Shari Lynn Belafonte is an actress, writer, model, and singer from the United States. The daughter of the late singer Harry Belafonte, she started out as a fashion model before making her big screen debut in the 1982 drama film If You Could See What I Hear.
She is best known for playing Julie Gillette on the 1983–1988 ABC soap series Hotel. She went on to be the main character in the Canadian science fiction show Beyond Reality, which ran from 1991 to 1993.
In the 1980s, Belafonte also made two studio records and later worked as an actor on stage.
Early Life
Shari Belafonte is the second daughter of a psychologist, Marguerite (nee Byrd), and a singer and actor from New York, Harry Belafonte. When her mother was pregnant with her, her parents broke up.
She went to Georgetown Day School in Washington, DC, Windsor Mountain School in Lenox, Massachusetts, and Buxton School in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
She then went to Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, before transferring to Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where she got her Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama.
Her father’s mother and father were both from Jamaica, but her mother was from Scotland and her father was from Africa.
Her grandpa on her father’s side was also born in Jamaica. He was the child of a black mother and a Sephardic Jewish Dutch-Jewish father. Harry Jr. was brought up as a Catholic.
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Net Worth
Shari Belafonte is an American singer, actress, model, and writer with a $5 million net worth. Shari Belafonte was born in September 1954 in New York City, New York. She is the singer Harry Belafonte’s daughter.
She used to be a model and was in ads for Calvin Klein jeans. Belafonte’s most famous part was as Julie Gillette in the TV show Hotel, which he played from 1983 to 1988.
She played the role of Laura Wingate on the TV show Beyond Reality from 1991 to 1993. Belafonte did character work for the TV shows Gravedale High, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Hey Arnold!
Career
1980s
Belafonte started her work as a model. She became a popular “cover girl” and was in ads for Calvin Klein jeans. In 1982, the movies Time Walker and If You Could See What I Hear were her first big-screen roles.
She then worked as a production assistant and assistant director for public television on the East Coast before moving to Los Angeles and becoming an assistant to the publicist at Hanna-Barbera projects.
She did some work “behind the scenes” and also did some modeling and advertising work. As of 2015, she was known to have been on the covers of more than 300 magazines.
Other full-length movies she has been in are Speed Zone, The Midnight Hour, a horror-comedy made for TV in which she sang the song “Get Dead,” and Fire, Ice, and Dynamite.
Aaron Spelling picked Belafonte as a finalist for the role of Julie Rogers on Charlie’s Angels, which was written with her in mind. However, Tanya Roberts got the part instead. In 1981, she was cast in an episode of the second season of Hart to Hart as a fashion model.
Spelling did pick her for another pilot in 1984. This time, it was for the action-adventure show Velvet, which she starred in with Leah Ayres, Mary Margaret Humes, and Sheree J. Wilson.
Spelling hired Belafonte the same year to play Julie Gilette on the ABC soap series Hotel. She played Julie Gilette for the show’s five-year run, from 1983 to 1988.
During this time, Belafonte started her music career by signing a deal to record on the Metronome Records label. She put out two studio albums, The Eyes of Night in 1987 and Shari in 1989.
1990s–Present
In 1990, Belafonte played the title part in the long-running Los Angeles production of Tamara, which was her first time on stage. Soon after that, she played Dr. Laura Wingate on the drama series Beyond Reality, which ran for two seasons on the USA Network from 1991 to 1993.
In the 1990s, she was in a number of TV movies with Susan Lucci, Jamie Lee Curtis, and others. Some of these movies were French Silk (1994), The Heidi Chronicles (1995), Babylon 5: Thirdspace (1998), and Loving Evangeline (1999).
She also co-hosted the syndicated show Lifestyles with Robin Leach and Shari Belafonte from 1994 to 1995. This show was an updated version of Leach’s most popular show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
She was the host of “Travels in Mexico and the Caribbean with Shari Belafonte” on NYC Media in 2006. Belafonte’s work has many different parts, such as moderating and doing voiceovers.
Belafonte was the voice of Mrs. Johanssen, Gerald’s mother, in four episodes of Hey Arnold!, Diana Cruz in one episode of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and Blanche, an undead Southern belle zombie, in Gravedale High.
She has worked as a producer for theater, public and network TV, and full-length movies. She is involved in many causes for children, animals, and the environment, and she is now the world spokesperson for the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
Shari has been a spokesperson for a number of companies, such as Bally’s International Health and Fitness, Slim-Fast, Diet System 6, and Estroven. The Wall Street Journal named her one of the top ten famous endorsers.
Belafonte had a few small roles on TV in the 2000s. He was a guest star on episodes of The District and Nip/Tuck. In December 2015, it was reported that Belafonte would replace Saidah Arrika Ekulona as Mayor Janice Lomax on the ABC daytime soap opera General Hospital on January 19, 2016.
The last time we saw her was on December 20, 2017. In 2019, she started playing Julia in the drama series The Morning Show, which airs on Apple TV+. Later that year, she joined the BET comedy-drama series Sistas as Ebony Obsidian’s character’s mother.
