Harry Belafonte carries his own tune in HBO's 'Sing Your Song'
Harry Belafonte overcame racism to emerge as a major force not only in entertainment but also in civil rights. Making its HBO debut Monday, Oct. 17, after showings at the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals, the documentary "Sing Your Song" traces the icon's life through his own words and those of such associates as Oscar winner Sidney Poitier and former South African president Nelson Mandela.
"I am so pleased," Grammy, Tony and Emmy recipient Belafonte says of the profile. "When we started, it was an archival effort, for the purposes of just collecting a lot of stuff that went on in my life that I thought was never documented in the kind of detail I felt some of the information needed to have."
Since it reaches back to his early, challenging days on Broadway and television and in nightclubs, Belafonte doesn't deny the experience was emotional for him: "It had me struggling with a lot. Some of the stuff was very tragic, leading up to Dr. (Martin Luther) King's assassination and the murder of Bobby Kennedy, so it was a huge roller coaster."
Belafonte is pleased his daughter Gina is among the producers of "Sing Your Song." He also praises director and co-editor Susanne Rostock and "a few other people who are not directly related to me, though they are in terms of the lifetime we've spent together. There was just so much to cover, I could not possibly have kept my eye on all the parts."
With such music classics of his as "The Banana Boat Song" -- and its legendary "Day-O" lyric -- and "Jump in the Line" sampled recently in hits by artists including Jason Derulo and Pitbull, Belafonte remains relevant.
"I'm not an artist who became an activist; I'm an activist who became an artist," he reflects, "and that difference, I think, is very significant. Art evokes passion, and it is a platform to give a point of view, where that point of view might otherwise not be understood at all. And you have to do it convincingly."
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