Sidney Poitier (1927–2022) was a Bahamian American actor, director, and producer. The first black American actor to achieve superstar status, he was the first African American to win an Academy Award for best actor.
Born to Bahamian parents while visiting Miami to sell tomatoes in 1927, Poitier was raised in the Bahamas—then a British colony—before returning to America at age 15. He held a series of low-paid jobs before briefly serving in the army during World War II. He auditioned for the high-profile American Negro Theater, based in Harlem, and although he was rejected, he worked hard to improve his acting skills. A Broadway director spotted him, and Poitier subsequently carved out a budding career in the Black theatre circuit of the period.
Poitier’s first significant film role was No Way Out (1950.) His breakthrough role was in Blackboard Jungle (1955.) Lilies of the Field (1963, for which he won an Oscar,) Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967,) and In the Heat of the Night (1967) followed. He also redefined roles for African Americans by rejecting parts that were based on racial stereotypes.
Poitier directed numerous films, including Buck and the Preacher and Stir Crazy, and he served as Bahamian ambassador to Japan 1997–2007.
Poitier’s biographies are This Life (1980) and The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiograph (2000.) He also wrote Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter (2008) and the suspense novel Montaro Caine (2013.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Sidney Poitier
We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists … in the loved one, perfection.
—Sidney Poitier
Topics: Love
Since I couldn’t actuate the things that I wanted to do, the only weapon I had was to say no
—Sidney Poitier
Topics: Weapon
If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you’re not going to get very far. You simply won’t. The journey has been incredible from its beginning. So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.
—Sidney Poitier
Topics: Chance
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