've obviously got episodes on Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, the Broadway musicals episode with Dr. Hannah and Desiree. I think we also talked today about all sorts of other things. things intersecting, the Harlem Renaissance episode. You can go back to that too.

For more film actors, we've got the history of Bollywood episode and the Sarah Bernhardt episode. If you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with your friends. Subscribe to Your Dead to Me on BBC Sounds to hear new episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. And if you're outside the UK, you can listen at BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guest. In History Corner, we have the Incredible Dr. Hannah to Risingham Robbins from the University of Nottingham. Thank you, Hannah. Thank you.

And in Comedy Corner, we had our leading lady. Desiree Birch. Thank you so much, Desiree. With apologies to Alex Horn. He knows where I am. He's going to find you in these streets, Greg. And to you lovely listener, join me next time as we launch our comeback tour for another forgotten historical star. But for now, I'm off to go and get my dad to renegotiate my BBC contract. Bye!

You're said to me is a BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4. This episode was researched by Rosalind Sklar. It was written by Dr. Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Dr. Emineogos, and me. The audio producer was Steve Hanke, our production coordinator, was Jill Huggott. It was produced by Dr. Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, me and senior producer Dr. Emma Noghous, and our executive editor was Philip Sellers.

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