Ms.Horne died Sunday, May 9, 2010, less than two months before her 93rd birthday, at the NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. She is also survived by her grandson, Teddy Jones and her grandaughter, Lena Jones.
May she rest in peace.
Read about the details of her life here.
this is my story of meeting lena horne:
ReplyDeletesometime back in 1986, with a large group of friends from college, we went to see cab calloway perform at massey hall in toronto. after the show we waited at the stage door to hopefully meet him. 40 minutes passed and when no one came out the stage door one of my friends boldly strode forward, opened the door and we all wandered back into the theater. we followed the sounds of music and ending up joining the backstage party and hanging out with cab calloway for over an hour. he was extremely gracious to us and seemed very pleased to see this group of young kids who were excited to meet him.
flash forward a couple more years and there's a cab calloway birthday concert at carnegie hall. it was a star studded event with many big names of jazz and pop music in attendance and on stage to play music and reminisce. lena horne was one of those who joined cab for a song. after the show my friend (the same ringleader who opened the door at massey hall in toronto) and i attempted to meet cab again. we were both dressed up for the show and boldly walked through the backstage door of carnegie hall without being stopped. we looked around gauging the scene and lo and behold standing right behind us was lena horne. we immediately gushed "we love you!" she shook our hands and said thank you - with what we both described later as a look of alarm on her face. immediately, hands landed on our shoulders and two extremely large bouncers told us it was time to leave and escorted us back out onto the street.
we didn't get to meet cab a second time, but i can now say i met lena horne and was kicked out of carnegie hall.