Harry Belafonte

Harold George Belafonte Jr. (/ˌbɛləˈfɒnti/ BEL-ə-FON-tee; March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023) was an American singer, actor, and activist (1948–2023) who gained international prominence for popularizing calypso music and advancing civil rights causes.

Belafonte's breakthrough came with his 1956 album Calypso, the first long-playing record by a single artist to sell one million copies, driven by the enduring hit "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)". Dubbed the "King of Calypso," he amassed accolades including three Grammy Awards (with a Lifetime Achievement Award), an Emmy for his 1959 television special Tonight with Belafonte, and a Tony for his role in the 1953 revue John Murray Anderson's Almanac. In film, he starred in barrier-breaking roles in Carmen Jones (1954) and Island in the Sun (1957), often navigating racial sensitivities in Hollywood productions.

Harry Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. on March 1, 1927, at Lying-in Hospital in Harlem, New York City, to immigrant parents from Jamaica, both born there. He had a younger brother, Dennis. His mother, Melvine Love (1906–1988), was a housekeeper whose parents were a Scottish Jamaican mother and an Afro-Jamaican father, while his father, Harold George Bellanfanti Sr. (1900–1990), worked as a chef in Harlem's Garment District; disputed claims exist regarding the father's birthplace in Martinique. Belafonte's paternal grandparents consisted of an Afro-Jamaican mother and a Dutch-Jewish father of Sephardic Jewish descent. Belafonte was raised Catholic and attended parochial school at St. Charles Borromeo. The family resided in a working-class West Indian community amid the economic pressures of the Great Depression, which exacerbated their financial struggles.

On March 8, 1957, shortly after his divorce from Byrd was finalized, Belafonte wed Julie Robinson (1928–2024), a dancer with the Katherine Dunham Company of Jewish descent, in Mexico; they had a son, David Belafonte (born 1959), and a daughter, Gina Belafonte (born 1961), over their 47-year marriage, which ended in divorce in 2004. Belafonte later acknowledged repeated infidelities and volatile tempers as factors eroding the relationship, though the couple collaborated on civil rights efforts, providing some shared purpose amid personal turbulence. In 2008, Belafonte married photographer Pamela Frank, with whom he remained until his death in 2023; Frank brought two children from a prior relationship, but the union produced no additional offspring.