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In 1936, life on the road means sleeping on the bus or in hotels
for blacks only. After finishing her tour with Nobel Sissel's
orchestra, nineteen-year-old Lena Horne is walking the last few
blocks to her father's hotel in Pittsburgh's Hill District. She
stops at a lemonade stand and meets a Lebanese American girl, Marie
David. Marie loves movies and adores Lena, and their chance meeting
sparks a relationship that will intertwine their lives forever.
Lena also meets Josiah Conner, a charismatic teenager who helps out
at her father Teddy's hotel. Josiah often skips school, dreams of
being a Hollywood director, and has a crush on Lena. Although the
three are linked by a determination to be somebody, issues of race,
class, family, and education threaten to disrupt their lives and
the bonds between them. Lena's father wants her to settle down and
give up show business, but she's entranced by the music and culture
of the Hill. It's a mecca for jazz singers and musicians, and
nightspots like the Crawford Grill attract crowds of blacks and
whites. Lena table-hops with local jazzmen as her father chaperones
her through the clubs where she'll later perform. Singing makes her
feel alive, and to her father's dismay, reviewers can't get enough
of her. Duke Ellington adores her, Billy Strayhorn can't wait to
meet her, and she becomes "all the rage" in clubs and Hollywood for
her beauty and almost-whiteness. Her signature version of "Stormy
Weather" makes her a legend. But after sitting around for years at
MGM as the studio heads try to figure out what to do with her, she
isn't quite sure what she's worth. Marie and Josiah follow Lena's
career in Hollywood and New York through movie magazines and the
Pittsburgh Courier. Years pass until their lives are brought
together again when Josiah is arrested for the murder of a white
man. Marie and Lena decide they must get Josiah out of
prison-whatever the personal cost.
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