Leontyne Price

ABOUT LEONTYNE PRICE

Grammy Award-winning African American opera star who was honored with the 1980 Kennedy Center Honor and the National Medal of Arts in 1985.

She was able to play piano after her family traded their phonograph for one. In high school she sang at various local functions, including funerals, to make money.

A lirico spinto from the deep south, she was one of the first African Americans to lead at the Metropolitan Opera.

She married William Warfield on August 31, 1952 and they divorced in 1972.

Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Price the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.