Julie Robinson Belafonte

Julie Robinson Belafonte, a dancer, actress and, with the singer Harry Belafonte, one half of an 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 2024 in Los Angeles. She was 95. 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. She married iBelafonte n 1957 shortly after he and his first wife divorced. They had been introduced by Marlon Brando. She attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan (now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts). She won a scholarship to the newly opened Katherine Dunham School of Dance in Manhattan and dropped out of high school to pursue a dance career. She soon worked her way up to student-teacher at the school; among her students were Marlon Brando and Alvin Ailey, who was to gain fame as a dancer, choreographer and director. toured the world with the Dunham dancers, sometimes rooming with her fellow dancer Eartha Kitt, before Ms. Kitt became a celebrated singer and actress. She met Mr. Belafonte on the set of “Carmen Jones,” the 1954 movie musical in which he starred opposite Dorothy Dandridge, introduced to him by Mr. Brando, a good friend of Mr. Belafonte’s. Eight days after he ended his first marriage in divorce, Mr. Belafonte, about to turn 30, and Ms. Robinson, who was pregnant at 28, married in Mexico. Their daughter, Gina, was born in 1961. They divorced in 2007, and Ms. Belafonte kept a lower profile thereafter.