Chris |
In
1922, Diana Horden* was
murdered by an unknown man and
having no children of her own and no surviving
brothers, her estate passed to the next surviving heir,
Harriet's father, Peter Horden.
Harriet Horden
embarked
on the
RMS Mauretania to the USA
with her parents in late September 1922 in order to take
up residence in Diana’s apartment in New York.
The money left to Peter was sufficient to live on, but
not
to live as comfortably
as he would have liked and so he took to risking a little
of his nest egg on the stock markets. After a number
of successful years when his income more than doubled,
he
sadly lost everything
in the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
A
broken man, he committed suicide early in 1930, leaving
his wife
Sarah and daughter Harriet without a dime. Sarah
had not worked a day in her life and the premature
death
of
her husband
caused her to take to drink in order to deaden the pain.
In the meantime, Harriet, now 18, looked for work across
New York.
In
1931, they sold the apartment and moved to the cheaper
Harlem area. Harriet took a job at the
Savoy
nightclub selling cigarettes, but when the owner overheard
her singing as she was packing up one night,
he invited her to audition. The rest, as they say was
history.
The Savoy was the only ‘integrated’ nightclub
of it's era and and became famous for some of it's
artists such as Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald as well
as
the ‘Lindy
Hop’.
Harriet continued to sing at the night
club until 1934, when she moved to Hollywood to make
her name
in movies. Harriet won a number of film roles in the
chorus and played some minor characters, but really
found her calling when she became a voice coach.
Harriet
was
well
respected
in the industry and well loved. Her loss at the age
of 43 in a tragic accident on a film set, left a big
gap.
We probably would
have heard more about this news story if there hadn’t
have been another tragedy involving a high profile
young actor the same week.
* Please refer to the prequel
album "Anser's Tree"
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