After working as a fashion model in New York, Susan Hayward travelled to
Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in
Gone With the Wind (1939). Although she was not selected, she secured
a film contract, and played several small supporting roles over the next few
years. By the late 1940s the quality of her film roles had improved, and she
achieved recognition for her dramatic abilities with the first of five Academy
Award nominations for Best Actress for her performance as an alcoholic in
Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947). Her career continued successfully
through the 1950s and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her
portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live (1958).

Susan Hayward with co-star Dean Martin in Ada (1961)

Lena Horne was a singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer. Horne began
her career at the age of sixteen when she joined the chorus of the Cotton Club
nightclub before moving to Hollywood, where she obtained small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the films Cabin in the Sky and Story Weather,
both 1943 musicals. Lena Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood during the “Red Scare” day’s because of her political views. She then 
returned to her roots as a performer in nightclubs and on television, while
releasing well-received record albums.