Singer and Actress, Lena Horne, Dead at 92

Legendary jazz singer Lena Horne, who starred in 'Cabin in the Sky' in 1943, died Sunday. She was 92. Horne died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Gloria Chin. Chin would not release any other details. Her death was announced by her son-in-law, Kevin Buckley. Horne is survived by her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley.

In the 1940s, Horne was one of the first black performers hired to sing with a major white band, the first to play the Copacabana nightclub and among a handful with a Hollywood contract. In 1943, MGM Studios loaned her to 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Selina Rogers in the all-black movie musical 'Stormy Weather.' Her rendition of the title song became a major hit and her signature piece.

"I was always battling the system to try to get to be with my people. Finally, I wouldn't work for places that kept us out ... it was a damn fight everywhere I was, every place I worked, in New York, in Hollywood, all over the world," she said in Brian Lanker's book, 'I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America.'

Horne was at home vocally with a wide musical range, from blues and jazz to the sophistication of Rodgers and Hart in songs like 'The Lady Is a Tramp' and 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.'

By the mid-1950s, Horne -- who in 1947 married composer and musical director Lennie Hayton in a secret wedding in Paris, because interracial marriages were illegal in California -- left Hollywood, "bitter," she said, "at the whole Hollywood system," and went on to tremendous success as a stage actress and consummate jazz singer, PEOPLE reports.

In her first big Broadway success, as the star of 'Jamaica' in 1957, reviewer Richard Watts Jr. called her "one of the incomparable performers of our time." Songwriter Buddy de Sylva dubbed her "the best female singer of songs."

Lena Horne Photos

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In an April 30, 1981 file photo singer Lena Horne is shown in a Broadway production 'Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music' in New York. More photos >>

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Lena Horne Photos

In an April 30, 1981 file photo singer Lena Horne is shown in a Broadway production 'Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music' in New York. More photos >>

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Lena Horne Photos

** RETRANSMISSION FOR IMPROVED TONING ** FILE -- This is a March 29, 1993 file photo of singer-actress Lena Horne at the 65th Annual Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, Calif. Singer Lena Horne, who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star famed for her velvety rendition of "Stormy Weather," has died at age 92. (AP Photo/file)

Lena Horne Photos

(FILES) Undated filed photos taken in the 50s shows Lena Horne (Lena Mary Calhoun Horne ), US actress and Jazz singer, born in 1917 in New York. Jazz singer Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio, died late May 09, 2010 at the age of 92, according to The New York Times. AFP PHOTO/FILES (Photo credit should read -/AFP/Getty Images)

Lena Horne Photos

File -- In a March 1954 file photo singer Lena Horne performs at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev. Singer Lena Horne, who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star famed for her velvety rendition of "Stormy Weather," has died at age 92. (AP Photo)

Lena Horne Photos

file -- In an April 30, 1981 file photo singer Lena Horne is shown in a Broadway production "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music" in New York. Singer Lena Horne, who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star famed for her velvety rendition of "Stormy Weather," has died at age 92. (AP Photo/file)

Lena Horne Photos

FILE -- In a March 7, 1982 file photo Grammy Award winner Lena Horne, center, is flanked by record producer Quincy Jones, left, holding his Grammy, and Dan Morgenstern, of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, as she displays her award, and the record that earned it, in New York. Singer Lena Horne, who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star famed for her velvety rendition of "Stormy Weather," has died at age 92. (AP Photo/Ron Frehm/file)

Lena Horne Photos

FILE -- In an Oct. 12, 1955 file photo singer and actress Lena Horne and her husband Lennie Hayton are photographed in their hotel room at the Savoy in London, England. Singer Lena Horne, who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star famed for her velvety rendition of "Stormy Weather," has died at age 92. (AP Photo/FILE)

Lena Horne Photos

FILE -- This is a March 29, 1993 file photo of singer-actress Lena Horne at the 65th Annual Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, Calif. Singer Lena Horne, who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star famed for her velvety rendition of "Stormy Weather," has died at age 92. (AP Photo/file)

Lena Horne Photos

FILE -- In a June 23, 1997 file photo Ginny Mancini, left, and Lena Horne, center, hold the Ella Award which was given to Horne, on Monday, June 23, 1997, during the Society of Singers' Lena Horne 80th Birthday Gala in New York. At right is Liza Minnelli. Singer Lena Horne, who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star famed for her velvety rendition of "Stormy Weather," has died at age 92. (AP Photo/Aubrey Reuben/file)

Lena Horne Photos

FILE -- This is a June 1995 file portrait of singer and actress Lena Horne. Singer Lena Horne, who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star famed for her velvety rendition of "Stormy Weather," has died at age 92. (AP Photo/File)

Lena Horne Photos

FILE -- This is a April 7, 1994 file photo of singer-actress in New York City. Singer Lena Horne, who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star famed for her velvety rendition of "Stormy Weather," has died at age 92. (AP Photo/Garth Vaughan/file)

Lena Horne Photos

By the 1960s, Horne was one of the most visible celebrities in the civil rights movement, once throwing a lamp at a customer who made a racial slur in a Beverly Hills restaurant and in 1963 joining 250,000 others in the March on Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech. Horne also spoke at a rally that same year with another civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, just days before his assassination.

In the last decades of her life, she rode a new wave of popularity as a revered icon of American popular music. Her 1981 one-woman Broadway show, 'Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music,' won a special Tony Award.

Widowed in 1971, Horne moved to New York City and continued her stage and concert work and even did the occasional movie role, including that of Diana Ross's fairy godmother in the 1978 'The Wiz.'

Horne's other roles included 'I Dood It,' a Red Skelton comedy, 'Thousands Cheer' and 'Swing Fever,' all in 1943; 'Broadway Rhythm' in 1944; and 'Ziegfeld Follies' in 1946.

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Lena Horne, May 9: Legendary jazz singer and actress, Lena Horne died Sunday. She was 92. Horne died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman. Horne is survived by her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley.

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