Harry Belafonte was born in 1927 in Harlem, New York to a father from Martinique and a mother from Jamaica. He spent a portion of his youth in his mother’s homeland before returning to New York to find work.
Employed as a janitor’s assistant, a tenant was kind enough to gift Belafonte with a pair of tickets for a play showing at the American Negro Theater. This sparked a love of the stage and a subsequent meeting with fellow actor and nonagenarian Sidney Poitier.
The hopeful actor took courses at the New School alongside veterans such as Marlon Brando and Tony Curtis and eventually became a member of the ANT along with Poitier. Belafonte won a Tony Award in 1954 for the Broadway revue of “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac.” (READ MORE)
