Turner Classic Movies salutes the late. luscious Lena Horne Friday night with two of her movies I haven't actually seen -- Cabin the Sky and The Duke is Tops.   I may check those out.

Saturday there's terrific family viewing with the sweet Disney comedy The Apple Dumpling Gang, and the lyrical  Never Cry Wolf, the true-life story of a wildllife researcher in Alaska.  Charles Martin Smith is brilliant in the role (but the kids will have to accept the death of beloved animals, so be forewarned).

Sunday there's another good family film, Sounder, but with  imilar themes of loss, and in this one, the struggle against racism as well.  Also Sunday is Ernest Borgnine's heartbreaking performnce in Marty, the surpirse Best Picture winner of 1955. 

And I've recommended it before, but Sunday also brings the chilling In Cold Blood to TCM,  the terrifying, spellbinding film of Truman Capote's famous true-crime novel. Haunting.

Enjoy!

More Hollywood memorabilia on the block next month, headlined by Marilyn Monroe's iconic pink dress from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  The auctioneers are calling it the most significant movie dress ever to come up for auction, but I think my vote still goes to Audrey Hepburn's dress from Breakfast at Tiffany's.

There's a lot of truly amazing stuff in this auction. And for all the fascination with Marilyn Monroe, there's a piece in this auction I would much rather have -- the witch's hat from The Wizard of Oz.  Now, that's memorabilia.

I guess I can understand the attraction of the pink satin dress.  It's seems a whole lot healthier and less creepy than snapping up her X-ray.

Lena Horne deserved a longer and richer career than she had.

Don't get me wrong - she had a great career, but too many doors were closed to her early on.

Gifted, determined, but personally shy, she cultivated a distant, mysterious persona to protect herself from the constant indignities of racial prejudice. She saw some success in Hollywood, and starred in the groundbreaking Stormy Weather in 1943, a movie that played not on the racial stereotypes common in film at the time, but in fact celebrated the contribution of African Americans in film and entertainment.

But such opportunities were few and far between, even for a woman as supremely beautiful as Horne. I don't blame her for leaving Hollywood and moving back to New York for greater opportunities as a singer and stage actress. It's too bad there were so few roles in classic movies for a leading lady of style, grace, and color.

May she rest in peace.

A fan holds a program at Horne's memorial service in New York, by Stephen Lovekind/Getty Images

Lynn Redgrave, a member of one of Britain's most celebrated acing families, has passed away in Connecticut after a long battle with breast cancer, just 67 years old.

Classic movie fans will remember the bubbly character actress in the quirky '60s film, Georgy Girl, where she played the somewhat frumpy, completely lovable roommate of a pretty, hard-hearted London "mod."   While she never reached the stardom achieved by her elegant sister Vanessa Redgrave, her sweet-natured performance in Georgy Girl earned her an Oscar nomination, as did her much later turn in Gods and Monsters, the biopic about early horror film director James Whale.

The actress in 2009, by Matt Carr/Getty Images