Gail Buckley dies at age 86

Author Gail Lumet Buckley, the only daughter of Hollywood legend Lena Horne, has died at her home in Santa Monica at age 86, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The trade publication said Buckley died of heart failure on July 18, but her death was just announced on July 27.
She wrote about her storied family in 1986’s “The Hornes: An American Family” and 2016’s “The Black Calhouns: From Civil War to Civil Rights With One African American Family.”
Her other books included “American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm,” published in 2001 and 2023’s “Radical Sanctity: Race and Radical Women in the American Catholic Church”
Buckley was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. and earned her a bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College in Massachusetts in 1959.
After graduation, she interned at Marie Claire magazine in Paris before returning to the United States and serving as a counselor with the National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students.
In 1962, Buckley joined Life magazine. Later, she contributed articles to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily News of New York and Vogue.
Her mother was a singer and actress who signed with MGM in 1942, becoming one of the first Black actors under contract in Hollywood and one of the first to appear in glamorous, non-stereotypical roles. She died in 2010.
Buckley was married to director Sidney Lumet from 1963 to 1978 and journalist Kevin Buckley from 1983 until his death in 2021.
Her brother, Edwin Jones, died in 1970 of kidney disease.
Buckley is survived by two daughters, Jenny Lumet and Amy Lumet, and two grandchildren.