Harry Belafonte born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr March 1 1927 April 25 2023 was an American singer actor and activist who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s Belafonte is one of the few performers to have received an Emmy Grammy Oscar and Tony EGOT although he won the Oscar in a noncompetitive category He earned his career breakthrough with the album Calypso 1956 which was the first millionselling LP by a single artist Belafonte was best known for his recordings of DayO The Banana Boat Song Jump in the Line Shake Senora Jamaica Farewell and Marys Boy Child He recorded and performed in many genres including blues folk gospel show tunes and American standards He also starred in films such as Carmen Jones 1954 Island in the Sun 1957 Odds Against Tomorrow 1959 Buck and the Preacher 1972 and Uptown Saturday Night 1974 He made his final screen appearance in Spike Lees BlacKkKlansman 2018 Belafonte considered the actor singer and activist Paul Robeson a mentor and he was a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s He was a vocal critic of the policies of the George W Bush and Donald Trump administrations Belafonte acted as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues Belafonte won three Grammy Awards including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award an Emmy Award and a Tony Award In 1989 he received the Kennedy Center Honors He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994 In 2014 he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academys 6th Annual Governors Awards and in 2022 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category Description above from the Wikipedia article Harry Belafonte licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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