The 1950s was a period of considerable civil rights activism for Belafonte, who cited his friend Martin Luther King as the dominant influence on his life. The breakdown of his marriage had led Belafonte to seek psychiatric treatment, and his psychiatrist’s husband, a stockbroker, subsequently became Belafonte’s agent and manager, replacing Jack Rollins, the man responsible for masterminding Belafonte’s early career. Photograph: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Imagesīelafonte and Byrd divorced in 1957, and he married Julie Robinson, the first white dancer to work with the Katherine Dunham company. He became one of the first major artists to tour with a multiracial band and he integrated black performers into orchestras in prestige venues where the musicians had been exclusively white.īelafonte with Coretta and Martin Luther King, 1966. He began to appear on television, toured successfully in Europe and recorded several programmes for BBC television, working for a fraction of his normal fee because he enjoyed the extended nature of the shows, which gave him time to develop his performance. In 1957, Belafonte had top 10 hits in the UK with The Banana Boat Song and the title track from Island in the Sun, before achieving his biggest recording success with Mary’s Boy Child, which spent seven weeks at No 1 in 1957 and was re-released for the following two Christmases. This all-black adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen, in which both his and Dandridge’s voices were dubbed, was a considerable success. After playing a headteacher in Bright Road (1953), he was cast in Otto Preminger’s 1954 movie version of the Broadway hit Carmen Jones, opposite Dorothy Dandridge. ![]() Throughout his career, he recorded dozens of albums, including live concerts at Carnegie Hall, New York.īelafonte won a Tony award in 1954 for his performance in the musical revue John Murray Anderson’s Almanac. He had signed a deal with Jubilee Records in 1949, and his records began to sell. This, and his attachment to calypsos (he became known as “the Calypso King”), changed his style, and he was soon performing in more prestigious venues. ![]() Tiring of the routine, in 1950 he opened a small restaurant, the Sage, in Greenwich Village, entertaining customers with folk songs. He also began recording, including some of his own songs. With the latter, Belafonte trained at the studio theatre of the pioneering American Negro theatre in Harlem.Ġ3:11 'I did all that I could': A look back at the life and career of Harry Belafonte – videoĮxcept for some off-Broadway shows, he found little work as an actor and began singing, mainly in jazz clubs, such as the Village Vanguard and the Royal Roost in New York, earning a reasonable living for a couple of years. He abandoned the menial jobs he had been doing and, thanks to the GI Bill of Rights, became a student and enrolled at Erwin Piscator’s drama school, where his peers included Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier. First, he met Marguerite Byrd, a young teacher from a black middle-class family, who four years later became his wife. Two strokes of good fortune changed his life. I knew of what I was singing.”Īfter a few years, Belafonte returned to New York, dropped out of high school and entered the navy. In Jamaica, he loved visiting the banana markets many years later, after his international success with The Banana Boat Song (Day-O), he observed: “Not by chance did that song become my signature. The boy was sent by his mother to study in Jamaica, where his American accent made him feel like an outsider at school. When Harry was six, his father left the family. ![]() His father, also called Harold, had been born in Martinique and was an itinerant ship’s cook his mother, Melvine, born in Jamaica, worked as a domestic servant. Harold Bellanfanti was born in Harlem, New York, and raised in a cramped apartment. The seeds of his ambition and his social conscience were sown by his tough childhood. The enduringly handsome Belafonte, who has died aged 96, had great success not just as a honey-voiced singer and a compelling actor, but also as a passionate and erudite campaigner for civil rights.
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