Legendary actress and songstress Lena Horne was the first Black woman to ever play Glinda the Good in any production of “The Wizard of Oz” — or in this case, “The Wiz.”
She took on the role in an star-studded cast of prolific Black actors and entertainers such as Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and Richard Prior. While the production was a massive undertaking, it was not without its difficulties.
Horne, in a dazzling and sparkling, bright blue dress, sang “Believe in Yourself” to Ross — who played Dorothy. While her voice filled the set with palpable emotion, one of the battery-operated lights illuminating her dress caught fire.
“She’s a freaking trooper,” said Jenny Lumet, Horne’s granddaughter. “Just because your butt is on fire, it doesn’t mean you stop the take.”
Lumet is also an award winning screenwriter and has a connection to “Wicked”, which is a screenplay based on L. Frank. Baum’s original tale “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Her grandmother, Horne, is one of a few actresses who held the role of Glinda the Good.
Billie Burke was the first on-screen Glinda in 1939 and performed in “The Wizard of Oz”; Kristen Chenoweth performed as Glinda in “Wicked” on Broadway in 2003; Uzo Aduba was Glinda in a television live performance of “The Wiz” in 2015; and in 2024, Ariana Grande became the newest actress to play the character in a movie adaptation of “Wicked.”
Horne was born in 1917, before women even had the right to vote, and lived to see the first Black U.S. president, Barack Obama. She did this while working as one of Black America’s most talented movie stars who sang, danced and acted. Lumet saw her as “a woman without whom a lot of stuff would not have been possible.”
“… If you look at her life, she had some contact with every transformational historical figure in the 20th century,” said Lumet. “So, there’s putting a brown or Black face on Glinda — that’s one thing and that’s incredibly valuable — But it was her face.”
According to nps.gov, Horne fought against racial discrimination and racism throughout her time within the entertainment industry. She was often blacklisted because of her activism and political views; she would refuse roles that depicted African Americans as stereotypes such as maids, prostitutes or servants and became the first Black singer-actress to sign with a major studio.
Horne fought against racial discrimination by refusing to sing to segregated audiences or wear special makeup that would have darkened her complexion. According to Lumet, this made her role in “The Wiz” more impactful.
“Anything that Grandma did, she did it in Black,” Lumet said. “It forced people to acknowledge us as human beings — fully rounded human beings — as opposed to vessels of nobility or vessels of suffering or nothing at all.”
Lumet recalled visiting “The Wiz” set with her father and watching her grandmother play Glinda. She said Horne’s on set presence there was transformational and spoke of the day the cast filmed, “Believe in Yourself” — Glinda’s song to Dorothy.
“She was playing herself when she was playing Glinda. And with all due respect to Miss Ariana Grande — who is extraordinarily talented — I haven’t seen Wicked and I don’t know if she’s playing herself.”
“Wicked” arrived in theaters November 2024 and received 10 award nominations. However, it won only two: Best Costume Design for Paul Tazewell and Best Production Design for Lee Sandeles and Nathan Crowley.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande opened the 97th Academy Awards with a musical medley from “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Wiz.” Grande performed “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” while Erivo performed “Home”. Together, they concluded the performance with a duet of “Defying Gravity,” from “Wicked.”
In tribute to the late Quincy Jones, who was a legendary musical composer, Queen Latifah performed her rendition of “Ease on Down the Road” from “The Wiz”, in honor of Jones.
