Turn Your Passion INTO Action

MEGA Dream event producers Nefertiti A. Strong and Richard E. Pelzer II announced on July 19^th the first The Passion To Action Series to be held at the Bennett Career Institute, 700 Monroe NE, Washington, DC 20017 on Saturday, September 25, 2010.

The first (50) attendances to purchase a ticket will receive a FREE copy of Author Thembisa S. Mshaka book PUT YOUR DREAMS FIRST: Handle Your [entertainment] Business sponsored by Joya Cosmetics.

For more information or tickets go to ThePassionToAction.com Seats are limited. Group Discounts are available for 15 or more people.

Film/TV Casting Director and Producer Winsome Sinclair & Entertainment Branding Executive/Author Thembisa S. Mshaka have teamed up to engage, enlighten and empower professionals to discover a career in entertainment called The Passion To Action. This series created and produced by Nefertiti A. Strong and Richard E. Pelzer II of MEGA Dream asks people, ‘How will you move from Passion to Action?’ Are you doing what you truly want to do with your career? Join this dynamic duo Winsome and Thembisa as they discuss career paths, entrepreneurship, family, the entertainment industry, life and living one’s dream. Their Passion To Action weekly blog is currently posting on Essence.com to provide their online community with expertise, testimony and hard-won advice available no place else on the Web.

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Join us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Passion2Action and

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Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010)

Photograph: Cinetext/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

Posted by Dave Gelly

Lena Horne - a lady not for turning

Throughout a career that brought international acclaim, the showbiz legend never softened her firm stance against racism.

If she could have swallowed her pride, Lena Horne could have had an easy life. Born into a middle-class African-American family in New York in 1917, she was beautiful, talented and ambitious. At the age of 16, much to her family's disapproval, she auditioned as a chorus dancer at the famous Cotton Club, and got the job. She followed this up by taking voice lessons, sang with the black "society" band of Noble Sissle and appeared on Broadway in Blackbirds of 1939 and 1940.

The first jolt in her hitherto smooth showbiz career occurred when she became the singer with the top-flight white band of Charlie Barnet and suffered the indignity of having to use the tradesmen's entrance and goods elevator when working at smart hotels. She left Barnet to concentrate on cabaret work and found herself working at the most unusual nightclub in the whole of New York. Café Society Downtown was a determinedly non-segregated venue whose motto was "The wrong place for the right people". In this radical milieu, where Paul Robeson was a regular attraction and where Billie Holiday had introduced the anti-lynching song Strange Fruit, Lena - as she later declared - found herself.

At the same time, she was blossoming into a star. She appeared in several films, most famously Stormy Weather (where she sang the title song) and Cabin In The Sky (along with Louis Armstrong and Ethel Waters). Throughout the second world war she was the black GIs' number-one pinup. She refused to take demeaning parts or to wear special makeup to darken her naturally light-toned complexion.

In 1947 she married her musical director, Lennie Hayton, but they were forced to keep their marriage a secret for three years because of racist threats. The marriage lasted until Hayton's death in 1971.

At the age of 74 Lena Horne starred in her own Broadway show, The Lady And Her Music. It ran for 14 months, after which she took it on tour around the US for a further year. At 80 she gave a concert at the JVC jazz festival in New York, where she received a lifetime achievement award. Until the very end, she never once softened her firm stance against racism or missed an opportunity to advance the cause she believed in. She will be missed.

Jill Scott is sued by her longtime record company

R&B star Jill Scott has been sued by her longtime record label, which has accused her of pulling out halfway through a six-album record contract.

By: BBC News

Industry paper The Hollywood Reporter said Hidden Beach Records is seeking damages for the money it would have made from the rest of the deal.

The complaint, filed at the Los Angeles Superior Court, said it was "shocked by her decision" to leave the label.

Ms Scott also stars in the HBO's original TV series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.

In 2007 the Grammy award-winning star made her cinematic debut in the film Hounddog, before starring in Why Did I Get Married? later the same year.

She went on to win the lead role in The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.

'Incredibly talented'

The legal action states that Hidden Beach's founder, Steve McKeever, helped launch Ms Scott's career, but was dumped in October after more than 10 years of collaboration.

"Hidden Beach is shocked by her decision, not only because Scott has apparently chosen to leave the Hidden Beach family, but also because Scott is contractually required to deliver three more albums to Hidden Beach."

Since breaking onto the scene with the double-platinum selling Who Is Jill Scott? album in 2000, Ms Scott's studio albums have generated millions in revenue.

Hidden Beach's alleged damages remain unspecified, but under California law they could total several million dollars.

Mr McKeever said he paid Ms Scott generous advances when he was not required to, allowed her to keep merchandising revenue and paid a large sum of money to fund a concert DVD that the singer later asked not be released.

"Hidden Beach feels that Jill Scott is an incredibly talented artist," the company's lawyer, Lawrence Hinkle, said.

"No one regrets that this lawsuit had to be filed more than Hidden Beach, but its hands were tied and it had no other option."

Ms Scott was unavailable to comment.