 her hair and eyes were very  dark, and she did almost as many blues and torch songs as a band  singer in the 1940s as did Garland. Horne mentions in her biography  that she wanted to do the role of Julie badly, but only got as far  as performing a single number in the "Clouds" film in the opening  "Show Boat" vignette. America, after all, was still a segregated  nation in 1950. Interracial romance was still taboo on screen