The Latest Hollywood Moron--Harry Belafonte

Media and Policy Review ^ | 10/9/02 | Kevin Kelley

[RckyRaCoCo]

Oh Joe McCarthy...where are you when we need thee.

[ShorelineMike]

...Dictionary of Redundant Phrases

Is that produced by the Department of Redundancy Department?

No, that's the Department of Repetitive Redundancy Department.

[weegee]

I can confirm that Robert Mitchum was a Republican (although I do not know about that campaign film) as was Jimmy Stewart.

Its intersting just how much there actors were respected (although Mitchum would get into scraps, drink on the set, and early in his career got busted for marijuana).

[willyone]

Belafonte is a lifelong communist. This should be no surprise to anyone who has heard him before. He has always been quite upfront about his political beliefs. Why anyone could see the failures of communism and still be one is the strange part.

[yendu bwam]

Great list of dodos, liberwackos and dum-dums.

[yendu bwam]

Wouldn't it be easier to keep track of the Hollywood types that AREN'T morons?

Good one! Are there two or three?

[Braak]

Dude, that's just wrong....I mean, just wrong...

[HHFi]

I was really glad to see there's another music historian on here who remembers what a phony and sellout Belafonte was considered to be in his day. Also very happy to see that someone else has the Robert Mitchum calypso album. Not enough people do. What is this generation coming to?!

Here's a response I put on another FR thread on the same subject. Thought you might appreciate it:

"Selling out the black man to the white establishment for personal advancement? Funny, that's exactly what the real calypso singers said about Harry back in the 1950s, when the music they invented was released only on small independent labels, while a watered-down, sanitized version by the light-skinned, well-dressed, non-threatening Harry Belafonte was marketed like Coca-Cola to white Americans to play on their blonde wood Magnavoxes at their martini and cheese parties. Harry Belafonte was to calypso what Pat Boone was to Little Richard. Were I he, I would not be throwin' no rocks from my glass beach hut, mon."

BTW, if I wanted to throw around accusations as wildly as Harry does, I'd blame him for the hateful career of Louie Farrakhan. Calypso Louie (or "The Charmer," as he was then known) might have had a much more benign career if RCA hadn't passed on signing him because they thought that one light-skinned black calypso singer was all the pop market could bear. Next time you hear Louie spewing anti-Jewish rhetoric, remember that if it weren't for Harry Belafonte being in the way, Louie might be shouting, "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay-o!" instead.

[weegee]

I don't know, RCA Victor had Lord Flea and who know where he is today (he even appeared in the movie Bop Girl Goes Calypso).

The coda to this whole story is that Charles Barkly has gone on record to say that he was offended by Harry Belafonte's statement about Mr. Powell and that until black people stop attacking each other in such a manner, they will be unable to advance (their lots in life). I think that it was in this same interview that he reiterated his support of the Republican party.

I've only seen him once around Houston (at a small bar where a friend of mine was spinning a Brit-pop/mod night). I have never spoken to him.