Harry Belafonte, activist and entertainer, dies at 96

By Associated Press

NEW YORK: Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and leisure huge who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and have turn out to be an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96.

Belafonte died Tuesday of congestive coronary coronary heart failure at his New York dwelling, his partner Pamela by his facet, talked about Ken Sunshine, of public relations company Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis.

With his glowing, handsome face and silky-husky voice, Belafonte was considered one of many first Black performers to comprehend a big following on film and to advertise 1,000,000 data as a singer; many nonetheless know him for his signature hit “Banana Boat Song (Day-O),” and its identify of “Day-O! Daaaaay-O.” But he solid a bigger legacy as quickly as he scaled once more his performing occupation inside the Sixties and lived out his hero Paul Robeson’s decree that artists are “gatekeepers of truth.”

He stands as a result of the model and the epitome of the film star activist. Few saved up with Belafonte’s time and dedication and none his stature as a gathering stage amongst Hollywood, Washington and the civil rights movement.

Belafonte not solely participated in protest marches and revenue reside reveals, nevertheless helped arrange and carry assist for them. He labored intently collectively along with his pal and generational peer the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., normally intervening on his behalf with every politicians and fellow entertainers and serving to him financially. He risked his life and livelihood and set extreme necessities for youthful Black celebrities, scolding Jay Z and Beyonce for failing to fulfill their “social responsibilities,” and mentoring Usher, Common, Danny Glover and loads of others. In Spike Lee’s 2018 film “BlacKkKlansman,” he was fittingly solid as an elder statesman schooling youthful activists in regards to the nation’s earlier.

Belafonte’s pal, civil rights chief Andrew Young, would phrase that Belafonte was the unusual specific particular person to develop additional radical with age. He was ever engaged and unyielding, eager to sort out Southern segregationists, Northern liberals, the billionaire Koch brothers and the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, whom Belafonte would keep in mind asking to cut him “some slack.”

Belafonte responded, “What makes you think that’s not what I’ve been doing?”

Belafonte had been a major artist given that Nineteen Fifties. He obtained a Tony Award in 1954 for his starring perform in John Murray Anderson’s “Almanac” and 5 years later turned the first Black performer to win an Emmy for the TV specific “Tonight with Harry Belafonte.”

In 1954, he co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge inside the Otto Preminger-directed musical “Carmen Jones,” a most well-liked breakthrough for an all-Black solid. The 1957 movie “Island in the Sun” was banned in plenty of Southern cities, the place theater householders had been threatened by the Ku Klux Klan because of the film’s interracial romance between Belafonte and Joan Fontaine.

NEW YORK: Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and leisure huge who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and have turn out to be an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96.

Belafonte died Tuesday of congestive coronary coronary heart failure at his New York dwelling, his partner Pamela by his facet, talked about Ken Sunshine, of public relations company Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis.

With his glowing, handsome face and silky-husky voice, Belafonte was considered one of many first Black performers to comprehend a big following on film and to advertise 1,000,000 data as a singer; many nonetheless know him for his signature hit “Banana Boat Song (Day-O),” and its identify of “Day-O! Daaaaay-O.” But he solid a bigger legacy as quickly as he scaled once more his performing occupation inside the Sixties and lived out his hero Paul Robeson’s decree that artists are “gatekeepers of truth.”googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.present(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); );

He stands as a result of the model and the epitome of the film star activist. Few saved up with Belafonte’s time and dedication and none his stature as a gathering stage amongst Hollywood, Washington and the civil rights movement.

Belafonte not solely participated in protest marches and revenue reside reveals, nevertheless helped arrange and carry assist for them. He labored intently collectively along with his pal and generational peer the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., normally intervening on his behalf with every politicians and fellow entertainers and serving to him financially. He risked his life and livelihood and set extreme necessities for youthful Black celebrities, scolding Jay Z and Beyonce for failing to fulfill their “social responsibilities,” and mentoring Usher, Common, Danny Glover and loads of others. In Spike Lee’s 2018 film “BlacKkKlansman,” he was fittingly solid as an elder statesman schooling youthful activists in regards to the nation’s earlier.

Belafonte’s pal, civil rights chief Andrew Young, would phrase that Belafonte was the unusual specific particular person to develop additional radical with age. He was ever engaged and unyielding, eager to sort out Southern segregationists, Northern liberals, the billionaire Koch brothers and the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, whom Belafonte would keep in mind asking to cut him “some slack.”

Belafonte responded, “What makes you think that’s not what I’ve been doing?”

Belafonte had been a major artist given that Nineteen Fifties. He obtained a Tony Award in 1954 for his starring perform in John Murray Anderson’s “Almanac” and 5 years later turned the first Black performer to win an Emmy for the TV specific “Tonight with Harry Belafonte.”

In 1954, he co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge inside the Otto Preminger-directed musical “Carmen Jones,” a most well-liked breakthrough for an all-Black solid. The 1957 movie “Island in the Sun” was banned in plenty of Southern cities, the place theater householders had been threatened by the Ku Klux Klan because of the film’s interracial romance between Belafonte and Joan Fontaine.