Dr. Hannah Thuraisingam Robbins

Yeah.

And if you look at her filmography, really, those two films, Cabin in the Sky, which is an adaptation of a hit stage show, and Stormy Weather, which was an original film made by Fox, are really the highlights of her film career in the 40s.

And yeah, as you say, they are all black cast.

So it's important to say that everybody behind the camera was white.

And what happened there was they got the great and good of black performance into these films and created these amazing celebrations in those films.

They are the only examples where Lena Horne has dialogue, where she gets to interact with other people.

And she actually has character arcs.

After that, she basically loses the opportunity to have a meaningful interaction with the plot of any musical film.

Yes, that's an amazing sequence.

In the 40s, the white press couldn't decide what her skin tone was.

But one of the ways in which she was racialised is that they always refer to her skin colour.

But in headlines, she was referred to as sepia, as copper, as chocolate.

Like these are not the same shades of foundation, to put it a horrible way.

And...

I think there's a really important point about how she was lit and how she was represented.

So yeah, you're right.

The Max Factor, Max Space Factor, was working for MGM and was used to making bespoke foundation shades.

So he made one called Platinum for Jean Harlow.

And he makes light Egyptian for Lena Horne.

But we also have the reality that the hairdressers union ban their members from touching her head.