World

Julie Robinson Belafonte, Dancer, Actress and Activist, Dies at 95

Julie Robinson Belafonte, a dancer, actress and, with the singer Harry Belafonte, one half of a interracial power couple who used their high profiles to aid the civil rights movement and the cause of integration in the United States, died on March 9 in Los Angeles. She was 95.

Her death, at an assisted living facility in the Studio City neighborhood, was announced by her family. She had resided there for the last year and a half after living for decades in Manhattan.

Ms. Belafonte, who was white and the second wife of Mr. Belafonte, the Black Caribbean-American entertainer and activist, had an eclectic career in the arts. At various times she was a dancer, a choreographer, a dance teacher, an actress and a documentary film producer.

Ms. Belafonte with Harry Belafonte, whom she married in 1957 shortly after he and his first wife divorced. They had been introduced by Marlon Brando. Credit…via Getty Images

Ms. Belafonte traveled the nation and the world with her husband and their children during Mr. Belafonte’s sellout concert tours in the late 1950s and ’60s, presenting an image of a close interracial family that was otherwise rarely seen on television or in newspapers and magazines.

She was at Mr. Belafonte’s side when they planned and hosted fund-raisers for civil rights groups, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the more militant Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

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