#Words from screeny plus#

He was twice paired with Dorothy Dandridge, in Carmen Jones and Bright Road, but he turned down a third film, an adaptation of Porgy and Bess, which he found “racially demeaning”. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Imagesīelafonte maintained an acting career alongside music, winning a Tony award in 1954 for his appearance in the musical revue show, John Murray Anderson’s Almanac, and appearing in several films, most notably as one of the leads in Island in the Sun, along with James Mason, Joan Fontaine and Joan Collins, with whom he had an affair. The previous year, Belafonte had been hired by Frank Sinatra to perform at John F Kennedy’s presidential inauguration.Ī lifetime of activism … Belafonte with Martin Luther King Jr. The latter release won him one of his two Grammy awards he was later awarded a lifetime achievement Grammy and the Academy’s president’s merit award.īob Dylan’s first recording – playing harmonica – was on Belafonte’s 1962 album, Midnight Special.

#Words from screeny plus#

He released 30 studio albums, plus collaborative albums with Nana Mouskouri, Lena Horne and Miriam Makeba. His version of Mary’s Boy Child was a UK chart-topper later that year, while Island in the Sun reached No 3. The lead track was Day-O (The Banana Boat Song), a signature song for Belafonte – it spent 18 weeks in the UK singles chart, including three weeks at No 2. It brought the feelgood calypso style to many Americans for the first time, and became the first album to sell more than a million copies in the US. His second album, Belafonte, was the first No 1 in the new US Billboard album chart in March 1956, but its success was outdone by his third album the following year, Calypso, featuring songs from his Jamaican heritage. He released his debut album in 1954, a collection of traditional folk songs. He took acting classes – where his classmates included Marlon Brando and Walter Matthau – paid for by singing folk, pop and jazz numbers at New York club gigs, where he was backed by groups whose members included Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. He took odd jobs working in markets and the city’s garment district, and then signed up to the US navy aged 17 in March 1944, working as a munitions loader at a base in New Jersey.Īfter the war ended, he worked as a janitor’s assistant, but aspired to become an actor after watching plays at New York’s American Negro Theatre (along with fellow aspiring actor Sidney Poitier). He returned to New York for high school but struggled with dyslexia and dropped out in his early teens. Your passion, love, knowledge and respect for Africa was unlimited.”īelafonte was born in 1927 in working-class Harlem, New York, and spent eight years of his childhood in his impoverished parents’ native Jamaica. In fact, he paid for the babysitter for me and my siblings.” The Beninese-French musician Angélique Kidjo called Belafonte “the brightest star in every sense of that word. We need his example now more than ever.”īernice King, daughter of Dr Martin Luther King, shared a picture of Belafonte at her father’s funeral and said that he “showed up for my family in very compassionate ways. The US news anchor Christiane Amanpour tweeted that he “inspired generations around the whole world in the struggle for non-violent resistance justice and change. “Harry Belafonte’s accomplishments are legendary and his legacy of outspoken advocacy, compassion, and respect for dignity will endure forever,” Biden said on Twitter. The US president said Belafonte was a “groundbreaking American who used his talent and voice to help redeem the soul of our nation”. Figures including Joe Biden, the rapper Ice Cube and Mia Farrow paid tribute to Belafonte. ye 6).The cause of death was congestive heart failure, his spokesman told the New York Times. see 2 letter Words made out of screenyġ). cees 3 letter Words made out of screenyġ). ernes 4 letter Words made out of screenyġ).