We think we know people, but what do we know? Today, I learned about Lenny Kravitz.
He’s won eight Grammys for Best Vocalist, Best Song, or Best Performance of The Year and recorded 13 albums since 1990. 1991 saw him play with ‘Slash’ from Guns-n-Roses on the album, ‘Mama Said’, including the hit single, ‘It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over’. In 1993, he won MTV Video Music Award and played the hit single, ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way?’ with John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. His cover of The Guess Who’s ‘American Woman’ won him a Grammy in 2000. Lenny has gone on to play ‘Cinna’ in both The Hunger Games’ movies. Watch a clip as ‘Cinna’ meets ‘Katniss’ the first time. Mr. Kravitz also played ‘Nurse John’ in the movie ‘Precious’, a film that received no less than six Academy Awards nominations.
Mr. Kravitz attended Beverly Hills High School with the likes of ‘Slash’ and Nicholas Cage as his classmates. Lenny’s mother, Roxie Roker, played ‘Helen Jefferson’ on the hit TV comedy show, ‘The Jeffersons’. She was the first to play a part of an interracial couple on television. Her maiden name was Roker, she was a cousin to NBC’s Al Roker, the affable weatherman. Lenny’s Dad was Seymour Kravitz, an NBC executive, hence the ‘real life’ interracial experience. Check out Lenny and his Mom, Roxie, on Arsenio Hall’s show!
Even more interesting is a little known fact… he was named for Leonard Kravitz, his father’s brother. Leonard Kravitz, the elder, died in the Korean War. For 50 years, Mitchell Libman fought to get his friend Private First Class Leonard Kravitz some recognition and the medal he deserved. In that war, as with so many others, Latinos, African-Americans, and even Jewish soldiers were often passed over in every regard. In many ways, they were second class citizens, and therefore their acts of valor were not recorded or did not get honorable mention.
Private Kravitz was known as a quiet, mild, easygoing man. No-one knew what he was capable of, it seems. In a battle, his platoon was overrun by the Chinese Communists, who fought on the side of North Korea, and they were ordered to pull back. There was no way they would make it out alive. Kravitz took over the machine gun and held off the enemy, knowing he was going to die, and saved hundreds of men when he laid down his life that day on a hill whose name no one remembers.
In the 1990’s the government began searches through the records of over 600 soldiers who had been overlooked for all the wrong reasons, in wars from WWII through Vietnam. They found 24 heroes who had gone above and beyond the call of duty. Only three were still alive to receive the highest military medal in the land, the Medal of Honor. Today, March 18th, 2014, Private First Class Leonard Kravitz was awarded the medal, posthumously. In a ceremony, President Obama presented Medals of Honor to three living recipients and 21 other medals to the families of the heroes who are no longer with us.
Mr. Libman said they did not know PFC Leonard Kravitz until that fateful day when he gave his life to save others.
Today, we learned a little more about Lenny Kravitz, and he comes from good stock.
