Singer, songwriter and actor Harry Belafonte, known for hits such as “Day O” and “Banana Boat,” has died at the age of 96.
After making his mark with hit songs and groundbreaking acting roles in the 1950s, Belafonte turned to activism, working on the civil rights struggle in the US with Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960s, and becoming a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 1987. In the 1980s, he focused his attention to fighting famine, participating in the celebrity song “We Are the World.”
Born in Harlem in 1927, Belafonte spent the early years of his childhood in Jamaica. Returning to New York, he fell in love with theater, studying acting and eventually receiving a Tony Award in 1954.
Belafonte began singing in New York clubs to pay for acting classes. He went on to achieve huge popularity, beginning with his album Calypso (1956) that introduced the genre to American and British audiences and became the first album to sell over 1 million copies in a single year worldwide. During his music career, in which he released 30 studio albums and eight live albums, he performed in multiple genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards.
As an actor, Belafonte starred in numerous films, beginning in the early 1950s, including several then-controversial roles dealing with race, including 1957’s Island in the Sun, which hinted at an interracial affair. Taking a break from acting to focus on music and activism in the 1960s, he returned once more to the screen in the 1970s, including co-starring with his lifelong friend Sydney Poitier in Buck and the Preacher (1972) and Uptown Saturday Night (1974).
Belafonte continued to act and to be an activist in his later years, speaking out on racial issues and income inequality. During President Obama”s time in office, he called on him to do more for poor Americans.
“A lot of people say to me, ‘When as an artist did you decide to become an activist?'” Belafonte told National Public Radio in 2011. “I say to them, ‘I was long an activist before I became an artist.'”