Sidney Poitier

Actor, director and humanitarian

More than an actor (and Academy-Award winner), Sidney Poitier is an artist. A writer and director, a thinker and critic, a humanitarian and diplomat, his presence as a cultural icon has long been one of protest and humanity. His career defined and documented the modern history of blacks in American film, and his depiction of proud and powerful characters was and remains revolutionary. 

Throughout the fifties, Poitier made some of the most important and controversial movies of the time. Addressing issues of racial equality abroad, he made Cry, The Beloved Country, about apartheid in South Africa. He later took on problems closer to home in Blackboard Jungle and especially The Defiant Ones, about two escaped prisoners who must overcome issues of race in their struggle for freedom. For his role in The Defiant Ones, Poitier was nominated for an Academy Award.He was also a stage actor, appearing in Lorraine Hansberry's play "A Raisin in the Sun," the first play by a black playwright to show on Broadway.

It was not, however, until 1963, for his role in Lillies of the Field, that the movie industry saluted Poitier with its greatest award. In an era where Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Prize and Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court, Sidney Poitier was the first black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. 

He then starred in  In the Heat of the Night, With Patch of Blue and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and was one of Hollywood's most popular stars by the late sixties.

Poitier shifted his energies from acting to directing. Poitier directed a series of highly entertaining films, including Uptown Saturday Night, Let's Do It Again, and the classic comedy Stir Crazy, starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.

After a decade away from acting, Sidney returned to the screen in 1988 for Shoot to Kill .and in the 1997 television docudrama Mandela and De Klerk, which returned Poitier triumphantly to a theme he has dealt with throughout his career.

After half a century in show business and fifty-five roles, Sidney Poitier's indomitable strength and commitment shine through in everything he does: "I was saying to an audience, this is who I am; look at me."