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April 25 (Reuters) - Harry Belafonte, a singer, songwriter & groundbreaking actor who started his entertainment career belting "Day O" in his 1950s hit song "Banana Boat" before turning to political activism, has died at the age of 96.
Belafonte died of congestive heart failure at his home in New York on Tuesday with his wife Pamela by his side.
As a Black leading man who explored racial themes in 1950s movies, Belafonte would later move on to working with his friend Martin Luther King Jr. during the U.S. civil rights movement in the early 1960s. He became the driving force behind the celebrity-studded, famine-fighting hit song "We Are the World" in the 1980s.
Belafonte once said he was in a constant state of rebellion that was driven by anger.
"I've got to be a part of whatever the rebellion is that tries to change all this," he said in 2001. "The anger is a necessary fuel. Rebellion is healthy."
Handsome and suave, Belafonte came to be known as the "King of Calypso" early in his career. He was the first Black person allowed to perform in many plush nightspots & also had racial breakthroughs in movies at a time when segregation prevailed in much of the U.S.
In "Island in the Sun" in 1954 his character entertained notions of a relationship with a white woman played by Joan Fontaine, which reportedly triggered threats to burn down theaters in the American South.
In the 1960s he campaigned with King & in the 1980s, he worked to end apartheid in South Africa & coordinated Nelson Mandela's first visit to the U.S.
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