Harry Belafonte - ©Theda Bara

The actor I highlight in this post is Harold George Bellanfanti, also known as Harry Belafonte, who died last Tuesday, the 25th, in New York, due to congestive heart failure.

Harry Belafonte was an American musician, actor, singer, political activist, and pacifist of Jamaican descent. One of the most successful artists of Caribbean origin in history, he was dubbed the “King of Calypso” for popularizing Caribbean rhythm in the United States in the 1950s.

During his career he was a radical political activist, involved in struggles for civil rights and various humanitarian and racial causes, being invited by UNICEF to be a Goodwill Ambassador.

Belafonte was born in Harlem, a poor neighborhood with mostly black residents in New York City, and in his childhood he lived in Jamaica, his mother's home country. When he returned to the United States, he attended high school at his neighborhood public school and served in the navy during World War II.

In the late 1940s, he began taking acting lessons from Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier, while working for free to collaborate with the rise of black American theater. Years later, he was recognized for this early career effort, when already acclaimed by audiences and critics, he would receive a Tony Award for his work on the Broadway stage. Belafonte was the first African-American to receive an Emmy Award and has also won three Grammys: 1960, 1965 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, the year he also won an honorary Oscar, for his humanitarian work.

Harry Belafonte has a star on the Los Angeles Walk of Fame at 6721 Hollywood Boulevard in the music category.

The musician/actor was born on March 1, 1927, Harlem, New York, United States and died on April 25, 2023, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, aged 96.

The actor was married three times, first to the American model Marguerite Belafonte (1923-1998), from 1948 to 1957; later married costume designer Julie Robinson, known for: Lust for Life (1928-) from 1957 to 2008; and his third marriage was to photographer Pamela Frank (1967-), from 2008 to 2023. Harry Belafonte had an extramarital relationship for years with actress Ellen Virginia Holly (1931), with whom he never lived maritally.