Profile of Harry Belafonte on Famous Like Me

Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Belafonte on March 1, 1927 in Harlem, New York, United States) is a Jamaican-American calypso musician, actor and outspoken liberal who used his fame as an entertainer in the cause of human rights.

He is perhaps best known for singing the "Banana Boat Song," composed by Alan Arkin, with its signature lyric "Day-O." His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first album to sell over 1 million copies. He was the first African-American to win an Emmy, with his first solo TV special “tonight with Belafonte”.

From 1935 to 1939 he lived with his mother in her homeland Jamaica. When he returned to New York he attended George Washington High school after which he joined the navy and served during the second world war. At the end of the 1940s he took classes in acting and subsequently received a Tony Award for his participation in John Murray Anderson's Almanac.

He was an early supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the nineteen fifties and one of Martin Luther King's confidants. In 1968, Belafonte appeared on a Petula Clark primetime special on NBC. In the middle of a song, Clark smiled and briefly touched Belafonte's arm, which made the show's sponsor, Plymouth Motors, nervous. They wanted to cut out the segment but Clark, who had ownership of the special, told NBC that the song aired intact or she wouldn't allow her special to be aired at all. Plymouth's demands made the national newspapers and when the special aired, it grabbed high viewing figures. Clark's gesture marked the first time in which two people of different races made friendly bodily contact on US television.

In 1985 he was one of the organizers behind the grammy award winning song We Are The World, a multi-artist effort to raise funds for Africa, and performed in the Live Aid concert that same year. In 1987 he was appointed as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. In 2002 Africare awarded him the Bishop John T. Walker Distinuished Humanitarian Service Award for his efforts to assist Africa.

Belafonte has gained notoriety for his left wing political views. He appeared on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and performed a controversial "Mardi Gras" number with footage intercut from the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots. More recently, he appeared on Democracy Now! where he quoted the civil era icon Malcolm X:

"There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes, they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good 'cause they ate his food and what he left...In those days he was called a 'house nigger.' And that's what we call him today, because we've still got some house niggers running around here.

On a morning radio show in San Diego, California, in October 2002, Belafonte used that quote to characterize both former and current United States Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as "house slaves" for their behavior and refusal to stand up against the decision of President George W. Bush to go to war with Iraq according to his War on Terrorism plan. (He was implying that, by going along with Bush's plans, the two were serving their master and thus were allowed to live in the house with the master rather than on the "plantation.")

In 2005, he referred to Black Republicans "tyrants" and compared those serving in the Bush administration to nazis. He also compared the Bush administration to the Third Reich, and said "Hitler had a lot of Jews" in his regime.

He has won a Grammy Award in 2000 for lifetime achievement.

His daughter, Shari Belafonte, is a photographer, model and actress.

Quote

"I work for the United Nations. I go to places where enormous upheaval and pain and anguish exist. And a lot of it exists based upon American policy. Whom we support, whom we support as heads of state, what countries we've helped to overthrow, what leaders we've helped to diminish because they did not fit the mold we think they should fit, no matter how ill advised that thought may be." - Harry Belafonte interview on CNN Larry King Live, October 15, 2002

Filmography

• Bright Road (1953)
• Carmen Jones (1954)
• The Heart of Show Business (1957) (short subject)
• Island in the Sun (1957)
• The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959) (also producer)
• Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
• King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970) (documentary) (narrator)
• The Angel Levine (1970) (also producer)
• Buck and the Preacher (1972) (also producer)
• Uptown Saturday Night (1974)
• Sometimes I Watch My Life (1982) (documentary)
• Say No (1983) (documentary)
• Three Songs (1983) (short subject)
• We Shall Overcome (1989) (documentary) (narrator)
• The Player (1992) (Cameo)
• Ready to Wear (1994) (Cameo)
• Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream (1995) (documentary)
• White Man's Burden (1995)
• Jazz '34 (1996) (documentary)
• Kansas City (1996)
• Scandalize My Name: Stories from the Blacklist (1998) (documentary)
• Fidel (2001) (documentary)
• XXI Century (2003) (documentary)

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Harry Belafonte