Lena Takes The Lead

Yesterday I saw Take The Lead with my daughter Emma. Formulaic, "Fame Redux," but I really enjoyed it. Boy would I like to be Antonio Banderas ("I got plenty of play") for a day. I especially enjoyed hearing the
gorgeous Lena Horne and June Christy getting some play. Whatever happened to Lena after her Broadway special 20 years ago? I think my late friend Janie Miller saw it 5 times. Lena's almost 90 now. This is what I found out, "In 2003, ABC announced that pop star Janet Jackson would star as Horne in a television biopic. In the weeks following Jackson's so-called "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the 2004 Super Bowl, however, Variety reported that Horne demanded Jackson be dropped from the project. "ABC executives resisted Horne’s demand," according to the Associated Press report, "but Jackson representatives told the trade newspaper that she left willingly after Horne and her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey told Alicia Keys during a 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she might possibly consider producing the biopic herself, and casting Keys as Horne.