In 1936, life on the road means sleeping on the bus or in hotels for blacks only. After finishing her tour with Nobel Sissel\u0026#8217;s orchestra, nineteen year-old Lena Horne is walking the last few blocks to her father\u0026#8217;s hotel in Pittsburgh\u0026#8217;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\u0026#8217;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.\u0026lt;br\u0026gt;\u0026lt;br\u0026gt;Lena\u0026#8217;s father wants her to settle down and give up show business, but she\u0026#8217;s entranced by the music and culture of the Hill. It\u0026#8217;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\u0026#8216;ll later perform. Singing makes her feel alive, and to her father\u0026#8217;s dismay, reviewers can\u0026#8217;t get enough of her. Duke Ellington adores her, Billy Strayhorn can\u0026#8217;t wait to meet her, and she becomes âall the rageâ in clubs and Hollywood for her beauty and almost-whiteness. Her signature version of âStormy Weatherâ 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\u0026#8217;t quite sure what she\u0026#8217;s worth.\u0026#160;\u0026lt;br\u0026gt;\u0026lt;br\u0026gt;Marie and Josiah follow Lena\u0026#8217;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\u0026#8212;whatever the personal cost.
nl
en
