Lena Horne Movies

[bhryun]

Hi eveyone:

 

I just got through watching The Duke is Tops with Ralph Cooper and Lena Horne and was curious as to what else the director William L. Nolte did. Also where he is (if he is still alive). Can't seem to find any information on him on the net. Does anyone know anything?

 

Thanks.

 

Also who are those three African-Amerian tap dancers that danced in "Panama Hattie" at the very beginning of the movie?

 

Thanks folks.

[johnnyweekes70]

William Nolte was largely an assistant director but who had a prolific career in most fields behind the camera. The Dukes is Tops is one only two films he was given sole credit as director on. The imdb has page for him at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0634524/

[bansi4]

 

The tap dancing trio in "Panama Hattie" are the Berry Brothers whose names are James, Nyas, and Warren.

Sadly they are now deceased.

 

The only other film that William L. Nolte directed was "Life Goes On" (1938) with Louise Beavers.

 

Mongo

[bhryun]

Thanks for getting back to me that info. I knew Mongo would know and Johnnyweekes70 thanks for some info that I was unable to find. I'll try imdb.com/name/nm0634524 and see what else I can find out.

 

Thanks again.

[johnnyweekes70]

You're very welcome.

[fssbdgtsue59]

I have a rather sensitive question about Lena Horne and I'll try to be as kosher as I can when I ask it. Does anyone know-was Lena totally African American or did she have some other ethnic background mixed in? She doesn't appear to me to be totally African American, so I was just wondering if anyone knew something about her background. Thanks. Sue

[fssbdgtsue59]

I have a rather sensitive question about Lena Horne and I'll try to be as kosher as I can when I ask it. Does anyone know-was Lena totally African American or did she have some other ethnic background mixed in? She doesn't appear to me to be totally African American, so I was just wondering if anyone knew something about her background. Thanks. Sue

[johnnyweekes70]

Just out of curiosity, I did a search for an answer to your question, because I didn't know, and I found a lot of information but the following seems to be the most detailed. It comes from http://condor.depaul.edu/~mwilson/multicult/whois.html and cites Richard Schickel's work with Lena.

 

"Lena Horne's parents were both very light in color and came from black upper-middle-class families in Brooklyn (Horne and Schickel, 1965; Buckley, 1986). Lena lived with her father's parents until she was about seven years old. Her grandfather was very light and blue-eyed. Her fair-skinned grandmother was the daughter of a slave woman and her white owner, from the family of John C. Calhoun, well-known defender of slavery. One of her father's great-grandmothers was a Blackfoot Indian, to whom Lena Horne has attributed her somewhat coppery skin color. One of her mother's grandmothers was a French-speaking black woman from Senegal and never a slave. Her mother's father was a "Portuguese Negro," and two women in his family had passed as white and become entertainers.

 

"Lena Horne's parents had separated, and when she was seven her entertainer mother began placing her in a succession of homes in different states. Her favorite place was in the home of her Uncle Frank, her father's brother, a red-haired, blue-eyed teacher in a black. school in Georgia. The black children in that community asked her why she was so light and called her a "yellow bastard." She learned that when satisfactory evidence of respectable black parents is lacking, being light-skinned implies illegitimacy and having an underclass white parent and is thus a disgrace in the black community. When her mother married a white Cuban, Lena also learned that blacks can be very hostile to the white spouse, especially when the "black" mate is very light. At this time she began to blame the confused color line for her childhood troubles. She later endured much hostility from blacks and whites alike when her own second marriage, to white composer-arranger Lennie Hayton, was finally made public in 1950 after three years of keeping it secret.

 

"Early in Lena Horne's career there were complaints that she did not fit the desired image of a black entertainer for white audiences, either physically or in her style. She sang white love songs, not the blues. Noting her brunette-white beauty, one white agent tried to get her to take a Spanish name, learn some Spanish songs, and pass as a Latin white, but she had learned to have a horror of passing and never considered it, although Hollywood blacks accused her of trying to pass after she played her first bit part in a film. After she failed her first screen test because she looked like a white girl trying to play blackface, the directors tried making her up with a shade called "Light Egyptian" to make her look darker. The whole procedure embarrassed and hurt her deeply. Her long struggle to develop a clear sense of self, including a definite racial identity, is explored further in Chapter 7."

 

Hope that helps answer your question.

 

Johnny