'Calypso' crooner honored by NAACP for life's work

Olympian news services

Originally published Sunday, April 7, 2002

DETROIT -- Actor Harry Belafonte is being honored for his career by the NAACP Detroit branch with a lifetime achievement award.

"Mr. Belafonte has been a great role model," said the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Belafonte possesses "not only professional gifts and talents," Anthony said, "but he also reflects the gift of social sacrifice and political consciousness that has helped African-Americans in their struggle."

The April 28 Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner, where the award will be given out, is part of the Detroit NAACP's Freedom Weekend celebration.

Belafonte, 75, befriended the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement and helped finance Freedom Rides and voter-registration drives. He starred in the 1954 film "Carmen Jones," and his album "Calypso" sold 1 million copies.

YORK, Pa. -- Sidney Poitier says he didn't have to spend much time writing his speech accepting a lifetime achievement Oscar and thanking all the black actors and actresses who helped pave the way.

"It didn't take that long, because I was speaking what I believed to be the truth, every moment of which was lived," said Poitier, who spoke Friday at the Junior League of York. "So it wasn't hard to find the words."

In addition to his special Oscar, Poitier won the 1963 best-actor award for "Lilies of the Field."

He said he's been re-examining who he is -- and who Americans are -- in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

He urged people to look "past the veneer of surface appearances," adding, "When surface appearances become all we see, surface appearances become all we know."

BOZEMAN, Mont. -- The daughters of the late broadcast journalist Charles Kuralt will have to pay death taxes on 90 acres his secret mistress inherited after a drawn-out trial.

District Judge Loren Tucker ruled that Kuralt's daughters by his first marriage, Susan Bowers and Lisa Bowers White, who make up Kuralt's estate, will have to pay the taxes on the fishing retreat along the Big Hole River.

Kuralt's daughters are considering an appeal of the March 26 ruling, their attorney, Gary Bjelland, said Friday.

Generally death taxes are apportioned according to the value of inherited property that goes to each party, the lawyers said. But Kuralt's will stated that all death taxes should be paid by the estate "without apportionment."

Kuralt, the folksy CBS reporter who described the lives of ordinary and outstanding Americans, died in 1997.

His wife of 35 years, Suzanne Baird Kuralt of New York City, found out after his death that her husband had been leading a double life with another woman.

In December 2000, the Montana Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower court's ruling that the fishing retreat belonged to Patricia Shannon, and not Kuralt's daughters, citing a letter Kuralt wrote to Shannon two weeks before he died.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- The roommate of Michelle Rodriguez has dropped assault charges she brought last month against the actress, who once played a boxer in a movie.

Louise Ann Ward, 21, said in court Thursday that she didn't want to go forward with simple assault and harassment charges.

Ward walked out of Jersey City Municipal Court with Rodriguez, who said, "Friends fight, and then they make up."

Ward told police that Rodriguez attacked her March 16 in the Jersey City apartment they shared, punching her, pulling her hair and briefly blocking her from leaving the apartment. Ward suffered a swollen right eye and a laceration, and Rodriguez was treated for a bite wound at a hospital.

Rodriguez starred as a boxer in 2000's "Girlfight." Her other films include "Resident Evil" and "The Fast and the Furious."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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