Hannah Robbins (University of Nottingham)
Reclaiming Lena Horne: approaching Blackness and stardom in the Hollywood musical

"Hollywood didn't know what to do with me" is one of the most famous quotes attributed to the film star and recording artist, Lena Horne. Celebrated as the first Black actor to secure a multi-film contract at the legendary MGM film company, Horne broke ground as a performer and activist in the 1940s. This paper examines how Horne is presented on screen, how this framing has informed representations of her career, and how her on-screen legacy has been shaped by toxic whiteness that erases her Black heritage and her campaigning to improve conditions for Black Americans at the time.

Hannah Robbins is Assistant Professor for Popular Music and Director of Black Studies at the University of Nottingham. She is an expert in American musical theatre in its cultural context. Her current research focuses on the life and career of Cole Porter and the representation of Black and queer creatives in American musical theatre history. She has published widely on movie and stage musicals from The Wizard of Oz to Hamilton and Disney's Frozen. Dr Robbins completed her PhD at the University of Sheffield. In 2018, she was appointed the inaugural Frederick Loewe Postdoctoral Research Associate, where she completed a critical edition of Lerner and Loewe's first hit musical Brigadoon. She has also worked as a Visiting Lecturer in Musical Theatre at the University of Leeds. Dr Robbins is in the process of preparing a monograph on the hit musical Kiss Me, Kate (Oxford University Press, 2021), a chapter on Lena Horne's film career (Oxford University Press, 2021), and a critical approach to intersectionality and the American musical (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

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