Harry Belafonte Day o

Documentary Charts Harry Belafonte Hectic Life :

NEW YORK :
At 84, Harry Belafonte, does not sing in public. But today his music is no less rich or persuasive than before, even delivered in the form of speech, and lyrically he votes his heart.
"What a blessing, what a blessing," marvels of his distinctive whisper of sand, which sums up his life in a recent interview.
Of course, Belafonte is not the only beneficiary of the busy, happy life. He brought joy to millions of his hand (to earn the first gold record for his 1956 album "Calypso", which has produced the inevitable clash single, "Banana Boat (Day-O)"). In addition, he gained international fame in concert, television and cinema in films like "Carmen Jones" (1954), "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" and "Buck and the Preacher." He won a Tony Award in 1954 for his role in the foreground, "John Murray Anderson's Almanac."

He mixed his art with activism, a key role in the civil rights movement with leaders like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and former Justice Minister Robert Kennedy (who led the aggressive protection of blacks), and President John F. Kennedy (who trained as a role Belafonte presidential candidate of the role of the king, at the same time advised the king how to work Kennedys).
The son of a worker born in Jamaica home in Harlem, Belafonte understood and condemned the social injustices of his youth, and decided to help correct them.
"I was not an artist who became an activist, I was an activist who was artist," he explains.
Belafonte travel as a Plug-le-card points six decades of popular culture and social crusade. And it leads "Sing Your Song", a documentary on the life beautifully designed Belafonte and the era of the rest of us shared with him. (The first Monday at 22:00 EDT on HBO.)
At first, he was narcissistic and unnecessary to make a documentary, says Harry Belafonte, hosting a journalist for the price and memorabilia filled office in the Manhattan neighborhood once known as Hell's Kitchen.

"What I have to say that people want to hear, if they do not hear it at the time, I was going to do?" he reasons. But when he learned a lesson from Marlon Brando, his old friend with whom he took acting classes in the early 1950s, and later became allies in the civil rights movement.
When Brando died in 2004, "I felt that not only the U.S. had lost a great artist but a great social force," says Harry Belafonte. "But the people knew very little about his social activism, and died without leaving any trace.
Harry Belafonte Day o
"I started going around, to identify all the people who were my peers who had done amazing things, but never talked about it. What began as a simple exercise Archive provides clearance, taking only four shots in all the world. "
He had hundreds of hours of film have no idea what to do with it. Then the director, Susanne Rostock came into the picture.
Together, they made this film (in addition to many other historical films and photos) in a saga told by gracefully Belafonte, covering the distance of a commitment in 1950 in Las Vegas, where he defiantly swam in the pool of his hotel swimming white only organizing a festive concert (with stars like Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Paul and Mary), after a triumphant Selma, Alabama in 1965 civil rights March 1985 in all the brain- star "We Are the World" recording that earned him millions to fight against African famine for the first visit of Nelson Mandela coordination in the United States after being released from prison in 1990 - with many other milestones in the way.
Said Miriam Makeba, the singer Grammy at the end of South Africa and civil rights activist in the film: "Belafonte means a lot to people, fighting for people all over the world, because it took all our struggles and approved."
But what the film did not meet the Belafonte.

"I could go into everything, but I could not go in depth with many things," he said. "That's when a book was published as an option."
The memoir, "Harry Belafonte: My Song", written by Michael Shnayerson, Knopf published this week.

It's just a coincidence that Belafonte always so important. Back in New York, after serving in World War II, he worked as an assistant superintendent, when, as a reward for the work of repair of the dwelling, was given tickets to a production of American Black Theatre in Harlem.
"It 'was a revelation," he says, his eyes light up the memory of "the people and the stories of lights and magic."
Ecstasy to be able to work behind the scenes, he finally got a role in the merger of the scene as a liaison troubadour scenes of a production of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."
I had never sung before, and still not see himself as a singer: "I was playing," he said. But this performance gave the role folk, blues and calypso, with its power to convey important news. Began using these genres by an act of singing.

It was not long before he was a household name, a star of the general public, an idol known throughout the world.
More than half a century later, it remains a beautiful presence, prince, though obviously comfortable enough to laugh at himself when he learned that "Sing Your Song" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2011 "I understand what it meant. very well and I was not big-time, "he laughs," long time "
And even now that he is sincere in recognizing the problems that remain of the issues highlighted by him in this movie.
"A lot of things to me until I am puzzled," he says. "Forget that you did, forget that you were there, forgetting that all this running in your life. Why are you? "
Classification is still working and why the media of his life.
"Every time you accomplish something," he says, "I woke up the next day and said: 'We did it! We did it!" But we have not understood: Here we go again. "
Appropriately, the film does not end with a statement, but ask him a question, and a call to arms to other activists, "What are you doing now?"


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