Harry Belafonte born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023) was an American singer, actor, and civil rights activist who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s and 1960s.
Belafonte's career breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.
Belafonte was best known for his recordings of "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)", "Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)", "Jamaica Farewell", and "Mary's Boy Child".
He recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards.
He also starred in films such as Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), Buck and the Preacher (1972), and Uptown Saturday Night (1974).
He made his final feature film appearance in Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (2018).
Belafonte considered the actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson to be a mentor.
Belafonte was also a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr.
During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and acted as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues.
He was also a vocal critic of the policies of the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations.
Belafonte won three Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award.
In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors.
He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994.
In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the academy's 6th Annual Governors Awards and in 2022 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category.
He is one of the few performers to have received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT), although he won the Oscar in a non-competitive category.
Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.
on March 1, 1927, at Lying-in Hospital in Harlem, New York, the son of Jamaican-born parents Harold George Bellanfanti Sr. (1900–1990), who worked as a chef, and Melvine Love (1906–1988), a housekeeper.
There are disputed claims of his father's place of birth, which is also stated as Martinique.
His mother was the child of a Scottish Jamaican mother and an Afro-Jamaican father, and his father was the child of an Afro-Jamaican mother and a Dutch-Jewish father of Sephardic Jewish descent. Harry Jr. was raised Catholic and attended parochial school at St. Charles Borromeo.
In 1996, Belafonte was diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated for the disease.
He suffered a stroke in 2004, which took away his inner-ear balance.
From 2019, Belafonte's health began to decline, but he remained an active and prominent figure in the civil rights movement.
Belafonte died from congestive heart failure at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, on April 25, 2023, at the age of 96.
All information from Google Search.
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