![]() His "Calypso," released in 1955, became the first officially certified million-selling album by a solo performer, and started a national infatuation with Caribbean rhythms (Belafonte was nicknamed, reluctantly, the "King of Calypso"). The 1957 movie "Island in the Sun" was banned in several Southern cities, where theater owners were threatened by the Ku Klux Klan because of the film's interracial romance between Belafonte and Joan Fontaine. In 1954, he co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge in the Otto Preminger-directed musical "Carmen Jones," a popular breakthrough for an all-Black cast. He won a Tony Award in 1954 for his starring role in John Murray Anderson's "Almanac" and five years later became the first Black performer to win an Emmy for the TV special "Tonight with Harry Belafonte." ![]() He was ever engaged and unyielding, willing to take on Southern segregationists, Northern liberals, the billionaire Koch brothers and the country's first Black president, Barack Obama, whom Belafonte would remember asking to cut him "some slack."īelafonte responded, "What makes you think that's not what I've been doing?"īelafonte had been a major artist since the 1950s. That compilation, "Long Road to Freedom," was released in 2001.īelafonte's friend, civil rights leader Andrew Young, would note that Belafonte was the rare person to grow more radical with age. ![]() In the 1950s, Belafonte used his star power to convince RCA to finance an audio history of early black music, from tribal chants of African clans to the blues of Black Americans. Leslie Hassler/AP Actor and singer Harry Belafonte poses for a portrait at a New York recording studio, Nov. In Spike Lee's 2018 film "BlacKkKlansman," he was fittingly cast as an elder statesman schooling young activists about the country's past. He risked his life and livelihood and set high standards for younger Black celebrities, scolding Jay Z and Beyonce for failing to meet their "social responsibilities," and mentoring Usher, Common, Danny Glover and many others. Martin Luther King Jr., often intervening on his behalf with both politicians and fellow entertainers and helping him financially. He worked closely with his friend and generational peer the Rev. Few kept up with Belafonte's time and commitment and none his stature as a meeting point among Hollywood, Washington and the civil rights movement.īelafonte not only participated in protest marches and benefit concerts but helped organize and raise support for them. He stands as the model and the epitome of the celebrity activist. ![]() With his glowing, handsome face and silky-husky voice, Belafonte was one of the first Black performers to gain a wide following on film and to sell a million records as a singer many still know him for his signature hit "Banana Boat Song (Day-O)," and its call of "Day-O! Daaaaay-O." But he forged a greater legacy once he scaled back his performing career in the 1960s and lived out his hero Paul Robeson's decree that artists are "gatekeepers of truth." Witt, of public relations firm Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis. He was 96.īelafonte died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his New York home, his wife Pamela by his side, said Paula M. NEW YORK - Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and entertainment giant who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and became an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died.
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