Filmmaker Warrington Hudlin and Author Walter Mosley at Museum of Moving Image
In celebration of Black History Month, famed novelist, Walter Mosley, writer of the Easy Rawlings books, met with House Party director Warrington Hudlin at a packed event at the Museum of Moving Image to celebrate the life of actor and activist Harry Belafonte.
This program was the fourth annual Black History Month collaboration between the Black Filmmaker Foundation and the Museum of the Moving Image and was organized and moderated by Warrington Hudlin, President of the Black Filmmaker Foundation and Vice-Chairman of the Museum of the Moving Image.
Saturday’s event kicked off with The Strolling ‘20s, Belafonte’s first hour-long TV special broadcast on CBS that starred Belafonte, Diahann Carroll, Sammy Davis, Jr., Duke Ellington, Gloria Lynne, George Kirby, Brownie McGhee, Sidney Poitier, Nipsey Russell.
Both Mosley and Hudlin reflected on their longtime friendship with the actor, who turns 90 on March 1st. Mosley called Belafonte a charismatic and magnetic personality.
“I remember when he first met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he asked him if he could have a minute of his time. They ended up talking for four hours. That’s how magnetic Harry is.”
The event closed with screenings of the 1996 Robert Altman drama, Kansas City, which starred Belafonte opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh, and director Otto Preminger 1954 classic, Carmen Jones, with the late Dorothy Dandridge.
Belafonte, himself, was not present for the event.
