Harry Belafonte - Gambling: Vegas, Birmingham, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafontes 1956 album Calypso made him the first million-selling recording artist in history. He has won both a Tony Award and an Emmy, and he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton. He has served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and is the recipient of Kennedy Center Honors for excellence in the performing arts. He currently resides in New York City with his wife, Pamela.

Michael Shnayerson

Michael Shnayerson, a longtime contributing editor to Vanity Fair, is the author of Irwin Shaw; The Car That Could; The Killers Within (with Mark Plotkin); and Coal River, which recounted the efforts of Appalachian activists to stop devastating coal removal practices in West Virginia. He lives in Bridgehampton, NY, with his daughter, Jenna.

Gambling:

Vegas, Birmingham, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

from My Song

Harry Belafonte

A Vintage Short

Vintage Books
A Division of Random House LLC
New York

Copyright 2011 by Harry Belafonte

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies. Originally published in hardcover as part of My Song in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, in 2011.

The Cataloging-in-Publication Data for My Song is available at the Library of Congress.

Series cover design by Joan Wong

Vintage eShort ISBN: 978-1-101-91201-0

www.vintagebooks.com

v3.1

To hear stories of the movement all these years later, you might think no one ever stopped marching long enough to crack a smile, much less tell a joke. Not true. Just inside the front door of the Manhattan apartment where I now live, I keep a large framed photograph of Martin and me taken in the early sixties. Its a picture of us cracking up at something one of us has just said. Its a good reminder that even in the movements darkest days, we still had room for humor.

That was especially true at the end of the day, when Martin was staying over, which happened so often that the apartment became his home away from home. Julie would bring out his bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream, and Martin would make a big deal of checking to see if anyone had drunk any since his last visit; he marked the level just to be sure. At the oak bar in the corner of the living room, Id mix drinks for Julie and myself, and bring them over. It wouldnt be long before we were laughing at somethinglike the way Ralph Abernathy, Martins heavyset aide-de-camp, snored in that jail cell in Albany, Georgia, so loudly he kept Martin awake all night, so loudly that Martin was convinced it was Ralphs snoring that had driven their third cell mate, that poor local doctor, out of his wits. Never again, Martin would say with Baptist fervor about sharing a room with Abernathy. Never again, sweet Jesus!

Time was filled with laughter with everyone in my life, even in that grim, going-nowhere year for the movement between Albany and Birmingham. I never let a conversation go more than a minute without finding something funny to say. That was just my way. I laughed with my wife and children. I teased the people around me. With good friends like Sidney and Bill Attaway, there was always a lot of laughter. In my shows, after that trademark intense opening, I always threw in some humorous songs and tried to get the audience going. And then there was Vegas, a whole other kind of fun, not only because I packed them in at the Riviera, but because, thanks to Bruce the sneering pit boss, Id rediscovered my love of gambling.

I played the Riviera every year now, for at least three or four weeks, and when I did, I did a lot of gambling. I would come into the casino after my last show and nod politely but coolly at the gamblers who looked up as I passed. Usually Id stop at the craps table, or see who was in for chemin de fer, and let the heat steer me to one or the other. I brought heat of my own; when I had the dice at craps, or took over the bank at chemin de fer, the bets really went up. Sometimes I hit it big. More often, if I stayed in, I started to lose. The worst luck always came when I let the game get personal. Id find myself sitting next to some arrogant oilman in a ten-gallon hatthe kind of guy who called me Mr. Belafonte to my face and probably nigger to my backand stay in, trying to win at his expense. Or a beautiful woman would sit down to play, and wed start trading looks, and my game would go to hell. I knew that those beautiful women were often shills, sent by the house for just that purpose when a bettor was doing too well. But you couldnt prove it, and it was bad form to ask.

When I lost, I kept losing; I once ended up down as much as $200,000. This was serious gambling. But I loved itin a nerve-rattling, adrenaline-pumping way. Id sign a marker; my debt would be charged against my contract. The pit boss would be instructed to call upstairs if I lost $100,000, just to confirm that I wasnt drunk or angry. They were happy to take my money, but I was too important to upset, so theyd much rather have me stop for the night, and stay cool, than keep on losing. While Gus Greenbaum was alive, hed try to talk me out of getting in so deep. We dont need your money, hed say. After he died, there were others who played that role. But as my salary rose, I could take the losses and still be standing, so they went only so far in their gentle expressions of concern. Some weeks, I lost half of my salary.

When I did lose, I stayed pretty cool. I didnt like showing the crowd how I felt, and I could sip a single drink all night, so I didnt get sloppy the way so many gamblers did when those free drinks kept appearing, as if by magic, beside them. I had a lot of show-biz friends, though, who really detonated when they hit a cold streak. And for all of them, alcohol was a key component.

One was Alan King, the comedian. Id met Alan years before on the Borscht Belt, when we were both playing Grossingers and the Concord. Alan was the smartest dresser Id ever seen: the bow tie tied just right, the perfectly pressed white shirt with diamond studs and cuff links, the pinkie ring, the big cigar. Despite his caustic stage image, he was one of the kindest and most generous-spirited comics in the business. Whenever I called him for a civil rights benefit, Alan was right there. And funny. Once, at an early benefit for Martin and the SCLC at the Harlem Armory on West 143rd Street, he took the stage, impeccably dressed, and shot his cuffs as he surveyed the all-black audience. Before I go any further, he said, you should understand youve been backing the wrong King. He wants to get you into Woolworths. You stick with me, Ill get you into 21. The crowd went crazy.

Alans game in Vegas was craps. Hed have his big cigar in one hand, the dice in the other, and just before he rolled, hed declare to the croupier, Double on the hard eight! It was hard enough rolling an eight with a three and a five, or a six and a two. But getting two foursthat was tough. And doubling his bet on the hard eightthat was taking a wild chance. In craps, you never have the table to yourself. Anyone else can join in and bet on your rollor against it.

One night, a little old lady in a funny hat kept betting a hundred dollars against Alans rolls, on which his bets were often up in the thousands. I could see Alan getting tense, but what really unhinged him was the croupier, who kept speaking in rhyme: Dont leave the gate before you play the hard eight. Alan gave him a murderous look. I dont mind losing my money, he said, but I dont need to lose it in rhyme. With that, Alan gave the old lady a get-lost glance, as if trying to break his hex. Then, with a show of defiance, he doubled his bet, and the croupier, out of instinct, said, Out of the door, come on a hard four Once again, Alan lost. He kept rolling, the old lady kept betting against him, and then the croupier let loose with another rhyme. Giving a drunken Tarzan shout, Alan leaped across the table and started strangling him. The guy was turning blue before the pit boss and a pack of security agents pulled Alan off.