Disenchanted with
Hollywood by the mid-1950s, and increasingly focused on her nightclub career, she only made two major appearances in MGM films during the decade,
1950's Duchess of Idaho (which was also
Eleanor Powell's film swan song), and the
1956 musical
Meet Me in Las Vegas. However it is important to point out also that, according to a
PBS documentary, she was
blacklisted during the 1950s for her political views.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/horne_l.html She returned to the screen three more times, playing chanteuse Claire Quintana in the
1969 film
Death of a Gunfighter, Glinda the Good Witch in
The Wiz (
1978), which helped her to be known to a much younger audience, with
Diana Ross and
Michael Jackson, and co-hosting the aforementioned
1994 MGM retrospective
That's Entertainment! III in which she was candid about her treatment by the studio. In her later years, Horne also made occasional television appearances - generally as herself - on such programs as
The Muppet Show (where she sang with
Kermit the Frog) and
Sanford and Son in the 1970s, as well as a 1985 performance on
The Cosby Show and a 1993 appearance on
A Different World.
She appeared in
Broadway musicals several times and in
1958 was nominated for the
Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical" (for her part in the "
Calypso" musical
Jamaica) In
1981 she received a Special Tony Award for her one-woman show,
Lena Horne: "The Lady and Her Music". Despite the show's considerable success (Horne still holds the record for the longest-running solo performance in Broadway history), she was not inclined to capitalize on the renewed interest in her career by undertaking many new musical projects. A proposed 1983 joint recording project between Horne and Frank Sinatra (to be produced by Quincy Jones) was ultimately abandoned, and her sole studio recording of the decade was 1988's
The Men In My Life, featuring sentimental duets with Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joe Williams. In 1989, she received the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
The 1990s found Horne considerably more active in the recording studio - all the more remarkable considering she was approaching her 80th year. Following her triumphant 1993 performance at a tribute to the musical legacy of her good friend, Billy Strayhorn (Duke Ellington's longtime pianist and arranger), she decided to record an album largely comprised of Strayhorn's and Ellington's songs the following year, 1994's
We'll Be Together Again. To coincide with the release of the album, Horne made what would be her final concert performances at New York's Supper Club and Carnegie Hall. That same year, Horne also lent her vocals to a recording of "Embraceable You" on Frank Sinatra's "Duets II" album. Though the album was largely derided by the critics, the poignant Sinatra-Horne pairing was generally regarded as its highlight. In 1995, a "live" album capturing her Supper Club performance was released (subsequently winning a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album). In 1998, at the age of 81, Horne released another studio album, entitled
Being Myself. Thereafter, Horne essentially retired from performing (and largely retreated from public view), though she did return to the recording studio in 2000 to contribute vocal tracks on Simon Rattle's "Classic Ellington" album.
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