The legendary US singer and actor Harry Belafonte is dead. The entertainer, known among other things for the hit “Banana Boat Song”, died at the age of 96, according to the agency of his longtime spokesman Ken Sunshine of the German Press Agency Tuesday confirmed. The New York Times had previously reported. He died Tuesday of heart failure at his New York home, with his wife Pamela at his side, the Associated Press reports.
Belafonte was a trailblazer for black artists in the United States and was also active as a civil rights activist and in the fight against poverty. He fought alongside Martin Luther King Jr. for black civil rights in the USA, with Nelson Mandela against apartheid in South Africa and as a UNICEF ambassador for children in Haiti and Sudan.
Belafonte (real name Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.) was born on March 1, 1927 in New York and grew up in poor conditions in Harlem. His mother was Jamaican and his father was from the French Caribbean island of Martinique. He spent part of his childhood in Jamaica. Belafonte later described his childhood in poverty as an impetus to work for justice and equal opportunities. From 1946 to 1948 he attended a theater workshop in Manhattan. His classmates included Walter Matthau and Marlon Brando. He found acting attention in 1953, his success started in 1955 on Broadway with “Three for Tonight”. In films like “Hot Earth” (1957) and “Little Chances for Tomorrow” (1959) he addressed racial segregation and social inequality. He would have liked to have become the “first black Hamlet”, as he once said in an interview.
His rise as the “King of Calypso” ran parallel to his acting career. As a performer of “Calypso” he became a star in the USA: songs like “Banana Boat”, “Island in the Sun”, “Jamaica Farewell” or “Coconut Woman” became hits.
Belafonte won an honorary Oscar and numerous other awards. For his 90th birthday, his hometown of New York even named an entire library in Harlem after him.
Note: This article has been updated several times.
