LENA HORNE - AUTOGRAPHED INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 323321

LENA HORNE
Photograph of a smiling Horne dressed in white lace, signed to a collector "With the best of good wishes"
Inscribed photograph signed: "To Harry Wilkinson/With the best of good/wishes to you/Lena Horne", in black ink, Sepia toned 7½x9¾. Sultry American jazz singer and actress Lena Horne (1917-2010) began performing at age six and left school at 16 to support her sick mother. She began singing at Harlem's Cotton Club in 1933, where Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington took her under their wings. She later performed with Noble Sissle's Orchestra and Teddy Wilson's big band. Horne won critical acclaim for her performance in Stormy Weather (1943) and for singing the movie's title song. Although she was the first black American woman to sign a long-term movie contract with a major studio (MGM), her films were shot so that her scenes could be cut out before being shown in the South. Horne placed a single, Love Me or Leave Me, in the Billboard Top 20 in 1955 and won two Grammy Awards (1981 for her album Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music and 1995 for her album An Evening with Lena Horne) and was nominated for a Tony in 1958 for her performance in Jamaica (1957-1959). Horne also won a special Tony in 1981 for her one-woman show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. Several pin holes in corners. Corners heavily worn. Surface scratches and dents (not seen head on). Surface striations and creases. Soiled on outer edges and on verso. Ink stamps and ink notes (unknown hand) on verso. Paper remnants on verso, showing through on front. Faint stains across image. Otherwise, fine condition.