"Stormy Weather" is a 1933 torch song written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Ethel Waters first sang it at The Cotton Club night club in Harlem in 1933 and recorded it with the Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra under Brunswick Records that year, and in the same year it was sung in London by Elisabeth Welch and recorded by Frances Langford. Also in 1933, for the first time the entire floor revue from Harlem's Cotton Club went on tour, playing theatres in principal cities. The revue was originally called The Cotton Club Parade of 1933 but for the road tour it was changed to Stormy Weather Revue; it contained the song "Stormy Weather", which was sung by Adelaide Hall.
Ethel Waters was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her notable recordings include "Dinah", "Stormy Weather", "Taking a Chance on Love", "Heat Wave", "Supper Time", "Am I Blue?", "Cabin in the Sky", "I'm Coming Virginia", and her version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, dancer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood.
The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub from 1923 to 1940. It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue (1923–1936), then briefly in the midtown Theater District (1936–1940). The club operated during the United States' era of Prohibition and Jim Crow era racial segregation. Black people initially could not patronize the Cotton Club, but the venue featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era, including musicians Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Willie Bryant; vocalists Adelaide Hall, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Lillie Delk Christian, Aida Ward, Avon Long, the Dandridge Sisters, the Will Vodery choir, The Mills Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, Billie Holiday, Midge Williams, Lena Horne, and dancers such as Katherine Dunham, Bill Robinson, The Nicholas Brothers, Charles 'Honi' Coles, Leonard Reed, Stepin Fetchit, the Berry Brothers, The Four Step Brothers, Jeni Le Gon and Earl Snakehips Tucker.
Pinky is a 1949 American drama film directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. The screenplay was adapted by Philip Dunne and Dudley Nichols based on Cid Ricketts Sumner's 1946 novel Quality. It stars Jeanne Crain as the title character, a young light-skinned black woman who passes for white. It also stars Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters and William Lundigan.
Cabin in the Sky is a 1943 American musical film based on the 1940 Broadway musical of the same name. The first feature film directed by Vincente Minnelli, Cabin in the Sky features an all-black cast and stars Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Lena Horne. Waters and Rex Ingram reprise their roles from the Broadway production as Petunia and Lucifer Junior, respectively. The film was Horne's first and only leading role in an MGM musical. Louis Armstrong is also featured in the film as one of Lucifer Junior's minions, and Duke Ellington and his Orchestra have a showcase musical number in the film.
Saratoga Trunk is a 1945 American Western film directed by Sam Wood and starring Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, and Flora Robson. Written by Casey Robinson, based on the novel Saratoga Trunk by Edna Ferber, the film is about a Texas gambler and the daughter of a Creole aristocrat and his beautiful mistress. They become lovers and work together to seek justice from a society that has ruined their parents and rejected them. The title of the film and novel has a dual meaning. Clio says at one point that she thought a Saratoga trunk had to do with luggage, not a railroad line. It meant both. Saratoga trunks were top of the line for elegant travelers.
Leslie Marian Uggams is an American actress and singer. Beginning her career as a child in the early 1950s, Uggams is recognized for portraying Kizzy Reynolds in the television miniseries Roots (1977), earning Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations for her performance. She had earlier been highly acclaimed for the Broadway musical Hallelujah, Baby!, winning a Theatre World Award in 1967 and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1968. Later in her career, Uggams received renewed notice with appearances alongside Ryan Reynolds as Blind Al in Deadpool (2016), its 2018 sequel and the upcoming 2024 third film, as well as a recurring role on Empire.
Roger Edens was a Hollywood composer, arranger and associate producer, and is considered one of the major creative figures in Arthur Freed's musical film production unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the "golden era of Hollywood".
Adelaide Louise Hall was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death. Early in her career, she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance; she became based in the UK after 1938. Hall entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2003 as the world's most enduring recording artist, having released material over eight consecutive decades. She performed with major artists such as Art Tatum, Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Fela Sowande, Rudy Vallee, and Jools Holland, and recorded as a jazz singer with Duke Ellington and with Fats Waller.
Till The Clouds Roll By is a 1946 American Technicolor musical film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and a fictionalized biopic of composer Jerome Kern, portrayed by Robert Walker. Kern was involved with the production, but died before its completion. It was the first in a series of MGM biopics about Broadway composers.
Stormy Weather is a 1943 American musical film produced and released by 20th Century Fox, adapted by Frederick J. Jackson, Ted Koehler and H.S. Kraft from the story by Jerry Horwin and Seymour B. Robinson, directed by Andrew L. Stone, produced by William LeBaron and starring Lena Horne, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Cab Calloway. The film is one of two Hollywood musicals with an African American cast released in 1943, both starring Lena Horne, the other being MGM's Cabin in the Sky. Stormy Weather is a primary showcase of some of the leading African American performers of the day, during an era when African American actors and singers rarely appeared in lead roles in mainstream Hollywood productions. The supporting cast features the Nicholas Brothers in arguably the screen's most bravura dance sequence, Fats Waller, Katherine Dunham and her dancers, and Dooley Wilson.
Stormy Weather may refer to:
"Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" is an African-American spiritual song that originated during the period of slavery but was not published until 1867. The song is well known and many cover versions of it have been done by artists such as Marian Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Harry James, Paul Robeson, and Sam Cooke among others. Anderson had her first successful recording with a version of this song on the Victor label in 1925. Horne recorded a version of the song in 1946. The Deep River Boys recorded their version in Oslo on August 29, 1958. It was released on the extended play Negro Spirituals Vol. 1, and the song was arranged by Harry Douglas.
Seasons of a Life was the last album by American vocalist Lena Horne.
Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music was a 1981 Broadway musical revue written for and starring American singer and actress Lena Horne. The musical was produced by Michael Frazier and Fred Walker, and the cast album was produced by Quincy Jones. The show opened on May 12, 1981, and after 333 performances, closed on June 30, 1982, Horne's 65th birthday. Horne toured with the show in the U.S. and Canada and performed in London and Stockholm in 1984.
Give the Lady What She Wants is a 1958 studio album by Lena Horne, with Lennie Hayton and His Orchestra. The third studio album Lena Horne released on the RCA Victor label, this album peaked at #20 in the Billboard 200 album charts. The album has been re-issued on CD, firstly by BMG/RCA, Japan in 2004 and in 2010 by Avid Easy Records, together with two other studio albums, Stormy Weather and A Friend of Yours. This 2CD release also includes the live RCA Victor recordings At the Waldorf Astoria and the four tracks previously only available on the EP At the Cocoanut Grove.
Lena Sings Your Requests is a 1963 studio album by Lena Horne, arranged by Bob Florence and Marty Paich. After a long and successful partnership with RCA Victor, where Horne was signed between 1955-1962, Lena Horne signed at the lesser known Charter label releasing only two albums on the label both in 1963. This the first was recorded in Hollywood on January the 15th and 17th 1963 and released in the spring of 1963 on the Charter label. For this album Horne returned to re-record many songs that she had previously recorded in the 1940s and 1950s, several of which she had performed on screen, such as "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Can't Help Lovin' That Man". The album also features the fourth studio recording of the song "Stormy Weather" by Lena Horne. The album was reissued on CD in 2008 by Fresh Sound Records together with the album Lena Like Latin.
Panama Hattie is a 1942 American film based upon the Broadway musical of the same name. It was produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Norman Z. McLeod.
Million Dollar Productions was a movie studio in the United States active from 1937 until 1940. It was established to produce films with African American casts. It was a partnership between Harry M. Popkin, Leo C. Popkin and Ralph Cooper.
