Lena in Paris

Nightclubbing Parisians, who had seen her movies and heard her records, knew something of what to expect. In the midst of France's troubles last week, well-dressed Parisians packed the smart, red-walled Club des Champs Elysees, to see Lena Horne's Continental debut. Word had drifted across the channel of Lena's smashing success in London--and by midnight the atmosphere was electric.

Lena Horne, a cafe au lait beauty, was not the kind of a girl to come onstage the way Josephine Baker had, with only a string of bananas girdling her hips. Obviously nervous, dressed in a square-shouldered white gown, Lena flashed her magnificent teeth in the spotlight and curtsied demurely. Then, as the lights went down and the rhythm began to pad out softly behind her, she slithered cosily up to the mike and began to sway. First she gave them It's Just One of Those Things in a low and sultry voice. By the time she came to the line, "Our love affair was too hot not to cool down," the French found Lena's English perfectly translatable. And when she finished The Man I Love, and followed it with 'Deed I Do, Stormy Weather and Honeysuckle Rose, she had the Parisians in her hand.

They shouted, cheered, and--a rare event in France--whistled. Lena could do no wrong: she even got away with a song in schoolgirl French. After the show, admirers followed her to her dressing room. Next day France Soir splashed a three-column picture of her on Page One, and captioned it: "A triumph."* Would she stay on in France, as Josephine Baker had? Said Lena: "Hell no! I got a family in Brooklyn."

* For further comment on Lena Horne, see PEOPLE.

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