Lena Horne (Radio Edit)

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.7 • 11.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Greg Jenner is joined in 20th-century America by Dr Hannah Thuraisingam Robbins and comedian Desiree Burch to learn all about singer and Hollywood actress Lena Horne.

Born into a middle class Black family in New York, a young Lena Horne soon followed in the footsteps of her actress mother and made her début at the famous Cotton Club aged only 16. After making her name as a singer and performer – and following the end of her tumultuous first marriage – Horne transferred to the west coast and bagged a Hollywood contract with MGM. There, she appeared in a number of classic films, including Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky. Over the next several years, she would also perform for the troops in the Second World War, fall in love with and marry a white composer and arranger, undertake an international tour, and become one of the most popular nightclub performers of the post-war era. But the racism of segregation-era America would also shape and limit the career of the woman known as ‘the first Black pin-up girl’, eventually leading her to the civil rights movement and Black activism in the 1960s.

This episode traces Lena’s journey from young dancer to Hollywood star and renowned vocalist, along the way exploring her connections with figures including Billie Holliday and Martin Luther King Jr., and the injustice she spent so much of her career fighting against.

This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.

Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Rosalyn Sklar Written by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Dr Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Dr Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
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0:32.1	football from 5 live listen only on BBC Sound.
0:42.5	Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.
0:47.0	My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster, and today we are donning our glad rags and finding our spotlight as we learn all about the legendary singer and
0:50.9	Hollywood actress Lena Horn. And to help us, we have two very special
0:54.6	fellow performers in History Corner. They're Associate Professor in Popular Music and Director
0:58.9	of Black Studies at the University of Nottingham. They're an expert on musical theatre and
1:02.8	especially race and gender identity in popular culture. You'll remember them from our episode on
1:07.1	the History of Broadway is Dr Hannah to Rhicely and Robbins. Welcome back, Hannah. Thanks, having me back. Delighted to have you back. And in Comedy Corner, an introduction feels completely redundant for such a stalwart of your dead to me. She's a comedian, actor and writer. You've seen her all over the TV on Taskmaster, Frankie Boyle's New World Order, QI, too hot to handle. Maybe you've seen her incredible new stand-up show, The Golden Roth.
1:43.0	And you'll know her from so many episodes of this very podcast, including recent highlights, Sojourna Truth and the history of Broadway. Not one episode. What an episode that would be. Yes, we're getting the band back together. It's Desiree Birch. Welcome back, Desire. Thanks so much for having me back, Greg. It's so nice to be back and find out what the heck happened before.
1:46.3	That's the alternative name of the show.
1:44.6	Desry. back, Greg. It's so nice to be back and find out what the heck happened before. That's the alternative name of the show. Desiree, we have covered several performers before. We have
1:51.3	done Josephine Baker together, Paul Robeson, P.T. Barnum to an extent. Yeah, true. Yes. He performed
1:57.4	being a human just about. Just about. So if I come to you and I say the name Lena Horn, what comes to mind?
2:05.5	So what comes to mind is Glinda the Good Witch from The Wiz, because I grew up.
2:11.3	That was the Black Wizard of Oz that we grew on in the 80s.
	...

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