Gina Belafonte | |
---|---|
Born | New York City, New York, US | September 8, 1961
Occupations |
|
Parent |
|
Gina Belafonte (born September 8, 1961) is an American actress, film and stage producer, and civil rights activist. The youngest daughter of singer, actor, and activist Harry Belafonte, [1] she has appeared in such films as Bright Lights, Big City , Tokyo Pop (both 1988), and BlacKkKlansman (2018). Belafonte served as a producer on Sing Your Song , a 2011 documentary film about her father. She co-founded The Gathering for Justice, a nonprofit organization whose aim is to end child incarceration and eliminate the racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and is the CEO of Sankofa.org, a nonprofit founded by her father. [1]
Belafonte was born on September 8, 1961, at Mount Sinai Hospital [2] in New York City, New York, to Harry Belafonte and his then-wife Julie Robinson Belafonte. [1] As a young child, she visited Africa as well as the West Indies. [3] At age six, Gina Belafonte attended the Ethical Culture School in New York City alongside her brother David. [4]
Year | Film | Role | Notes | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1984 | Beat Street | Elizabeth | [5] | |
1988 | Bright Lights, Big City | Kathy | [6] [7] | |
Tokyo Pop | Holly | [6] [8] | ||
1989 | Drawing the Line: A Portrait of Keith Haring | Narrator | Short documentary film | [9] |
1996 | Kansas City | Hey-Hey Club Hostess | ||
1998 | Operation Splitsville | Bernice | ||
2011 | Sing Your Song | Self | Documentary film; also producer | [10] |
2016 | Courting Des Moines | Senator Gina Piccollo | ||
2018 | BlacKkKlansman | Gina B. | ||
Year | Film | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1987 | All My Children | Polly | 1 episode |
1991–1993 | The Commish | Carmela Pagan | 33 episodes |
1997 | Duckman | Wanda | Voice role; episode: "Aged Heat 2: Women in Heat" |
Johnny Bravo | Newscaster / Computer | Voice roles; episode: "Hip Hop Flop/Talk to Me, Baby/Blanky Hanky Panky" | |
Whitney Elizabeth Houston was an American singer, actress, film producer, and philanthropist. Nicknamed "the Voice", she is one of the most awarded entertainers of all time, having been inducted into numerous halls of fame. Her crossover appeal on the popular music charts and her performances influenced the breaking down of racial barriers and popular culture. Houston has been recognized for her vocal delivery, distinctive timbre, and for popularizing the use of gospel singing techniques in pop music. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked her second on their list of the greatest singers of all time. Houston has sold over 220 million records worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling music artists in history. She also enhanced her popularity by producing and starring in multicultural movies. Her life and career have been the subject of multiple documentaries and television specials.
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
Harry Belafonte was an American singer, actor, and civil rights activist who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s and 1960s. Belafonte's career breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.
Delores LaVern Baker was an American rhythm and blues singer who had several hit records on the pop charts in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her most successful records were "Tweedle Dee" (1955), "Jim Dandy" (1956), and "I Cried a Tear" (1958).
Nell Carter was an American actress and singer.
Freda Charcilia Payne is an American singer and actress. Payne is best known for her career in music during the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s. Her most notable record is her 1970 hit single "Band of Gold". Payne was also an actress in musicals and film as well as the host of a TV talk show. Payne is the older sister of Scherrie Payne, a former singer with the American vocal group the Supremes. She also acted on Living Single.
Maureen Elizabeth Reagan was an American political activist and the first child of U.S. president Ronald Reagan and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman. Her brother is Michael Reagan and her half-siblings are Patti Davis and Ron Reagan, from her father's second marriage.
Denise Katherine Matthews, known professionally as Vanity, was a Canadian singer, model, and actress. Known for her image as a sex symbol in the 1980s, she became an evangelist and renounced her career as Vanity in the 1990s.
Tisha Michelle Campbell is an American actress and singer. She made her screen debut appearing in the 1986 rock musical comedy film Little Shop of Horrors, and later starred on the NBC musical comedy drama Rags to Riches (1987–1988). She has appeared in films including School Daze (1988), Rooftops (1989), Another 48 Hrs. (1990), Boomerang (1992), and Sprung (1997). She received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female for playing Sidney in the comedy film House Party (1990). She reprises the role of Sidney in the sequels House Party 2 (1991) and House Party 3 (1994).
Dawnn Jewel Lewis is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Jaleesa Vinson–Taylor on the NBC television sitcom A Different World from the series beginning in 1987 until the end of its fifth season in 1992, in addition to co-writing the opening theme song for the series.
Sydney Tamiia Poitier is an American-Canadian television and film actress.
Shirley Ann Hemphill was an American stand-up comedian and actress.
Raymond St. Jacques was an American actor, director and producer whose career spanned over thirty years on stage, film and television. St. Jacques is noted as the first African-American actor to appear in a regular role on a Western series. He portrayed Simon Blake on the eighth season of Rawhide (1965–1966).
Northern James Calloway was an American actor and singer, best known for playing David on Sesame Street from 1971 to 1989. He was institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital and died less than eight months after his last appearance on the show.
Isaac Lolette Jones was an American film producer and actor. In June 1953, he became the first Black American graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and, Television and the first Black American to serve as a producer on a major motion picture.
Joyce Bryant was an American singer, dancer, and civil rights activist who achieved fame in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a theater and nightclub performer. With her signature silver hair and tight mermaid dresses, she became an early African-American sex symbol, garnering such nicknames as "The Bronze Blond Bombshell", "The Black Marilyn Monroe", "The Belter", and "The Voice You'll Always Remember".
Smalls Paradise, was a nightclub in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Located in the basement of 2294 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard at 134th Street, it opened in 1925 and was owned by Ed Smalls (né Edwin Alexander Smalls; 1882–1976). At the time of the Harlem Renaissance, Smalls Paradise was the only one of the well-known Harlem night clubs to be owned by an African-American and integrated. Other major Harlem night clubs admitted only white patrons unless the person was an African-American celebrity.
Gloria Spencer was an American gospel singer who was billed as the "World's Largest Gospel Singer" due to a glandular condition that caused her to weigh 625 pounds (283 kg). Over the course of her four-year career, Spencer released only two albums. She was noted for her "sparkling soprano that could easily show a pop feeling or a gritty one." Spencer died of congestive heart failure in April 1976.
Opaline Deveraux Wadkins (1912–2000) organized the first school to train black nurses in Oklahoma City, fought for desegregation of the College of Nursing at the University of Oklahoma and founded the School of Nursing at Langston University. She was the first African American nurse to earn a master's degree from the University of Oklahoma. She was honored in 1987 by the Oklahoma Public Health Association and inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.