WEBVTT - Harry Belafonte: The Real Deal

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hey yo, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and

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<v Speaker 2>there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, which is appropriate because

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<v Speaker 2>this is a barn burner of an episode.

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<v Speaker 1>If you ask me, did you say, hey, oh, I

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<v Speaker 1>did very nice.

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<v Speaker 2>I gotta freshen it up here there sometimes starting to

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<v Speaker 2>get a little stale. No, you don't think so.

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<v Speaker 1>No, I mean you can freshen it up, but it's

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<v Speaker 1>not stale.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, all right, okay, I like that. If you have

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<v Speaker 2>any ideas to freshen it up ever, you know, lamb

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<v Speaker 2>on me. All right, let's see, we're coming up on

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<v Speaker 2>your seventeen. Just want to point that out.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, what is it in April?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Pretty cool? Yeah. And today also we are talking

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<v Speaker 2>about Harry Belafonte and part of the reason why, but

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<v Speaker 2>not the full reason why, because this is he was

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<v Speaker 2>a perennial man, a man of all seasons. Yeah, but

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<v Speaker 2>it's Black History Month, so we want to profile him,

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<v Speaker 2>at least in part for a Black History Month.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And he's awesome. And you know I watched that

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<v Speaker 1>We Are the World documentary not too long ago. Oh

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<v Speaker 1>yeahs a good yeah, it's really good. I think you

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<v Speaker 1>would enjoy it.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, I probably would, then, yeah, you think I would.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's actually really really good. And you walk away

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<v Speaker 1>from it thinking, well, thinking like, Harry Belafonte is awesome,

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<v Speaker 1>along with a lot of other people. But you walk

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<v Speaker 1>away thinking, man, I just want to be friends with

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<v Speaker 1>Lionel Richie.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, I can imagine.

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<v Speaker 1>He's just the coolest and he tells really great story

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<v Speaker 1>He's a great storyteller and funny. And like I was like, man,

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<v Speaker 1>Lionel Richie is awesome and fun.

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<v Speaker 2>That's pretty cool, man.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there's a rumor that seems fairly substantiated that he's

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<v Speaker 2>Kylie Jenner's real father.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh really yeah, apparently there's.

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<v Speaker 2>A lot of a lot of swinging going on out

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<v Speaker 2>in that neighborhood back in the day.

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<v Speaker 1>I don't know what Kylie Jenner looks like. Does she

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<v Speaker 1>look like Is it sort of like Frank Sinatra's son

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<v Speaker 1>ronan Pharaoh?

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<v Speaker 2>Uh No, nothing like that. And actually I'm not sure

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<v Speaker 2>any living human knows exactly what Kylie Jenner looks like.

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<v Speaker 2>So I'll just say, well.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's talk about Harry be then the guy. I love

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<v Speaker 1>this guy.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so Harry Beliefani. I was trying to figure out

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<v Speaker 2>how we can name this, and we might just say

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<v Speaker 2>Harry Belifani or something like that, but we could also

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<v Speaker 2>say the thinking person sink.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's good, the real deal, yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Or a genuinely great.

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<v Speaker 1>Person yeah, entertainer slash activist, yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Like he he did it all. He was just one

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<v Speaker 2>of these people who you know, when you approach an iconoclast,

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<v Speaker 2>especially one who's just revered universally, and you start picking

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<v Speaker 2>at the edges, you're like, oh my god, I hope

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<v Speaker 2>it's not.

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<v Speaker 1>Like garbage, right.

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<v Speaker 2>And you just don't get to that point like he

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<v Speaker 2>was through and through a genuinely good person. And one

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<v Speaker 2>of the reasons why you don't get to like pick

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<v Speaker 2>off the outer coating and find garbage underneath, because he

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<v Speaker 2>was just pretty much fully transparent his whole life, and

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<v Speaker 2>he just he was who he was, and he wasn't

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<v Speaker 2>apologetic for it, and he just put it all out

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<v Speaker 2>there based on his beliefs, and his beliefs tended to

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<v Speaker 2>coincide with the right side of history. Typically, he saw

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<v Speaker 2>people who were downtrodden being being taken advantage of, being

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<v Speaker 2>discriminated against, and he wanted to go help make that better.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, And as you'll see, you know, throughout his

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<v Speaker 1>career he missed opportunities because he refused to cave lost opportunities,

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<v Speaker 1>had opportunities taken away from him, and he was just like,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, I'm going to be Harry Belafonte and no

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<v Speaker 1>one is going to change that. Yeah, career be damn, let's.

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<v Speaker 2>Kick the whole thing off, right, Because for those of

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<v Speaker 2>you who don't know, we should probably say Harry Belafine

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<v Speaker 2>is a legendary entertainer. That's what he's most widely known for,

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<v Speaker 2>and most widely known for the song Deyo, which is

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<v Speaker 2>why I said Heyo come full circle now in the

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<v Speaker 2>Banana boat song. Yeah. And if you don't know what

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<v Speaker 2>we're talking about still, just pause this, go onto YouTube,

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<v Speaker 2>type in doyoh, look for the original version and listen

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<v Speaker 2>to it and come back, and you will be pretty

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<v Speaker 2>much as versed as you need to be going into

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<v Speaker 2>this episode.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. You know, actor, stage performer, Broadway star, Egott winner. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>if you don't know an Egott, that's if you have

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<v Speaker 1>won the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony in your lifetime,

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<v Speaker 1>which mister Belafonte did, it's a rare feat indeed. But

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<v Speaker 1>he was born to, you know, a very humble upbringing.

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<v Speaker 1>In March of nineteen twenty seven, Harold George Bellefonte junior

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<v Speaker 1>in Harlem, New York City, to Caribbean parents. His father, Harold,

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<v Speaker 1>who was actually a cook on a banana boat, was

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<v Speaker 1>from Martinique and his mother, Melvin, was from Jamaica. And

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<v Speaker 1>he was raised in Harlem until he was eight, at

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<v Speaker 1>which time his mom said, you and your little brother

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<v Speaker 1>Dennis are going to live near in my hometown in Jamaica.

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<v Speaker 1>And so from the ages of eight to what like

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<v Speaker 1>twelve ish, he lived in Jamaica, and that's where he

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<v Speaker 1>really sort of saw the light as far as this,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, Caribbean folk music that would become his staple.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And he was raised by his grandmother there. His

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<v Speaker 2>maternal grandmother, Melvin's mom, was a white woman, a Jamaican

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<v Speaker 2>white woman, and she really raised him to kind of

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<v Speaker 2>love all people, which is a big early influence. And

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<v Speaker 2>then another influence of living in Jamaica at the time

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<v Speaker 2>was he saw black professionals. He saw black doctors, black lawyers,

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<v Speaker 2>completely competent, completely normal. There wasn't anything wrong with them.

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<v Speaker 2>They were just black doctors and black lawyers and et cetera.

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<v Speaker 2>And it really kind of served as a foil to

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<v Speaker 2>him to how things were back in America, right, which

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<v Speaker 2>was very discriminatory at the time. Yeah, he was back

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<v Speaker 2>dab in the middle of the Jim Crow era in

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<v Speaker 2>the United States.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so he hears this music down there, the sort

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<v Speaker 1>of call and response work songs that I mean, that's

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<v Speaker 1>where the song. Should we talk about, Dio real quick?

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, as we're getting going. Yeah, let's yeah, because

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<v Speaker 1>if you've heard the song, you might be thinking, and

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<v Speaker 1>you never did any research, you wondered, what the heck

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<v Speaker 1>is he singing about? Right, you know, come mister tally man,

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<v Speaker 1>tally me banana daylight comes and we want to go home. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>it was a work song and it was a colin

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<v Speaker 1>response song of these guys who worked on banana boats.

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<v Speaker 1>And you know, they would work through the night and

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<v Speaker 1>the morning is when they were allowed to leave if

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<v Speaker 1>the tally man, the person who counted the bananas tally

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<v Speaker 1>that they had enough bananas to you know, tally the

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<v Speaker 1>to their workday.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and that's what they would get paid based on

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<v Speaker 2>how much they had loaded overnight, So you couldn't leave

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<v Speaker 2>until the guy came along and said, you loaded five

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<v Speaker 2>million tons of bananas, here's your fifty dollars or whatever,

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<v Speaker 2>then you could go home. I had no idea that's

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<v Speaker 2>what that song was about.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, I didn't know what a tally Man was,

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<v Speaker 1>but it makes perfect sense of someone him Tally's exactly.

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<v Speaker 2>And I love that song even more now, and I

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<v Speaker 2>just it just really kind of buttons some stuff up

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<v Speaker 2>because yeah, to that point, like I had never looked

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<v Speaker 2>up the lyrics, and I was just going by ear.

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<v Speaker 2>My ear's not super good at picking out lyrics. So

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<v Speaker 2>what singing, I don't even remember what I was. I

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<v Speaker 2>was just listening and it was all just kind of

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<v Speaker 2>like vocal sounds. It was like the cocktoo, twins or

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<v Speaker 2>something like that. He was just making sounds, not actually

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<v Speaker 2>saying anything or saying words. So now that I know

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<v Speaker 2>there's a story behind it, I love it.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Pretty cool. So he ends up back in Harlem,

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<v Speaker 1>though supposedly had dyslexia, so he wasn't a great student,

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<v Speaker 1>so at seventeen years old he quit school. He joined

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<v Speaker 1>the Navy in nineteen forty four. And this was another

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<v Speaker 1>sort of eye opening experience because he served in World

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<v Speaker 1>War Two in an all black unit and at first

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<v Speaker 1>was like, you know, I don't like the segregation of

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<v Speaker 1>the army here. But he met a lot of guys

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<v Speaker 1>in that unit that turned him onto a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>stuff that kind of laid to groundwork for what would

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<v Speaker 1>be his social awareness and activism.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they turned him onto books like The Soul of

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<v Speaker 2>Black Folk, The Souls of Black Folks by W. B.

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<v Speaker 2>Du Boyce and like that, combined with his early upbringing

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<v Speaker 2>where he was able to expose society in Jamaica and

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<v Speaker 2>society in America, like this really kind of got things started.

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<v Speaker 2>So by the time he met his wife, his first wife,

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<v Speaker 2>Marguerite Byrd, he was radicalized. At this point I saw

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<v Speaker 2>described as like he was full on, like civil rights

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<v Speaker 2>movement guy. And this is the forties, so this is

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<v Speaker 2>before the civil rights movement had really kind of started

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<v Speaker 2>in earnest the at least the version that we're you know,

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<v Speaker 2>we think of when we think of it historically, and

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<v Speaker 2>Marguerite was not that way at all. She was from

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<v Speaker 2>an upper middle class black family. She was a sorority

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<v Speaker 2>girl in Virginia. She was just raised in the type

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<v Speaker 2>of conservative household where it's like you just trust the system,

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<v Speaker 2>you trust society if the news tells you something that's true.

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<v Speaker 2>And she and Harry were almost like foils to an extent.

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<v Speaker 2>She saw her role as taking care of this misguided,

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<v Speaker 2>like angry man and trying to help him through life.

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<v Speaker 2>And I'm sure he saw his role in part as

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<v Speaker 2>like opening her eyes. But the big thing that came

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<v Speaker 2>out of their union, whether it was his first two kids.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he had two daughters with Marguerite, Adrian and of

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<v Speaker 1>course Sherry, who went on to become a successful actor

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<v Speaker 1>herself and then served as time in the Navy. They

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<v Speaker 1>eventually lived in Harlem, you know, as a family, and

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<v Speaker 1>he as a janitor's assistant at an apartment building. And

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<v Speaker 1>that's when another sort of monumental moment in his life happened.

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<v Speaker 1>He fixed the blinds in someone's apartment, in attendant's apartment there,

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<v Speaker 1>and just as a thank you, they gave him, they

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<v Speaker 1>gifted them some tickets to the theater, to the American

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<v Speaker 1>Negro Theater, which he had never seen live theater before,

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<v Speaker 1>like that, never seen you know, black actors on stage.

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<v Speaker 1>Performing and to say he caught the bug as an understatement.

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<v Speaker 1>He immediately tried to get a job there, applied to

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<v Speaker 1>be a stage hand at that theater. And this is

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<v Speaker 1>one of those life things where you're just like, are

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<v Speaker 1>you kidding me? This really happened. He got that job

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<v Speaker 1>and another young janitor there, his name was Sidney Poitier,

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<v Speaker 1>And it's just incredible, like, what are the odds that

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<v Speaker 1>these two incredible talented performers you get jobs as like

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<v Speaker 1>stage hands and janitors at this theater when they were

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<v Speaker 1>just in their I guess early twenties.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and they both did so because they wanted to

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<v Speaker 2>do whatever they could to get their foot in the

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<v Speaker 2>door into theater. The world of theater. I saw somewhere

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<v Speaker 2>mentioned that when they were just two broke stage hands,

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<v Speaker 2>they loved the theater so much that they would pull

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<v Speaker 2>their money together to buy a single ticket to Broadway

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<v Speaker 2>shows and then one would see one act and then

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<v Speaker 2>they would switch off and the other would see the

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<v Speaker 2>second act or whatever.

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<v Speaker 1>Amazing.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean that's that you really love the theater.

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<v Speaker 2>Like you said, he caught the bug if you're doing

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<v Speaker 2>stuff like that. He also enrolled in a really that's

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<v Speaker 2>the measuring stick, by the way, for whether you love

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<v Speaker 2>theater or not.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh, I just go to one act and split it

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<v Speaker 1>with your friend, right, all right.

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<v Speaker 2>He also enrolled in a legendary acting workshop that was

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<v Speaker 2>held at the New School for years. Some of his

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<v Speaker 2>classmates were Walter Mathow have you seen did you see

0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.800
<v Speaker 2>the documentary sing your song about him? Not Walter Math

0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:57.280
<v Speaker 2>about Lafonte.

0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.360
<v Speaker 1>No, Math, I was a singer. No, I didn't see

0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:01.720
<v Speaker 1>that yet.

0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:02.200
<v Speaker 2>It's good.

0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:03.320
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to it's good.

0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.600
<v Speaker 2>But they show like some stills from that workshop, and

0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.400
<v Speaker 2>there's young Walter Math. Now he looks like some doofy

0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:10.840
<v Speaker 2>twenty year old Walter Math.

0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:12.800
<v Speaker 1>Now it's pretty great, except he looked fifty.

0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, pretty much already. Yeah, but he has like a

0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.440
<v Speaker 2>cowlic and he's wearing like a heavy flannel shirt like

0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:20.640
<v Speaker 2>he just walked out of the woods of Minnesota or something.

0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:21.800
<v Speaker 1>I love it.

0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.360
<v Speaker 2>He was also in class with Tony Curtis, Marlon Brando,

0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.679
<v Speaker 2>and then the future Dorothy Petrillos Bornak, also known as

0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:30.280
<v Speaker 2>b Arthur.

0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:32.920
<v Speaker 1>Oh, then there's Mallod.

0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:34.679
<v Speaker 2>Can you imagine you go to class and that's who

0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.440
<v Speaker 2>you're in class with. But they don't mean anything. Yet

0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:39.120
<v Speaker 2>they're all just acting students.

0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I'm sure Bellefonte was like this, Brando, guy's

0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:42.559
<v Speaker 1>got some promise.

0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:44.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. They actually became pretty good friends.

0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:49.240
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Brando's He's worth an episode at some point, to

0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:49.880
<v Speaker 1>say the least.

0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.600
<v Speaker 2>I think we could do just one episode on Don

0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:53.440
<v Speaker 2>Juan de Marco.

0:12:54.000 --> 0:13:00.440
<v Speaker 1>Right, So, Harry Bellefonte's in the new school, you know,

0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.199
<v Speaker 1>doing what you do in theater school like that, You're

0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.200
<v Speaker 1>doing movement and voice and eventually like some singing. And

0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:08.360
<v Speaker 1>he was like, oh, wait a minute, I can sing

0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.040
<v Speaker 1>pretty good too, and everyone else said, yeah, you can

0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.920
<v Speaker 1>sing pretty good, and you're handsome to a fault, so

0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.920
<v Speaker 1>you've kind of got it all going on. There weren't

0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.440
<v Speaker 1>a ton of roles for black men in the theater

0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:22.679
<v Speaker 1>at the time, or at least, and this is something

0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:24.920
<v Speaker 1>that we'll see he did throughout his career, not the

0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.120
<v Speaker 1>kind of roles that he wanted to take that he

0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:31.360
<v Speaker 1>thought were you know, dignified, I guess is the right word.

0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:34.160
<v Speaker 1>So he's like, I'm not going to play the parts

0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.120
<v Speaker 1>that are available to me. I'm going to start singing.

0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.160
<v Speaker 1>So he went to jazz clubs like the you know,

0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.200
<v Speaker 1>the legendary Blue Note would sing jazz standards on stage,

0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:48.040
<v Speaker 1>and then in the nineteen forties, spurred by the interest

0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.880
<v Speaker 1>in it was like a renewed interest in square dancing

0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.720
<v Speaker 1>and folk dancing at the time that led to what

0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.880
<v Speaker 1>was called the folk music Revival. This was in the

0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:01.200
<v Speaker 1>early nineteen forties in Greenwich's Village, which you know would

0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.280
<v Speaker 1>eventually culminate in the sort of the peak of that

0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.200
<v Speaker 1>movement in the mid sixties with people like Pete Seeger

0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.480
<v Speaker 1>and Bob Dylan. It all started in the early nineteen

0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.040
<v Speaker 1>forties with people like Harry Belafonte going to the Village Vanguard,

0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.240
<v Speaker 1>this legendary folk music club and seeing Lead Belly perform

0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.600
<v Speaker 1>and was like, all right, well, now we're onto something here.

0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:26.520
<v Speaker 1>It's all happening, and I'm right in the epicenter of it.

0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, because, like you said, he wasn't happy with singing

0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:31.960
<v Speaker 2>jazz standards or pop music, despite the fact that I

0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.840
<v Speaker 2>saw that he was backed at some points by Charlie Parker,

0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:38.480
<v Speaker 2>the famous drummer, Max Roach and Miles Davis, all his

0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.360
<v Speaker 2>young musicians, and he was like, nah, let me go

0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.760
<v Speaker 2>on to folk music. And he got so heavy into

0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:48.040
<v Speaker 2>folk music that he spent his time researching folk songs

0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.080
<v Speaker 2>at the Library of Congress to expand his repertoire. That's

0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.880
<v Speaker 2>how into folk music he got. And he was so

0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.440
<v Speaker 2>broke that he would find somebody to split a ticket

0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.840
<v Speaker 2>into the Library of Congress's archives and search for an hour,

0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:02.680
<v Speaker 2>and then they trade off and do the next hour.

0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.720
<v Speaker 2>And that means you're really into folk music.

0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:08.800
<v Speaker 1>That's how we do our research, right, that's right, just

0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.680
<v Speaker 1>trade off. It was around this time that he met

0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.440
<v Speaker 1>a pretty monumental figure in his life. It was one

0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.480
<v Speaker 1>of his idols. It was an actor and singer named

0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:21.600
<v Speaker 1>Paul Robison, and he was most famous, probably at the

0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:26.080
<v Speaker 1>time at least for his version of Old Man River

0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:30.240
<v Speaker 1>from Showboat from the musical Showboat, and Harry was like, yeah,

0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.440
<v Speaker 1>nuts with this jazz stuff. I'm into the traditional music.

0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:35.920
<v Speaker 1>I'm into folk, I can you know. I'm trying to

0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.400
<v Speaker 1>find my own voice. And he found that in what

0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:44.520
<v Speaker 1>ended up being sort of like the Calypso folk music

0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.840
<v Speaker 1>of the Caribbean, you know, going back to his roots.

0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.120
<v Speaker 2>Right, And we'll get up into that a little more

0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.520
<v Speaker 2>in a minute, but just kind of progressing on with

0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:59.680
<v Speaker 2>his early career, he essentially not just his singing voice,

0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.880
<v Speaker 2>but his stage presence. His presence was monumental, but also

0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.040
<v Speaker 2>he used it his movements and sometimes props and stuff

0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.680
<v Speaker 2>on the stage to kind of tell the story that

0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:13.480
<v Speaker 2>this folk song was trying to tell. So his act

0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:15.920
<v Speaker 2>was just a sensation, like basically out of the gate,

0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:17.880
<v Speaker 2>and he very quickly got picked up and put on

0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.720
<v Speaker 2>a Broadway, this time from the stage. And the first

0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.479
<v Speaker 2>thing I think he was in was John Murray Anderson's Almanac,

0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.680
<v Speaker 2>which was a musical review in nineteen fifty three, and

0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:29.600
<v Speaker 2>he did such a good job that his first time

0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:32.120
<v Speaker 2>out he wins a Tony. Not only does he win

0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.360
<v Speaker 2>a Tony, he's the first black man to win a Tony.

0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.160
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, nineteen fifty four Best Featured Actor in a Musical.

0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.880
<v Speaker 1>And not only that, but around the same time in

0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:47.760
<v Speaker 1>fifty three, he made his first two movies with Dorothy Dandridge,

0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:52.880
<v Speaker 1>and the second of those Carmen Jones. Dorothy Dandridge became

0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:57.560
<v Speaker 1>the first African American woman nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.

0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:02.440
<v Speaker 1>So he's among this group of young African American entertainers

0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.400
<v Speaker 1>that are just knocking doors down left and right and

0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:10.160
<v Speaker 1>getting you know, real recognition kind of for the first time.

0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and this is the early fifties.

0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:13.000
<v Speaker 1>That's right.

0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:14.600
<v Speaker 2>Let's take a little break and we'll come back and

0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:16.840
<v Speaker 2>talk a little more about his Calypso stuff.

0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.960
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and we should mention before we break here that

0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:25.480
<v Speaker 1>his marriage to Marguerite was dissolving at the time, but

0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.639
<v Speaker 1>he would go on to marry again, as we'll see.

0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:29.600
<v Speaker 1>But maybe we should take that break. You want to

0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.800
<v Speaker 1>take a break, Yeah, let's take a break. We'll be

0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:32.200
<v Speaker 1>right back.

0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:32.920
<v Speaker 2>We will.

0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.080
<v Speaker 3>Stoffy jaws.

0:17:39.680 --> 0:18:02.880
<v Speaker 2>Soff you okay, Chuck. So we're talking calypso now, it's

0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:09.840
<v Speaker 2>really really difficult to understate, like how big of a

0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:14.480
<v Speaker 2>star Harry Belafonte became thanks to Calypso music. Calypso music

0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.520
<v Speaker 2>is like this traditional Caribbean music, typically folks work songs.

0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.679
<v Speaker 2>Call in response is a big one. So the people

0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.360
<v Speaker 2>in the chorus seeing like daylight come and we want

0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.359
<v Speaker 2>to go home. That's like the response where Harry Belafonte

0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.240
<v Speaker 2>is singing the call part right, it's just traditional work

0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:36.040
<v Speaker 2>song stuff. Come on. So he starts out this whole

0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.920
<v Speaker 2>jam where he is playing folk music at the village.

0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.919
<v Speaker 2>Vanguard goes on to Broadway start singing some of this

0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:45.560
<v Speaker 2>folk like Caribbean folk music, and within a couple of

0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:49.520
<v Speaker 2>years he's on an NBC show doing the same thing,

0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.720
<v Speaker 2>and Dave helped us out with us. And he makes

0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:54.680
<v Speaker 2>a point that had it not been for a guy,

0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:57.040
<v Speaker 2>an artist who went by Lord Burgess but his real

0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:01.320
<v Speaker 2>name was Irving Bergie, Irving Bergie, who was also a

0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:07.320
<v Speaker 2>Caribbean American who was raised in New York, also being

0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.760
<v Speaker 2>into Calypso at the same exact time, and then meeting

0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:15.040
<v Speaker 2>Harry Belafonte and them collaborating, it probably would not have

0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.560
<v Speaker 2>taken off. But thanks to Lord Burgess and then a

0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.719
<v Speaker 2>playwright friend of Harry Belafani's named William Adaway working together

0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.600
<v Speaker 2>rewriting some of these traditional songs, rearranging them to make

0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:30.639
<v Speaker 2>them peppier, a little poppier, like they made Calypso, like

0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:35.240
<v Speaker 2>they just they made it way more palatable to Americans,

0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:38.480
<v Speaker 2>way more dancing, and just way more infectious than other

0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.600
<v Speaker 2>people who'd recorded some of these same songs previously had.

0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:44.720
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and you know, banana butt was a cover song.

0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:46.840
<v Speaker 1>It's an old school song that had been around since

0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.240
<v Speaker 1>the turn of the twentieth century. And like you said,

0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:54.080
<v Speaker 1>they had a more upbeat version and it was a huge,

0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.520
<v Speaker 1>huge hit. He got a little you know, as we'll see,

0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:02.040
<v Speaker 1>there are people within some of the communities even admired

0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.720
<v Speaker 1>and worked with it, often didn't love him back as much.

0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:11.359
<v Speaker 1>Calypso was one of them, some traditional Calypso purist, apparently,

0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:16.000
<v Speaker 1>especially like in Trinidad, where Calypso was born, where like, hey,

0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.119
<v Speaker 1>this guy's coming in. He's in New York. He's not

0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:23.320
<v Speaker 1>a real Calypsonian, and you know, he's kind of changing

0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:28.400
<v Speaker 1>it up, adding like American folk sort of interest to it.

0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.320
<v Speaker 1>And he was like, you know what I think. In

0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:33.840
<v Speaker 1>nineteen fifty nine, in a New York Times interview, he said,

0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.280
<v Speaker 1>purism is the best cover up for mediocrity. There's no change.

0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:39.119
<v Speaker 1>We might as well just go back to the first

0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.120
<v Speaker 1>oough which may have been the first song, or which

0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:44.919
<v Speaker 1>must have been the first song. And I think at

0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.159
<v Speaker 1>which time Tuk took a tear, rolled down his cheek. Yeah,

0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:49.320
<v Speaker 1>and he went back to the fire.

0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:51.240
<v Speaker 2>He said that was my number one song.

0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. But Harry was like, you know, I'm taking it,

0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:56.120
<v Speaker 1>I'm making it popular, I'm making it my own, I'm

0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.280
<v Speaker 1>finding my own voice and it's you know, it's my

0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:01.119
<v Speaker 1>version of lipso folk music.

0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.280
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I think. Also he was criticized by Trinidadians for

0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.439
<v Speaker 2>being known as the King of Calypso. They're like, we

0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.439
<v Speaker 2>have our own King of Calypso competition every year and

0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.920
<v Speaker 2>you ain't it and he's like so, and they just

0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.960
<v Speaker 2>couldn't come back with anything after that, So the whole

0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:19.119
<v Speaker 2>beef ended right there.

0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.600
<v Speaker 1>His nineteen fifty six album Calypso came out after that

0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:27.760
<v Speaker 1>TV special. It was a huge, huge hit. It was

0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.200
<v Speaker 1>stayed number one for thirty eight weeks, knocked Elvis out

0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.639
<v Speaker 1>of the number one spot at the time, and became

0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.800
<v Speaker 1>the very first record in history to sell one million

0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:39.879
<v Speaker 1>copies in its first year out.

0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.240
<v Speaker 2>Yes, that was just in the US alone. It did

0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.119
<v Speaker 2>the same thing in the UK and Chuck. One of

0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:51.320
<v Speaker 2>the songs on this album was Dayo. Right yeah, Deyo

0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:55.600
<v Speaker 2>itself sold a million copies just to the forty five

0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.159
<v Speaker 2>just the single, right. I can see just the single

0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.359
<v Speaker 2>selling the million copies and then the album suffering because

0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:05.280
<v Speaker 2>of that. The album continued to sell as well. It's

0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:10.840
<v Speaker 2>crazy how nuts for Harry Belafonte. The United States and

0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:13.400
<v Speaker 2>a lot of other parts of the world too, were

0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.960
<v Speaker 2>at that time, like he just blew up, you said.

0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.760
<v Speaker 2>It was number one on the charts for thirty eight weeks,

0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:22.480
<v Speaker 2>not on the charts for thirty eight weeks, then number

0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:26.840
<v Speaker 2>one album in the United States for all like the

0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:29.600
<v Speaker 2>better half of a year. That's no one does that.

0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:30.400
<v Speaker 2>That's crazy.

0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.360
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was incredible. He was one of the biggest

0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:36.600
<v Speaker 1>performers in America all of a sudden, one of the

0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:45.000
<v Speaker 1>biggest singing stars, big crossover success obviously, and for all

0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:48.840
<v Speaker 1>of that. This is how he was treated on the road.

0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.000
<v Speaker 1>He would not be allowed to stay in the hotels

0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:56.399
<v Speaker 1>when he performed in Vegas because of segregation. When he

0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.720
<v Speaker 1>was touring the South with a Broadway show Almanac, state

0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:03.000
<v Speaker 1>troops threatened to shoot him in a whites only bathroom

0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:06.879
<v Speaker 1>in la He was stopped by the cops for just

0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.560
<v Speaker 1>taking a walk through Beverly Hills at night. So these

0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:12.520
<v Speaker 1>are the kinds of this. This was the world he

0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.119
<v Speaker 1>was living in. Even one of the biggest stars in

0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:19.200
<v Speaker 1>the world was not immune to the just blatant racism

0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:19.879
<v Speaker 1>that was going on.

0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:26.919
<v Speaker 2>Yes, absolutely that didn't stop him, though it didn't discourage

0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.840
<v Speaker 2>him like he found it personally discouraging, but he didn't behave,

0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:36.560
<v Speaker 2>he didn't acquiesce. Basically. Yeah, one of the things he

0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:39.320
<v Speaker 2>did was he took a role and this is very

0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:42.800
<v Speaker 2>much in line with his decision making as far as

0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:45.600
<v Speaker 2>his career went, which we'll talk about a little more

0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:49.520
<v Speaker 2>in a second. But he took a role called in

0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:52.560
<v Speaker 2>a movie called Island in Island of the Sun from

0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:58.119
<v Speaker 2>nineteen fifty seven, and in it he has an insinuated

0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:05.040
<v Speaker 2>romance with a white woman, Joan Fontaine, and they don't touch,

0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:07.879
<v Speaker 2>they don't kiss, there's nothing like that. The closest to

0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:11.920
<v Speaker 2>a kiss that happens is they share a sip from

0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:14.000
<v Speaker 2>a coconut, Like one of them takes a sip, hands

0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:16.639
<v Speaker 2>it to the other one, and then she takes a sip.

0:24:17.119 --> 0:24:19.760
<v Speaker 2>That's the closest thing to an on screen kiss that there.

0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:22.760
<v Speaker 1>Was not close to a kiss, no, but it was.

0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:28.360
<v Speaker 2>So groundbreaking that the South Carolina legislature introduced a bill.

0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:30.960
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if they passed it that would find

0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:34.040
<v Speaker 2>any theater in South Carolina that showed Island in the Sun.

0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:39.919
<v Speaker 2>That's how controversial that movie was. And it sounds so

0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:44.080
<v Speaker 2>tame that it's actually preposterous, and like embarrassing now, but

0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:49.600
<v Speaker 2>that was at the forefront of pushing the envelope as

0:24:49.600 --> 0:24:53.080
<v Speaker 2>far as race relations in America went. And that's why

0:24:52.800 --> 0:24:55.520
<v Speaker 2>Harry Belafonte was like, yes, give me that role. I

0:24:55.520 --> 0:24:56.800
<v Speaker 2>will totally take that role.

0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:01.760
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for sure. In real life, he married his second

0:25:01.760 --> 0:25:05.000
<v Speaker 1>wife around the same time. Her name is Julie Robinson.

0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.000
<v Speaker 1>She was a dancer and she was white, and they

0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:11.040
<v Speaker 1>were probably, I would not even say one of the

0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:14.359
<v Speaker 1>most they were probably the most prominent interracial couple in

0:25:14.440 --> 0:25:15.560
<v Speaker 1>America at the time.

0:25:16.480 --> 0:25:21.840
<v Speaker 2>For sure. She was also Brando's girlfriend when they met.

0:25:22.320 --> 0:25:26.280
<v Speaker 1>Look out, Marlon, Harry Delafante pretty handsome guy.

0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:30.720
<v Speaker 2>Oh man, beyond handsome. Yeah, so, Chuck, when we were

0:25:30.760 --> 0:25:32.359
<v Speaker 2>just talking about Islands in the Sun, I was saying

0:25:32.359 --> 0:25:35.560
<v Speaker 2>that Harry Belafonte would totally choose a role that pushed

0:25:35.560 --> 0:25:38.919
<v Speaker 2>the envelope for race relations, not to stick it in

0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:42.200
<v Speaker 2>the eye of white America, but to push things forward

0:25:42.400 --> 0:25:45.119
<v Speaker 2>and just basically say black people are people too, Let's

0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:47.600
<v Speaker 2>portray them as such on the screen. Okay.

0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:49.920
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:25:50.000 --> 0:25:52.480
<v Speaker 2>In doing that, he had to choose over and over

0:25:52.520 --> 0:25:55.360
<v Speaker 2>and over again between advancing his career and standing by

0:25:55.359 --> 0:26:00.960
<v Speaker 2>his values and without missing a single opportunity. He stood

0:26:00.960 --> 0:26:02.400
<v Speaker 2>by his values every time.

0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:05.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean he was offered and that's just kind

0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:07.600
<v Speaker 1>of what I was alluding to earlier. He was offered roles.

0:26:07.640 --> 0:26:10.840
<v Speaker 1>He called them Uncle Tom roles, and he said that's

0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:13.400
<v Speaker 1>about all you could get at, you know, at one

0:26:13.400 --> 0:26:16.399
<v Speaker 1>point in Hollywood or on stage, and he just wouldn't

0:26:16.400 --> 0:26:19.680
<v Speaker 1>play those roles. He you know, it depends on who

0:26:19.720 --> 0:26:24.080
<v Speaker 1>you are and where you draw the line, and I

0:26:24.080 --> 0:26:27.120
<v Speaker 1>mean that's where he drew his line. His good friend

0:26:27.119 --> 0:26:30.720
<v Speaker 1>Sidney Poitier would take not necessarily those roles, but other

0:26:30.800 --> 0:26:34.720
<v Speaker 1>roles that Harry Belafonte didn't think had enough sort of

0:26:35.400 --> 0:26:40.000
<v Speaker 1>nuance for a black actor or spoke to his truth.

0:26:40.720 --> 0:26:43.919
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes his friend Sidney Poitier would take those roles, not

0:26:44.040 --> 0:26:46.080
<v Speaker 1>in any way like a sellout or anything like that.

0:26:46.920 --> 0:26:48.840
<v Speaker 1>He had his own ideas of how to you know,

0:26:49.280 --> 0:26:51.840
<v Speaker 1>advance the cause and advance his career and stay in

0:26:51.840 --> 0:26:53.879
<v Speaker 1>the limelight so he could do his good work as well.

0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:56.280
<v Speaker 1>But you know, they were rivals in a way, but

0:26:56.359 --> 0:26:57.360
<v Speaker 1>also best friends.

0:26:57.600 --> 0:27:02.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, exactly, but certainly professional rivals because as almost invariably

0:27:02.480 --> 0:27:05.560
<v Speaker 2>the roles that Bellefani passed on would go to Poitier because,

0:27:05.560 --> 0:27:09.359
<v Speaker 2>like you said, he would take these roles and he was.

0:27:09.480 --> 0:27:13.440
<v Speaker 2>He became, as a result, the ambassador of Black America

0:27:13.520 --> 0:27:16.359
<v Speaker 2>to white America because these roles he was taking in

0:27:16.400 --> 0:27:20.359
<v Speaker 2>the early sixties, these films were written to advance the

0:27:20.800 --> 0:27:23.439
<v Speaker 2>cause of black civil rights in the United States, and

0:27:23.480 --> 0:27:26.720
<v Speaker 2>Sydney Potier is like, yes, put me out there, tell

0:27:26.760 --> 0:27:29.479
<v Speaker 2>me what we need to do, and let's show these

0:27:29.520 --> 0:27:32.720
<v Speaker 2>Americans that black people are people too. And like you said,

0:27:32.960 --> 0:27:36.359
<v Speaker 2>Bellefani was like, there's just it's still missing some stuff.

0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:38.760
<v Speaker 2>And like Lily's of the Field is a good example.

0:27:38.760 --> 0:27:42.159
<v Speaker 2>It's from nineteen sixty three. It starred Sidney Potier. He

0:27:42.200 --> 0:27:45.680
<v Speaker 2>went on to win an Oscar for it, and he

0:27:45.760 --> 0:27:50.200
<v Speaker 2>plays a black man who is helping Nazi nuns hide

0:27:50.200 --> 0:27:53.880
<v Speaker 2>from the Communists. And the reason Bellefane passed on it

0:27:53.920 --> 0:27:56.239
<v Speaker 2>is because he said that this black man has like

0:27:56.400 --> 0:27:59.920
<v Speaker 2>no background, no history, not really a human. He said

0:28:00.359 --> 0:28:03.560
<v Speaker 2>to Henry Lewis Gates and Junior in nineteen ninety six

0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:06.560
<v Speaker 2>in The New Yorker, it's a really good article. He said,

0:28:06.720 --> 0:28:09.520
<v Speaker 2>he didn't kiss anybody, he didn't touch anybody. He had

0:28:09.560 --> 0:28:12.400
<v Speaker 2>no culture, he had no history. He had no family,

0:28:12.720 --> 0:28:15.280
<v Speaker 2>he had nothing, So he was like a not even

0:28:15.320 --> 0:28:17.760
<v Speaker 2>a caricature of a black person. He was like human

0:28:17.800 --> 0:28:20.800
<v Speaker 2>being happens to be black, go, you know, And that

0:28:21.000 --> 0:28:23.920
<v Speaker 2>just was not nearly enough for what Harry Bellafind was

0:28:23.960 --> 0:28:26.920
<v Speaker 2>willing to take on as an actor. So he would

0:28:26.960 --> 0:28:30.480
<v Speaker 2>just let these things come and go and pass on them,

0:28:30.880 --> 0:28:33.080
<v Speaker 2>or else he would try it, push the envelope, that

0:28:33.080 --> 0:28:35.560
<v Speaker 2>thing would get canceled and he'd just move on. He

0:28:35.680 --> 0:28:40.000
<v Speaker 2>never ever went to Hollywood, you know, on his knees

0:28:40.120 --> 0:28:42.520
<v Speaker 2>or asking, like they came to him and he would

0:28:42.560 --> 0:28:46.560
<v Speaker 2>either pass or not based on what kind of how

0:28:46.600 --> 0:28:50.160
<v Speaker 2>willing they were to portray black people in that film.

0:28:50.880 --> 0:28:55.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, highly principled decision making career wise, Yes, that's fair.

0:28:55.640 --> 0:28:58.400
<v Speaker 1>It is tough to do period, but very tough to

0:28:58.400 --> 0:29:01.880
<v Speaker 1>do trying to make it cut throat business like Hollywood,

0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:02.160
<v Speaker 1>you know.

0:29:02.240 --> 0:29:02.880
<v Speaker 2>For sure. Man.

0:29:03.800 --> 0:29:06.520
<v Speaker 1>So in fifty six, this was, you know, kind of

0:29:06.560 --> 0:29:08.360
<v Speaker 1>right around the time he had gotten married, and that

0:29:08.720 --> 0:29:11.600
<v Speaker 1>Islands in the Sun had come out just before that.

0:29:11.640 --> 0:29:15.120
<v Speaker 1>He got a phone call from Martin Luther King Junior

0:29:15.720 --> 0:29:18.200
<v Speaker 1>and they ended up meeting in person and having a

0:29:18.280 --> 0:29:22.360
<v Speaker 1>four hour meeting. On their first meeting, and this is

0:29:23.400 --> 0:29:26.840
<v Speaker 1>sort of what lit the fire for Bellefonte to really

0:29:26.960 --> 0:29:30.920
<v Speaker 1>really get into very public civil rights work. It was

0:29:31.040 --> 0:29:34.280
<v Speaker 1>his awakening in a lot of ways. And he wasn't

0:29:34.320 --> 0:29:36.520
<v Speaker 1>just like, yeah, you know, I'll show up and I'll

0:29:36.560 --> 0:29:39.720
<v Speaker 1>be a celebrity face here and there. He was bailing

0:29:39.960 --> 0:29:43.840
<v Speaker 1>civil rights leaders out of jail. He and Sidney Poitiers

0:29:43.960 --> 0:29:50.000
<v Speaker 1>were smuggling cash seventy grand into Mississippi during the Freedom Rides,

0:29:51.200 --> 0:29:54.160
<v Speaker 1>and you know with the Freedom Schools. I think we

0:29:54.160 --> 0:29:55.760
<v Speaker 1>did a whole episode in the Freedom Schools at one

0:29:55.800 --> 0:29:58.960
<v Speaker 1>point he helped. He didn't just show up at the

0:29:58.960 --> 0:30:02.080
<v Speaker 1>march on Washington. He was one of the organizers. So

0:30:02.160 --> 0:30:06.080
<v Speaker 1>he was he was in deep doing the hard work.

0:30:06.520 --> 0:30:12.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he he looked out for mlk's family during mlk's life,

0:30:12.680 --> 0:30:17.480
<v Speaker 2>but also like he he funded his children's education. Yeah,

0:30:17.480 --> 0:30:21.640
<v Speaker 2>he took out a huge insurance life insurance policy against MLK.

0:30:22.640 --> 0:30:25.600
<v Speaker 2>And then he just was there for the family afterwards.

0:30:25.640 --> 0:30:29.920
<v Speaker 2>Like he kind of stepped in when MLK was assassinated.

0:30:30.000 --> 0:30:33.800
<v Speaker 2>So he certainly walked the walk. He was at all

0:30:33.840 --> 0:30:37.560
<v Speaker 2>these you know, sit ins and rallies and marches, and

0:30:38.000 --> 0:30:40.320
<v Speaker 2>he just was there. He was like you said, he

0:30:40.400 --> 0:30:42.480
<v Speaker 2>wasn't just a figurehead. He didn't just show up for

0:30:42.560 --> 0:30:45.760
<v Speaker 2>the press. He didn't just write checks behind the scenes.

0:30:45.800 --> 0:30:48.280
<v Speaker 2>He did it all. And again, it just goes right

0:30:48.320 --> 0:30:51.440
<v Speaker 2>back to the upbringing from his mom, who taught him like,

0:30:52.320 --> 0:30:55.240
<v Speaker 2>not only just wherever you see injustice in the world,

0:30:55.320 --> 0:30:57.800
<v Speaker 2>go go fight it and try to fix it, like

0:30:58.280 --> 0:31:02.520
<v Speaker 2>actively search every day for injustice that you can go help.

0:31:03.160 --> 0:31:06.080
<v Speaker 2>And you know, there was nothing more unjustin right in

0:31:06.120 --> 0:31:10.720
<v Speaker 2>your face for an American, a black American particular at

0:31:10.720 --> 0:31:12.800
<v Speaker 2>the time than the Civil rights movement.

0:31:13.560 --> 0:31:19.040
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Absolutely, so his his you know, entertaining or entertainment

0:31:19.040 --> 0:31:22.479
<v Speaker 1>career kept blossoming as well, kind of in conjunction with this,

0:31:22.680 --> 0:31:25.240
<v Speaker 1>and he would use that to sort of, you know,

0:31:25.600 --> 0:31:30.720
<v Speaker 1>help subtly raise awareness just about his community and what

0:31:31.120 --> 0:31:33.920
<v Speaker 1>he's like and what his people are like. And the

0:31:33.920 --> 0:31:36.160
<v Speaker 1>Tonight Show is a big example. In nineteen sixty eight,

0:31:36.920 --> 0:31:39.920
<v Speaker 1>Johnny Carson invited him to host for a week, to

0:31:39.960 --> 0:31:43.000
<v Speaker 1>host the Tonight Show. You know, take Johnny Seed, first

0:31:43.120 --> 0:31:45.880
<v Speaker 1>black guest host in the history of the show. And

0:31:46.040 --> 0:31:48.600
<v Speaker 1>this is in nineteen sixty eight. You know, everything going

0:31:48.640 --> 0:31:52.480
<v Speaker 1>on in nineteen sixty eight seems fraud and race relations

0:31:52.560 --> 0:31:55.400
<v Speaker 1>certainly were a part of that, and he wasn't like,

0:31:55.560 --> 0:31:57.960
<v Speaker 1>all right, I'll go host the show and I'll get

0:31:57.960 --> 0:32:01.320
<v Speaker 1>in and just kind of tried out the usual guest

0:32:01.360 --> 0:32:03.800
<v Speaker 1>that Johnny might have. He said, no, I'm gonna have

0:32:03.840 --> 0:32:08.160
<v Speaker 1>Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Junior and Aretha Franklin

0:32:08.280 --> 0:32:12.960
<v Speaker 1>and Dion Warwick and you know, Paul Newman and Nipsey

0:32:13.040 --> 0:32:16.200
<v Speaker 1>Russell and all these people who had these progressive causes

0:32:16.360 --> 0:32:19.240
<v Speaker 1>or were just famous black entertainers who didn't get that

0:32:19.360 --> 0:32:22.640
<v Speaker 1>kind of stage very often and open every night with

0:32:22.680 --> 0:32:26.400
<v Speaker 1>a song. Obviously Johnny didn't do anything like that, so

0:32:26.520 --> 0:32:29.800
<v Speaker 1>it was it was still fun and entertaining, but it

0:32:29.880 --> 0:32:33.240
<v Speaker 1>was also educating people and talking about serious issues in

0:32:33.280 --> 0:32:33.960
<v Speaker 1>these interviews.

0:32:34.120 --> 0:32:38.800
<v Speaker 2>Yes, so that was just huge. I mean also you

0:32:38.800 --> 0:32:41.080
<v Speaker 2>got a credit Johnny Carson too. He did that on purpose.

0:32:41.560 --> 0:32:43.680
<v Speaker 2>He wasn't like, I'm going on vacation for we just

0:32:43.720 --> 0:32:46.640
<v Speaker 2>call whoever like. He did that on purpose because he

0:32:46.720 --> 0:32:49.080
<v Speaker 2>was trying to advance race relations as well, So hats

0:32:49.080 --> 0:32:51.960
<v Speaker 2>off to him for that as well. They also had

0:32:52.080 --> 0:32:54.600
<v Speaker 2>really high ratings. That was another thing too. Harry bell

0:32:54.720 --> 0:32:58.640
<v Speaker 2>Fini when he did something on TV it drew viewers,

0:32:59.200 --> 0:33:02.040
<v Speaker 2>and even ill it didn't matter because there were so

0:33:02.160 --> 0:33:06.520
<v Speaker 2>many angry white racists in America that would call up

0:33:06.560 --> 0:33:09.520
<v Speaker 2>these sponsors and be like, you're sponsoring this this black

0:33:09.560 --> 0:33:11.760
<v Speaker 2>guy on this show, you better stop. They go to

0:33:11.800 --> 0:33:14.320
<v Speaker 2>the producers. The producers would come to Bellifani and be like, hey,

0:33:14.440 --> 0:33:16.120
<v Speaker 2>you know how you have white people and black people

0:33:16.200 --> 0:33:18.680
<v Speaker 2>dancing together. What if we just did white or just

0:33:18.720 --> 0:33:22.120
<v Speaker 2>did black. Bellifani wouldn't blink and it would get canceled

0:33:22.200 --> 0:33:26.800
<v Speaker 2>despite all of the crazy great reviews and viewership it had,

0:33:27.120 --> 0:33:29.200
<v Speaker 2>and you know, that would be that, and he would

0:33:29.200 --> 0:33:31.480
<v Speaker 2>just kind of move on. But of course he developed

0:33:31.520 --> 0:33:37.040
<v Speaker 2>like this distrust and distaste for the entertainment industry, and

0:33:37.080 --> 0:33:40.240
<v Speaker 2>I saw that he initially thought that he would be

0:33:40.280 --> 0:33:43.640
<v Speaker 2>able to help change America through Hollywood, and then he

0:33:43.720 --> 0:33:46.600
<v Speaker 2>quickly came to see like, no, Hollywood is just one

0:33:46.600 --> 0:33:49.880
<v Speaker 2>more facet of this machine that keeps things going exactly

0:33:49.920 --> 0:33:52.680
<v Speaker 2>as they are. So he got really disgusted by that.

0:33:53.880 --> 0:33:58.040
<v Speaker 2>Kind of fortunately for us, because he really kind of

0:33:58.080 --> 0:34:01.000
<v Speaker 2>started to throw more and more of his inner into

0:34:01.040 --> 0:34:03.520
<v Speaker 2>being an activist, not just in the United States but

0:34:03.560 --> 0:34:06.960
<v Speaker 2>around the world, and in particular Paul Robison, like you said,

0:34:07.040 --> 0:34:09.600
<v Speaker 2>was one of his idols, who was also just one

0:34:09.640 --> 0:34:13.400
<v Speaker 2>of the early civil rights crusaders around the world. And

0:34:13.440 --> 0:34:17.719
<v Speaker 2>then Eleanor Roosevelt FDR's wife first lady, introduced him to

0:34:17.719 --> 0:34:20.160
<v Speaker 2>to the plight of different countries in Africa, which was

0:34:20.200 --> 0:34:23.320
<v Speaker 2>decolonizing at the time, and he really kind of turned

0:34:23.360 --> 0:34:25.440
<v Speaker 2>his attention toward that continent for a while.

0:34:26.120 --> 0:34:29.480
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for sure. I mean all of the major causes

0:34:29.520 --> 0:34:33.560
<v Speaker 1>that you've heard from, you know, basically starting then even

0:34:33.920 --> 0:34:38.800
<v Speaker 1>and especially through the eighties with apartheid in South Africa,

0:34:39.160 --> 0:34:43.920
<v Speaker 1>Kenyan independence, and you know I mentioned early on We

0:34:44.000 --> 0:34:48.319
<v Speaker 1>Are the World Ethiopia and the famines there was. He

0:34:48.520 --> 0:34:51.440
<v Speaker 1>was the guy that you know called up Quincy Jones

0:34:51.440 --> 0:34:54.000
<v Speaker 1>and was like, hey, we need to do something here,

0:34:54.640 --> 0:34:57.160
<v Speaker 1>and We Are the World was a huge, huge hit

0:34:57.360 --> 0:35:02.920
<v Speaker 1>that sold I think twenty million copies and raised sixty

0:35:02.920 --> 0:35:06.200
<v Speaker 1>five million bucks for famine relief. And if you were

0:35:06.239 --> 0:35:10.160
<v Speaker 1>a kid in nineteen eighty five, We Are the World

0:35:10.360 --> 0:35:13.520
<v Speaker 1>was like that and Live Aid We're two of the

0:35:13.560 --> 0:35:17.360
<v Speaker 1>biggest deals in music history. And you know, I was

0:35:17.360 --> 0:35:19.000
<v Speaker 1>fourteen years old at the time. It was just like

0:35:19.360 --> 0:35:21.719
<v Speaker 1>it was incredible to see all these people together, and like,

0:35:21.920 --> 0:35:23.800
<v Speaker 1>even as a kid, even as a like a little

0:35:23.800 --> 0:35:26.160
<v Speaker 1>snot nosed fourteen year old white kid from the South,

0:35:27.080 --> 0:35:30.399
<v Speaker 1>I knew that I was watching was important. I didn't

0:35:30.440 --> 0:35:33.600
<v Speaker 1>maybe fully understand it. I had seen stuff about the

0:35:33.600 --> 0:35:36.880
<v Speaker 1>famine on television, but it was it was raising awareness

0:35:36.880 --> 0:35:40.640
<v Speaker 1>for everybody, including little white suburban kids from Georgia.

0:35:40.800 --> 0:35:43.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, which is, you know, exactly part of the point,

0:35:43.000 --> 0:35:44.520
<v Speaker 2>in addition to raising money too.

0:35:45.200 --> 0:35:45.439
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:35:45.520 --> 0:35:47.200
<v Speaker 2>One of the cool things I saw about it was

0:35:47.520 --> 0:35:49.759
<v Speaker 2>I'm not sure if it was his idea or if

0:35:49.760 --> 0:35:51.880
<v Speaker 2>he kind of headed up the push to do this

0:35:52.520 --> 0:35:56.280
<v Speaker 2>or both, but Harry Bella finally's credited with talking radio

0:35:56.320 --> 0:35:59.560
<v Speaker 2>stations around the world into playing We Are the World

0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:02.200
<v Speaker 2>at the same time on the same day. It was,

0:36:02.239 --> 0:36:07.240
<v Speaker 2>I think March twenty eighth, nineteen eighty six. I remember

0:36:07.360 --> 0:36:10.480
<v Speaker 2>there was something like do you remember that? Oh, yeah, cool.

0:36:11.280 --> 0:36:13.839
<v Speaker 2>There was like five thousand radio stations around the world

0:36:13.880 --> 0:36:15.360
<v Speaker 2>and they all played it at the same time I

0:36:15.400 --> 0:36:20.760
<v Speaker 2>think ten fifty am Eastern Standard time, and Musak actually

0:36:20.800 --> 0:36:22.920
<v Speaker 2>played it as well, and it was only the second

0:36:22.920 --> 0:36:25.160
<v Speaker 2>time in the history of music that they played voices

0:36:25.200 --> 0:36:27.279
<v Speaker 2>over their service, which, by the way, at the time

0:36:27.320 --> 0:36:31.000
<v Speaker 2>reached like eighty million Americans. So that's a lot of

0:36:31.040 --> 0:36:34.480
<v Speaker 2>people listening to We Are the World at that same moment,

0:36:34.719 --> 0:36:35.680
<v Speaker 2>which is neat, that's.

0:36:35.600 --> 0:36:39.879
<v Speaker 1>Right, and including just I accounted for one of those.

0:36:40.280 --> 0:36:42.200
<v Speaker 2>I don't remember listening to it on the radio, but

0:36:42.200 --> 0:36:44.760
<v Speaker 2>I do remember my family sitting around listening to the record.

0:36:45.280 --> 0:36:48.799
<v Speaker 1>Yeah it's so funny. All right, maybe we should take

0:36:48.800 --> 0:36:51.400
<v Speaker 1>our second break and come up and talk some more

0:36:51.400 --> 0:36:52.400
<v Speaker 1>about Harry Belafonte.

0:36:52.520 --> 0:37:23.520
<v Speaker 3>Okay, joh all right, So Harry's doing his activism.

0:37:24.000 --> 0:37:27.919
<v Speaker 1>He is still an entertainer. He never, you know, sort

0:37:27.920 --> 0:37:30.360
<v Speaker 1>of fully left that behind, and you know, he started

0:37:30.360 --> 0:37:32.719
<v Speaker 1>doing less and less of that as like through the

0:37:32.760 --> 0:37:36.080
<v Speaker 1>sort of eighties and nineties when his activism was I

0:37:36.120 --> 0:37:39.640
<v Speaker 1>think at its peak, but he was still doing his thing.

0:37:39.840 --> 0:37:44.080
<v Speaker 1>In nineteen sixty, he became the first black American to

0:37:44.120 --> 0:37:47.000
<v Speaker 1>win an Emmy for Tonight with Bellafonte, one of his

0:37:47.000 --> 0:37:50.680
<v Speaker 1>TV specials, again which they were all super big hits,

0:37:50.719 --> 0:37:53.120
<v Speaker 1>even though people loved them and the ratings were through

0:37:53.120 --> 0:37:57.280
<v Speaker 1>the roof, it was that silent majority complaining about petul

0:37:57.320 --> 0:37:59.320
<v Speaker 1>La Clark holding his arm, a white woman holding his

0:37:59.400 --> 0:38:02.279
<v Speaker 1>arm in a special. It drove away some advertisers, which

0:38:02.280 --> 0:38:06.280
<v Speaker 1>is just, you know, very sad to say the least,

0:38:06.280 --> 0:38:11.040
<v Speaker 1>but he was still serving up this sort of Caribbean

0:38:11.040 --> 0:38:15.319
<v Speaker 1>tinge folk music to people. CBS ordered five more episodes

0:38:16.000 --> 0:38:19.480
<v Speaker 1>after Tonight with Bellefonte was such a big success. But

0:38:19.680 --> 0:38:22.640
<v Speaker 1>of course that was one of the ones where sponsorship

0:38:22.719 --> 0:38:24.600
<v Speaker 1>was pulled because he had black people and white people

0:38:24.680 --> 0:38:27.279
<v Speaker 1>dancing and singing together and said, no, no, no, no,

0:38:27.360 --> 0:38:28.480
<v Speaker 1>you cannot do that.

0:38:28.840 --> 0:38:32.239
<v Speaker 2>Right, And so he would just leave show business for

0:38:32.480 --> 0:38:35.520
<v Speaker 2>you know, years at a time, or at least like

0:38:35.600 --> 0:38:38.160
<v Speaker 2>TV or movies or something like that. But he got

0:38:38.160 --> 0:38:40.160
<v Speaker 2>pulled back into it in the early seventies because his

0:38:40.200 --> 0:38:42.840
<v Speaker 2>buddy Sidney Poitier was like, Hey, I want to start

0:38:42.880 --> 0:38:47.399
<v Speaker 2>directing blackspolitation movies. Let's do this. And they made Buck

0:38:47.440 --> 0:38:49.560
<v Speaker 2>in the Preacher, which I have not seen. I think

0:38:49.560 --> 0:38:52.640
<v Speaker 2>it was from nineteen seventy two. Everything I've read about

0:38:52.640 --> 0:38:56.880
<v Speaker 2>it makes me want to see it. Basically immediately Sidney

0:38:56.880 --> 0:38:59.480
<v Speaker 2>Poidier directed it, but he also plays Buck, who's this

0:39:00.320 --> 0:39:04.640
<v Speaker 2>ex Civil War soldier who helps ensure safe passage for

0:39:04.880 --> 0:39:09.080
<v Speaker 2>African Americans moving out of Louisiana out west after the

0:39:09.120 --> 0:39:12.719
<v Speaker 2>Civil War, and the Preacher is Harry Belafonte, who's this

0:39:12.840 --> 0:39:15.760
<v Speaker 2>con artist dressed as a preacher. It just sounds awesome.

0:39:16.440 --> 0:39:19.279
<v Speaker 2>And then Uptown Saturday Night. Haven't seen that one either,

0:39:19.400 --> 0:39:23.680
<v Speaker 2>It sounds pretty great, except it's so hard now to

0:39:23.760 --> 0:39:29.360
<v Speaker 2>get past anything with Bill Cosby. Yeah, it's so hard,

0:39:29.480 --> 0:39:32.800
<v Speaker 2>not just because of the horrible stuff he did sexually

0:39:32.800 --> 0:39:37.840
<v Speaker 2>assaulting women, but also because he was so preachy leading

0:39:37.920 --> 0:39:40.440
<v Speaker 2>up to it. He was so holier than how and

0:39:40.480 --> 0:39:42.720
<v Speaker 2>it makes the whole thing so much worse if you ask.

0:39:42.680 --> 0:39:45.919
<v Speaker 1>Me, Yeah, I mean and this he was doing those

0:39:45.960 --> 0:39:51.600
<v Speaker 1>things back then, right too. The CNN documentary that camal

0:39:51.680 --> 0:39:55.759
<v Speaker 1>Bell did was very upsetting to see. But the way

0:39:56.000 --> 0:39:57.759
<v Speaker 1>they did it, I think I mentioned it before, was

0:39:58.800 --> 0:40:00.680
<v Speaker 1>it was they were just sort of tracking his career

0:40:00.840 --> 0:40:03.239
<v Speaker 1>and like, and he was the biggest star and on

0:40:03.320 --> 0:40:05.400
<v Speaker 1>TV at the time, and this was nineteen sixty something,

0:40:05.680 --> 0:40:07.960
<v Speaker 1>and then it was like in nineteen sixty whatever, he

0:40:08.040 --> 0:40:11.520
<v Speaker 1>sexually assaulted this woman, right, and it was happening the

0:40:11.640 --> 0:40:17.000
<v Speaker 1>whole time. So I'm with you, impossible to watch that stuff,

0:40:17.040 --> 0:40:18.920
<v Speaker 1>but you can watch Bucket the Preacher.

0:40:18.640 --> 0:40:21.040
<v Speaker 2>Though, right, he's not in that, that's right.

0:40:22.680 --> 0:40:26.120
<v Speaker 1>So hearing all this, you're like, wow, Harry Bellefonte was

0:40:26.320 --> 0:40:30.200
<v Speaker 1>a superman and he never got in bad mood, and

0:40:30.239 --> 0:40:34.040
<v Speaker 1>he never got tired, and he was never frustrated. And

0:40:34.160 --> 0:40:37.160
<v Speaker 1>it was just wine and roses all the time for

0:40:37.200 --> 0:40:40.359
<v Speaker 1>Harry Bellefonte. And that is not the case. It was

0:40:41.040 --> 0:40:46.080
<v Speaker 1>a serious fatigue on his life. To do what he

0:40:46.120 --> 0:40:51.120
<v Speaker 1>did was hard work, emotionally, hard work, physically demanding, going

0:40:51.160 --> 0:40:53.680
<v Speaker 1>all over the place doing his thing while also being

0:40:53.719 --> 0:40:58.480
<v Speaker 1>an entertainer. And you know, in nineteen sixty I think

0:40:58.520 --> 0:41:01.120
<v Speaker 1>this is a little bit after Martin Luther King Jr.

0:41:01.239 --> 0:41:04.160
<v Speaker 1>Was murdered, he was bellefont He was asked what it's

0:41:04.280 --> 0:41:08.000
<v Speaker 1>like being such a prominent civil rights leader, and he

0:41:08.040 --> 0:41:09.719
<v Speaker 1>was pretty testy. He said, you know, I'd like to

0:41:09.719 --> 0:41:11.440
<v Speaker 1>take my family and go live in Africa and be

0:41:11.440 --> 0:41:14.759
<v Speaker 1>able to stop answering questions though I were a spokesman

0:41:14.800 --> 0:41:17.279
<v Speaker 1>for my people. I hate marching and getting called at

0:41:17.280 --> 0:41:20.160
<v Speaker 1>three am to bail some cats out of jail. And

0:41:20.200 --> 0:41:24.400
<v Speaker 1>this is just the toll that that takes on anybody,

0:41:24.480 --> 0:41:29.320
<v Speaker 1>even like a superman like Harry Bellefonte. Yeah, also a human.

0:41:29.680 --> 0:41:33.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but he had he had a really great inspiration

0:41:33.680 --> 0:41:36.640
<v Speaker 2>in the form of Paul Robison, who kind of guided

0:41:36.719 --> 0:41:38.960
<v Speaker 2>things you mentioned in before. He was an idol of

0:41:39.000 --> 0:41:41.600
<v Speaker 2>his and a real inspiration. He was the guy who's

0:41:41.600 --> 0:41:44.520
<v Speaker 2>saying old Man River among other things. But he was

0:41:44.600 --> 0:41:49.200
<v Speaker 2>this He was a model for Harry Belafonte. Paul Robison

0:41:49.520 --> 0:41:51.319
<v Speaker 2>was running around the world. He took his fame and

0:41:51.320 --> 0:41:53.920
<v Speaker 2>he used it to highlight, you know, plights around the

0:41:54.000 --> 0:41:57.080
<v Speaker 2>around the world. But he was also like a huge

0:41:59.480 --> 0:42:02.000
<v Speaker 2>He protested for peace and he ran around the world

0:42:02.040 --> 0:42:05.239
<v Speaker 2>trying to make peace, I mean between the US and

0:42:05.280 --> 0:42:08.719
<v Speaker 2>the USSR at the beginning of the Cold War. This

0:42:08.800 --> 0:42:12.440
<v Speaker 2>guy was going back and forth trying to create friendships

0:42:12.440 --> 0:42:16.000
<v Speaker 2>where there was nothing but animosity. He did the same

0:42:16.040 --> 0:42:20.840
<v Speaker 2>thing with communist China. And he was also not afraid

0:42:20.840 --> 0:42:23.840
<v Speaker 2>to criticize the United States and like its racist policies

0:42:23.840 --> 0:42:25.640
<v Speaker 2>too at the time. So you put all that together.

0:42:25.920 --> 0:42:29.120
<v Speaker 2>This guy was prime meet for the McCarthy trials and

0:42:29.120 --> 0:42:32.279
<v Speaker 2>he got blacklisted, but he refused to be cout. He

0:42:32.360 --> 0:42:35.320
<v Speaker 2>would not name names, he would not renounce his work,

0:42:36.200 --> 0:42:39.120
<v Speaker 2>he would not take back anything that they demanded the

0:42:39.239 --> 0:42:43.040
<v Speaker 2>take back. And he really served as this model for

0:42:43.360 --> 0:42:47.560
<v Speaker 2>Harry Belafonte. Despite I mean, Robison had it hard he

0:42:47.640 --> 0:42:50.799
<v Speaker 2>fell hard the State Department. He was doing all this

0:42:50.880 --> 0:42:54.560
<v Speaker 2>traveling to promote peace. The State Department suspended his passport

0:42:54.560 --> 0:42:57.200
<v Speaker 2>from nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty eight. Kind of hard

0:42:57.200 --> 0:43:00.560
<v Speaker 2>to run around the world pre internet ones are still

0:43:00.600 --> 0:43:05.839
<v Speaker 2>relatively expensive to use trying to organize peace when you

0:43:05.920 --> 0:43:09.040
<v Speaker 2>can't travel outside of the US. But he was a

0:43:09.080 --> 0:43:11.560
<v Speaker 2>really like he deserves it, I think, an episode himself.

0:43:11.560 --> 0:43:15.400
<v Speaker 2>But he stood as this inspiration and model for Harry Belafonte.

0:43:15.480 --> 0:43:18.360
<v Speaker 2>So even when he would get down trodden and defeated,

0:43:18.680 --> 0:43:20.759
<v Speaker 2>he had Paul Robison to look to him, be like

0:43:20.800 --> 0:43:23.560
<v Speaker 2>this guy, this guy went through even even worse than me.

0:43:24.480 --> 0:43:28.640
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for sure. And it wasn't always a love affair

0:43:28.719 --> 0:43:33.520
<v Speaker 1>within the black community with Harry Belafonte. He was criticized

0:43:34.000 --> 0:43:37.319
<v Speaker 1>at various times for marrying white women. He married two

0:43:37.360 --> 0:43:40.200
<v Speaker 1>white women after splitting up with Julie Robinson in two

0:43:40.200 --> 0:43:43.000
<v Speaker 1>thousand and four. He married Pamela Frank in two thousand

0:43:43.040 --> 0:43:48.080
<v Speaker 1>and eight. He don't he doesn't think, you know, he

0:43:48.160 --> 0:43:50.600
<v Speaker 1>was of mixed race himself, so he didn't feel like

0:43:51.239 --> 0:43:54.080
<v Speaker 1>at times he was always fully accepted by the black community,

0:43:55.080 --> 0:43:57.360
<v Speaker 1>and he would, you know, be critical of that in

0:43:57.440 --> 0:44:00.640
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety six in The New Yorker. He said, and

0:44:00.719 --> 0:44:03.279
<v Speaker 1>again that's a great, great read. He said, let me

0:44:03.320 --> 0:44:04.880
<v Speaker 1>tell you something, I don't know of any artist at

0:44:04.880 --> 0:44:07.000
<v Speaker 1>my level who has ever been as much on the

0:44:07.040 --> 0:44:10.040
<v Speaker 1>line for black liberation as I have, and has as

0:44:10.120 --> 0:44:13.200
<v Speaker 1>few black people in attendance at anything he does as

0:44:13.239 --> 0:44:16.560
<v Speaker 1>I do. And he described one of his typical concerts,

0:44:17.360 --> 0:44:19.280
<v Speaker 1>I never saw so many white people in my life.

0:44:19.800 --> 0:44:23.359
<v Speaker 1>So he never felt like he got the support from

0:44:23.360 --> 0:44:26.400
<v Speaker 1>the black community that he thought he deserved and he

0:44:26.400 --> 0:44:29.840
<v Speaker 1>thought he earned. And when it came to who he married,

0:44:29.880 --> 0:44:32.919
<v Speaker 1>he said, you know, I didn't marry anyone to further

0:44:32.960 --> 0:44:35.200
<v Speaker 1>and integration, cause like I married who I fell in

0:44:35.239 --> 0:44:37.000
<v Speaker 1>love with, and they married me because they fell in

0:44:37.040 --> 0:44:37.400
<v Speaker 1>love with me.

0:44:37.480 --> 0:44:38.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for sure.

0:44:38.800 --> 0:44:39.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:44:39.600 --> 0:44:41.920
<v Speaker 2>So we've kind of talked about some of the stuff,

0:44:41.960 --> 0:44:44.560
<v Speaker 2>some of the causes he took up that he's best

0:44:44.600 --> 0:44:49.520
<v Speaker 2>known for, like civil rights. Did you mention anti apartheid? Yeah.

0:44:50.040 --> 0:44:52.960
<v Speaker 2>He performed at a rally and no New rally. In

0:44:53.000 --> 0:44:58.360
<v Speaker 2>the early eighties in Germany, he sought a broker peace

0:44:58.400 --> 0:45:00.920
<v Speaker 2>between the Crips and the Bloods, and back in the

0:45:01.040 --> 0:45:04.760
<v Speaker 2>late eighties he protested the Iraq War in the early

0:45:04.800 --> 0:45:09.879
<v Speaker 2>two thousands, and then the cause that he he kind

0:45:09.920 --> 0:45:12.920
<v Speaker 2>of got behind towards the very end of his life

0:45:13.000 --> 0:45:16.560
<v Speaker 2>was incarceration in general. He was I think the first

0:45:16.560 --> 0:45:19.880
<v Speaker 2>performer to play Riker's Island. James Brown famously did in

0:45:19.920 --> 0:45:22.560
<v Speaker 2>nineteen seventy two. Harry Belafinal did it a couple of

0:45:22.560 --> 0:45:26.600
<v Speaker 2>months before James Brown, and then throughout the rest of

0:45:26.640 --> 0:45:29.600
<v Speaker 2>his career he would visit prisons and hang out with

0:45:29.640 --> 0:45:33.120
<v Speaker 2>the inmates. But he also really focused on child incarceration

0:45:34.120 --> 0:45:40.800
<v Speaker 2>and just found that totally amoral and immoral and inexcusable.

0:45:40.840 --> 0:45:44.200
<v Speaker 2>So he really started a whole generation of like activists

0:45:44.200 --> 0:45:46.680
<v Speaker 2>in that right before he died. Just one more thing

0:45:46.719 --> 0:45:47.359
<v Speaker 2>he did, you know.

0:45:47.719 --> 0:45:50.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he passed away just a couple of years ago,

0:45:50.600 --> 0:45:53.200
<v Speaker 1>in April April twenty fifth of twenty twenty three, at

0:45:53.280 --> 0:45:58.040
<v Speaker 1>ninety six. So just a very full long life and

0:45:58.960 --> 0:46:01.760
<v Speaker 1>received lots of accolae during that lifetime. I mentioned the Egot.

0:46:01.920 --> 0:46:06.280
<v Speaker 1>Part of that included the OSCAR, was the gene Herschelt

0:46:06.360 --> 0:46:10.440
<v Speaker 1>Humanitarian Award in twenty fourteen and a Lifetime Achievement Grammy

0:46:10.480 --> 0:46:14.480
<v Speaker 1>in two thousand. You can add the Kennedy Center honor

0:46:14.520 --> 0:46:17.840
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty nine to that list, and the National

0:46:17.880 --> 0:46:21.360
<v Speaker 1>Medal of the Arts. Old Billy Clinton gave him that

0:46:21.400 --> 0:46:26.320
<v Speaker 1>one in nineteen ninety four. And what else? In Harlem

0:46:26.360 --> 0:46:28.600
<v Speaker 1>he had a library named after him in twenty seventeen

0:46:29.400 --> 0:46:33.960
<v Speaker 1>near his childhood home. It was renamed the Harry Bellefonte

0:46:34.040 --> 0:46:36.600
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and fifteenth Street Library.

0:46:36.840 --> 0:46:39.359
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I also saw he was inducted into the Rock

0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:42.319
<v Speaker 2>and Roll Hall of Fame in twenty twenty two, and

0:46:42.400 --> 0:46:45.480
<v Speaker 2>the bio almost defiantly dares you to be like, he's

0:46:45.520 --> 0:46:48.920
<v Speaker 2>not rock and roll. They said that basically every artist

0:46:48.960 --> 0:46:53.400
<v Speaker 2>who's mixed politics with their music, from Bob Dylan and

0:46:53.560 --> 0:46:56.799
<v Speaker 2>Bono to Redge Against the Machine and Public Enemy, they

0:46:57.120 --> 0:47:01.600
<v Speaker 2>quote stand on his broad shoulders, which I mean, that's

0:47:01.880 --> 0:47:02.760
<v Speaker 2>absolutely true.

0:47:03.680 --> 0:47:05.799
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and there are plenty of non quote unquote rock

0:47:05.800 --> 0:47:07.200
<v Speaker 1>and roll bands in that Hall of Fame.

0:47:07.239 --> 0:47:10.520
<v Speaker 2>Sure, but they were like, say something and then yeah,

0:47:10.520 --> 0:47:12.000
<v Speaker 2>you k back off, you did, and then you felt

0:47:12.040 --> 0:47:13.280
<v Speaker 2>like a jackass.

0:47:13.600 --> 0:47:15.359
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Like, is anyone going to really protest that?

0:47:16.120 --> 0:47:18.520
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. I could see Gene Simmons saying something

0:47:18.560 --> 0:47:23.520
<v Speaker 2>about it. Right. There's also a really great appearance on

0:47:23.520 --> 0:47:26.120
<v Speaker 2>The Muppet show where he sings Deo with some of

0:47:26.160 --> 0:47:31.200
<v Speaker 2>the muppets, and it's just sweet and wholesome and just great.

0:47:31.480 --> 0:47:32.320
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, good stuff.

0:47:33.040 --> 0:47:36.080
<v Speaker 2>One more thing we cannot not mention Beetlejuice. Dune.

0:47:37.360 --> 0:47:41.640
<v Speaker 1>Oh was he did he have something to do with beetlejuice? Yeah,

0:47:41.719 --> 0:47:46.839
<v Speaker 1>obviously people were already typing their emails. Beetlejuice featured not

0:47:46.920 --> 0:47:49.759
<v Speaker 1>only the Banana Boat song, but Jumping the Line, which

0:47:50.040 --> 0:47:51.680
<v Speaker 1>I like more than the banana bats. I did hold

0:47:51.719 --> 0:47:55.640
<v Speaker 1>that song to great effect. I think Tim Burton apparently

0:47:56.480 --> 0:47:58.800
<v Speaker 1>wasn't super keen. He didn't think it was funny enough,

0:47:59.360 --> 0:48:02.040
<v Speaker 1>and I'm like, dude, it's not funny. It's fun you

0:48:02.480 --> 0:48:05.400
<v Speaker 1>added two extra letters. It's not supposed to be like

0:48:05.480 --> 0:48:09.479
<v Speaker 1>slap your knee funny, but it is certainly fun. And

0:48:09.960 --> 0:48:14.040
<v Speaker 1>the little dance routines, they're almost like apart from the

0:48:14.080 --> 0:48:17.680
<v Speaker 1>movie itself, like additional like an additional music video or

0:48:17.719 --> 0:48:21.720
<v Speaker 1>something like in the movie. But they are part one

0:48:21.800 --> 0:48:24.080
<v Speaker 1>small part, or I guess a large part really of

0:48:24.120 --> 0:48:25.960
<v Speaker 1>what makes that movie so great were those two numbers.

0:48:26.080 --> 0:48:28.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and the whole I mean, the whole thing's just amazing.

0:48:28.400 --> 0:48:31.759
<v Speaker 2>But for some reason, Catherine O'Hara is just you just

0:48:31.800 --> 0:48:35.239
<v Speaker 2>see she's so cool when she's doing this, like it's

0:48:35.320 --> 0:48:38.320
<v Speaker 2>just perfect. And she's supposedly the one who suggested Calypso

0:48:38.400 --> 0:48:39.759
<v Speaker 2>for the music that they use.

0:48:40.160 --> 0:48:42.600
<v Speaker 1>Oh that's funny, Harry Bells not funny.

0:48:42.760 --> 0:48:45.239
<v Speaker 2>No, it's not funny at all, Chuck, You're absolutely right,

0:48:45.280 --> 0:48:48.160
<v Speaker 2>it's fun. But apparently Harry bell Fani said that about

0:48:48.160 --> 0:48:52.360
<v Speaker 2>a year after Beetle Juicy, he became popular with kids.

0:48:52.719 --> 0:48:57.400
<v Speaker 2>Apparently do and jump the line, but jump in the line. Sorry.

0:48:57.560 --> 0:48:59.759
<v Speaker 2>They both ended up on the Billboard two hundred after

0:48:59.840 --> 0:49:02.520
<v Speaker 2>be Juice for a little while, and he said that

0:49:03.480 --> 0:49:05.840
<v Speaker 2>all sorts of kids would come up to him after

0:49:05.880 --> 0:49:08.719
<v Speaker 2>they saw Beetlejuice, and he said that they would wipe

0:49:08.760 --> 0:49:11.560
<v Speaker 2>their hands full of tomato, ketchup and mustard on my clothes.

0:49:12.360 --> 0:49:14.040
<v Speaker 2>And I enjoyed the whole excursion.

0:49:15.760 --> 0:49:17.359
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, go listen to some of his stuff. I've been

0:49:17.360 --> 0:49:19.840
<v Speaker 1>listening to it for two days, Harry Bellefonte and the

0:49:19.840 --> 0:49:25.040
<v Speaker 1>Bellefonte Folk Singers, and it's some of it's maybe unusual

0:49:25.040 --> 0:49:27.360
<v Speaker 1>to modern ears, but it's like really good stuff.

0:49:27.440 --> 0:49:30.239
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and it's even better if you watch like footage

0:49:30.239 --> 0:49:32.680
<v Speaker 2>of him singing it too, like you really his stage

0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:35.799
<v Speaker 2>presence really comes across even on video years later.

0:49:36.560 --> 0:49:38.799
<v Speaker 1>That's right. Did we mention he was handsome? He was

0:49:39.560 --> 0:49:40.960
<v Speaker 1>easy on the eyes, the hard to look at it.

0:49:41.080 --> 0:49:43.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for sure. He could really wear a shirt unbuttoned

0:49:43.680 --> 0:49:44.600
<v Speaker 2>down to his navel too.

0:49:44.719 --> 0:49:47.640
<v Speaker 1>Man, Oh boy, I never could get away.

0:49:47.880 --> 0:49:52.000
<v Speaker 2>I can't either. All right, Well that's Harry Belafana. Everybody

0:49:53.160 --> 0:49:57.480
<v Speaker 2>rip Harry R I P. And if you want to

0:49:57.480 --> 0:49:59.719
<v Speaker 2>know more about Harry Belafani, like Chuck Segg, go look

0:49:59.760 --> 0:50:01.680
<v Speaker 2>him on up and start listening to them and watching

0:50:01.719 --> 0:50:04.040
<v Speaker 2>some videos. And in the meantime, I think that means

0:50:04.080 --> 0:50:05.239
<v Speaker 2>it's time for listener mail.

0:50:08.400 --> 0:50:11.040
<v Speaker 1>This is just a little quickie. Hey, guys, are heard

0:50:11.040 --> 0:50:13.120
<v Speaker 1>on a recent Christmas episode that you're desperate for new

0:50:13.160 --> 0:50:15.680
<v Speaker 1>Christmas material. A few months ago, I sent in a

0:50:15.680 --> 0:50:20.440
<v Speaker 1>show idea about the Halifax explosion. Did you know that

0:50:20.560 --> 0:50:24.040
<v Speaker 1>this has a Christmas connection? Halifax was so thankful for

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<v Speaker 1>the help from the city of Boston that we continue

0:50:26.560 --> 0:50:30.520
<v Speaker 1>to send Halifax their city's Christmas tree to this very day.

0:50:32.120 --> 0:50:34.520
<v Speaker 2>Pretty cool Boston does or Halifax.

0:50:34.000 --> 0:50:40.040
<v Speaker 1>Does Boston sends I don't know Halifax sends Boston the

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<v Speaker 1>tree yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Now the story is delightful.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it is all the best from your neighbors

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<v Speaker 1>in Canada. That is the Matthias Dernford.

0:50:49.920 --> 0:50:51.560
<v Speaker 2>That's a great one. We should have done that as

0:50:51.640 --> 0:50:54.120
<v Speaker 2>like a segment, but now we can't because everybody knows it.

0:50:54.880 --> 0:50:56.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean we did a whole episode on it.

0:50:56.520 --> 0:50:57.600
<v Speaker 1>But this is a nice identity.

0:50:57.640 --> 0:50:59.160
<v Speaker 2>Did you say Matthias or Matthias?

0:51:00.360 --> 0:51:01.680
<v Speaker 1>Well, I mean there's an hre in there. I don't

0:51:01.680 --> 0:51:02.719
<v Speaker 1>know if it's pronounced.

0:51:02.360 --> 0:51:03.160
<v Speaker 2>Though, Matthias.

0:51:03.800 --> 0:51:04.480
<v Speaker 1>I said Matthiah.

0:51:04.520 --> 0:51:07.239
<v Speaker 2>Good. Well, if you want to be like Matthias and

0:51:07.239 --> 0:51:09.319
<v Speaker 2>have us debate how to say your name, love that

0:51:09.480 --> 0:51:11.799
<v Speaker 2>kind of thing. You can send us an email too

0:51:12.000 --> 0:51:17.760
<v Speaker 2>to stuff podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.

0:51:17.920 --> 0:51:20.799
<v Speaker 1>Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

0:51:20.880 --> 0:51:25.040
<v Speaker 1>more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

0:51:25.160 --> 0:51:27.000
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.