Lena Horne, Singer, Actress And Icon, Has Died At Age Of 92

Sad news:

Actress, singer and civil rights pioneer Lena Horne died Sunday in New York. She was 92.

As NPR's Paul Brown said on the network's newscast this morning, "through a decades-long career, Lena Horne battled racial discrimination and railed against the public humiliation it caused as she fought to become a black star able to move throughout the entertainment world." You can hear a bit of Horne's singing in Paul's report:

On the occasion of Lorne's 90th birthday, NPR's Debbie Elliot celebrated Horne's career with some of her music and this look at her career:

Horne's webpage at NPR Music is here.

As the BBC writes:

"In the 1940s, she became one of the first black performers to sing with a major white band and have a Hollywood contract.

"When asked about her success, Ms Horne once said: 'I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked'."