Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier ( PWAH-tyay; February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022) was a Bahamian and American actor, film director, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first Black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received two competitive Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, and a Grammy Award as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award. In 1999, he ranked among one of the “American Film Institute’s 100 Stars”.

Poitier was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.Poitier’s family lived in the Bahamas, then still a Crown colony, but he was born in Miami, Florida, while they were visiting, which automatically granted him U.S. citizenship. He grew up in the Bahamas, but moved to Miami at age 15, and to New York City when he was 16. He joined the American Negro Theatre, landing his breakthrough film role as a high school student in the film Blackboard Jungle (1955). Poitier gained stardom for his leading roles in films such as The Defiant Ones (1958) for which he made history becoming the first African American to receive an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination. Additionally Poitier won the Silver Bear for Best Actor for his performance. In 1964, he won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field (1963).Poitier also received acclaim for Porgy and Bess (1959), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), and A Patch of Blue (1965), because of his strong roles as epic African American male characters. He continued to break ground in three successful 1967 films which dealt with issues of race and race relations: To Sir, with Love; Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and In the Heat of the Night, the latter of which earned him Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations. In a poll the next year he was voted the US’s top box-office star. Poitier also directed various films, including A Warm December (1973), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), and Stir Crazy (1980). He later starred in Shoot to Kill (1988) and Sneakers (1992).

Poitier was granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in 1974. He received numerous honors including the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1982, the Kennedy Center Honor in 1995, Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Honorary Academy Award in 2002. In 2009, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. In 2016, he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for outstanding lifetime achievement in film. From 1997 to 2007, he was the Bahamian Ambassador to Japan.

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