Sidney Poitier

At 94 years old, Sidney Poitier has this physical status:

Sir Sidney Poitier (born February 20, 1927) is a Bahamian-American actor and film director.

He received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor, one of which he became the first black actor to win the honor.

He was also nominated six times for both the Golden Globe for Best Actor and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award (BAFTA) for Best Foreign Actor, winning both awards once each.

He served as the Bahamian Ambassador to Japan from 1997 to 2007, but his family was born in Miami while visiting Japan, thereby obtaining American citizenship.

He grew up in the Bahamas before heading to New York when he was 16.

He joined the North American Negro Theatre in 1950, gaining his first film role in Blackboard Jungle (1955), giving him his first film appearance. Poitier starred alongside Tony Curtis in the critically acclaimed The Defiant Ones as stranded prisoners who have to work together and cannot survive.

Early life

Poitier was born in Miami, Florida, on February 20, 1927. He was the youngest of seven children born to Evelyn (née Outten) and Reginald Poitier, Afro-Bahamian farmers who owned a farm on Cat Island. The family will fly to Miami to sell tomatoes and other produce to wholesalers. In Nassau, his father also worked as a taxi driver. Poitier was born in Miami during his parents' absence, but his parents stayed in Miami for three months to nurse him back to health. Poitier grew up in the Bahamas and then became a British Crown colony. His citizenship in the United States granted him the right to vote in the United States.

According to some, the Poitier ancestors immigrated from Haiti and were most likely among the runaway slaves who established maroon colonies throughout the Bahamas, including Cat Island. Poitier was originally a French name, but there were no Poitiers of French ancestry around in the Bahamas. On Cat Island, however, there had been a Poitier of French ancestry, based on a planter named Charles Leonard Poitier, who had immigrated from Jamaica in the early 1800s. His wife's estate on Cat Island, 1834, had 86 slaves of West African origin who retained the name Poitier, a word that had not been present in the Anglosphere since the Norman Conquest in the eleventh century. Charles Leonard Poitier may have come from Haiti, but he had lived in Jamaica before.

Sidney Poitier and his family lived on Cat Island until he was ten years old, when they moved to Nassau. He was introduced to the modern world, where he saw his first automobile and first encountered electricity, plumbing, refrigeration, and motion pictures. He was raised Catholic but later became an agnostic with views closer to deism.

He was sent to Miami to live with his brother's large family at age 15, but Poitier found it difficult to adjust to Jim Crow era Florida. He migrated to New York City, aiming to become an actor, and during that time he worked as a dishwasher. An elderly Jewish waiter sat with him every night for several weeks, assisting him in improving his reading by using the newspaper after failing his first audition with the American Negro Theatre due to his inability to fluently read the script. He lied about his age and enlisted in the Army during World War II in November 1943. He was admitted to a Veteran's Administration hospital in Northport, New York, and was trained to deal with psychiatric patients. Poitier became outraged with the hospital's treatment of its patients and the appearance of a mental disorder in order to receive a discharge. Poitier admitted to a psychiatrist that he was faking his illness, but the doctor was kind and gave him his discharge under Army rule 615–360 in December 1944.

He served as a dishwasher until an outstanding audition landed him a position in an American Negro Theatre production, the same company with which he failed his first audition.

Personal life

Poitier was first married to Juanita Hardy from April 29, 1950, to 1965. Although Poitier became a resident of Mount Vernon, New York, in 1956, they raised their family in Stuyvesant, New York, in a house on the Hudson River. Poitier began a nine-year relationship with actress Diahann Carroll in 1959. On January 23, 1976, Joanna Shimkus, a Canadian actress who appeared with Poitier in The Lost Man, married him and they stayed married until his death. He had four daughters with his first wife (Beverly, Pamela, Sherri, and Gina), and two with his second (Anika and Sydney Tamiia). Poitier had eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren in addition to his six children. When Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas in September 2019, Poitier's family had 23 people missing.

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Career

Poitier debuted at the American Negro Theater but audiences turned him down. Poitier's demeanor made him unable to sing, contrary to what was expected of black actors at the time. He spent the next six months dedicated to theater success, determined to improve his acting abilities and rid himself of his distinctive Bahamian accent. After radio host Norman Brokenshire, he based his legendary speech style on radio personality Norman Brokenshire. On his second attempt at the theater, he was noticed and given a leading role in the Broadway revival of Lysistrata, which also ran a failing four days, but Anna Lucasta was given the opportunity to understudy.

Poitier, a founding member of the Negro in the Arts (CNA), an association whose participants adhered to a left-wing view of class and racial exploitation. In the early 1950s, he was Vice Chair of the organization, among other CNA-related activities. He was one of many narrators in Alice Childress and Lorraine Hansberry's pageant for the Negro History Festival, which was hosted by the leftist Harlem monthly newspaper Freedom in 1952.

His involvement in such shows and CNA as a whole, as well as his acquaintances with other leftist Black artists, including Canada Lee and Paul Robeson, culminated in his subsequent blacklisting for a few years. Even associating with Poitier, Alfred Palca, writer and producer of one of Poitier's oldest films, was blacklisted by them. Go Man Go is a documentary that went back to Poitier's oldest films.

Despite being questioned in connection with his potential participation in Blackboard Jungle (1955), Poitier did not sign a loyalty oath.

Poitier had to choose between leading roles on stage and an invitation to perform for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out (1950). His role in No Way Out, as a doctor treating a Caucasian bigot (played by Richard Widmark, who became a friend), was noticed and led to more roles, each more interesting and more prominent than those of the time's leading African-American actors. He and African-American actor Canada Lee travelled to South Africa in 1951 to appear in the film version of Cry, the Beloved Country. Gregory W. Miller, a graduate of an incorrigible high-school class in Blackboard Jungle (1955), continued his success in his role as Poitier. But it wasn't until he appeared in Martin Ritt's 1957 Edge of the City that the company could not ignore. He was given a pitch toward fame.

Poitier loved working for director William Wellman on Good-bye, My Lady (1956). Wellman was a big name, and he had previously produced the fabled Roxie Hart (1942) with Ginger Rogers and Magic Town (1947) with James Stewart. In this talented writer, Poitier remembered indelibly was the rich humanity of his character. Wellman had a keenness that Poitier believed was profound, something Wellman felt he had to hide. When he learned that he would inherit the helm from Joseph Sargent on Buck and the Preacher in 1971, Poitier praised Wellman for his thoughtful approach to directing.

In 1958, Tony Curtis appeared in director Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones. With the performances of both Poitier and Curtis being lauded, the film was a critical and commercial success. Both actors received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor, making Poitier the first Black male actor to be nominated for a prestigious Academy Award as the best actor. Poitier received the British Academy Film Award for Best Foreign Actor.

Poitier appeared on stage in A Raisin in the Sun with Ruby Dee on the Broadway stage at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1959. Lloyd Richards directed the performance. Black life was introduced to the overwhelmingly white audiences of Broadway, while director Richards noted that this was the first play to which large numbers of Black people were drawn. With Frank Rich, a critic from The New York Times, reporting in 1983 that A Raisin in the Sun "changed American theater forever." He received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination for his efforts. Poitier would appear in Porgy and Bess (1959) alongside Dorothy Dandridge in the same year. Poitier received a 1960 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Poitier appeared in the film version of A Raisin in the Sun in 1961, for which he received his second Golden Globe Award nomination. Poitier appeared in Paris Blues with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Louis Armstrong, and Diahann Carroll. The film compared American bigotry of the day to Paris' open embrace of Black people. In 1963, he appeared in Lilies of the Field. He received the Academy Award for Best Actor and became the first Black male to win the honor. His excitement at this award was tempered by his fear that this was more of the company's lauding of him as a token, not a method that would discourage him from seeking further substantive considerations afterward. Poitier continued to act modestly over the next year; he was the sole major actor of African descent; and the roles offered were mostly typecast as a soft-spoken appeaser.

Poitier Meets Plato, a collection of Poitier's writings, was released in 1964 by Poitier and Katz, who also included excerpts from Plato's book Poitier Meets Plato. He appeared in the Cold War comedy The Bedford Incident (1965), alongside Richard Widmark, the film's director, and Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters, co-starring Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters (1965).

With three classic films, To Sir, with Love, and In the Heat of the Night, he was the most profitable draw at the box office in 1967, the commercial peak of his career, and guess who's coming to dinner. Despite the fact that these three films had no synchrony, they did not all agree on the black and white divide, although not necessarily in a negative way.

Poitier, the love of Sir, is a teacher at a secondary school in London's East End. The film explores racial and racial inequalities in the inner city school. Poitier's role was met with mixed reception; however, the film's producer, Time, celebrated his performance, "Even the weak scenes are saved by Poitier, who invests his role with a subtle warmth."

Poitier played Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia police detective who prosecutes a murder in the deep south of Mississippi, alongside a cop with racial prejudices played by Rod Steiger, in Norman Jewison's mystery drama In the Heat of the Night. The film was a critical success, with Bosley Crowther of The New York Times describing it as "the most powerful film I have seen in a long time." Roger Ebert's top ten list of 1967 films ranked it at number ten on his top ten list. Art Murphy of Variety said that the outstanding Poitier and Steiger performances overcame significant flaws, including an uneven script. For his appearance, Poitier received a Golden Globe Award and a British Academy Film Award nomination.

Poitier played a man in a relationship with a White woman played by Katharine Houghton in Stanley Kramer's social drama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy's film revolves around her taking him to visit with her parents. The film was one of the few films to portray an interracial romance in a positive light, considering that interracial unions had long been outlawed in the majority states. It was still illegal in 17 states—mostly Southern states—before June 12, 1967, six months before the film was released. The film was a commercial and financial success. Roger Ebert wrote a film review of Poitier's character as "a noble, wealthy, sensitive, handsome, ethical medical specialist" and that the film "is a magnificent work of entertainment." It will make you laugh and even cry." Poitier had to audition for Tracy and Hepburn at two separate dinner parties in order to win his role as Dr. Prentice in the film.

Poitier began to be mocked for being over-idealized African-American characters who were not allowed to have any sexuality or personality defects, such as his character in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Poitier was aware of this pattern but was unconcerned on the subject. He wanted more diverse roles in Hollywood; but he also felt obliged to lead by example with his characters by challenging old stereotypes, as he was the only major actor of African descent being cast in leading roles. For example, in 1966, he turned down the opportunity to star in an NBC television version of Othello with the same attitude. Despite this, many of Poitier's films in the 1960s will later be cited as social thrillers by both filmmakers and observers.

Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania detective whose subsequent life was the subject of two sequels, was one of his most popular characters in Heat of the Night. (1970) and The Organization (1971).

Poitier appeared in the Western Buck and Preacher, a 1973 film directedorial debut for him, as well as Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee. Joseph Sargent, the original director, was fired by Poitier. He directed his second film, A Warm December, in the following year. Poitier appeared in the film alongside Esther Anderson.

Poitier made several commercially successful comedy films during the 1970s, including three in which he also appeared: Uptown Saturday Night (1974) with Bill Cosby and Harry Belafonte; and A Piece of the Act (1977), both with Cosby. Stir Crazy (1980), starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, was the highest-grossing film directed by a person of African descent for many years.

He directed Fast Forward in 1985 and Cosby reunited him with Cosby in 1990, directing him in the family comedy Ghost Dad.

In 1988, he appeared in Shoot to Kill with Tom Berenger. He appeared in Sneakers with Robert Redford and Dan Aykroyd in 1992. He co-starred in The Jackal with Richard Gere and Bruce Willis in 1997. He appeared in many well-received television films and miniseries, including Separate but Equal (1991), To Sir, with Love II (1996), Mandela and de Klerk (1997), and Noah Dearborn (1999). He was nominated for his performances in Separate But Equal and Mandela and de Klerk, as well as a Golden Globe award for the former. In 2001, he received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.

Poitier received the 2001 Honorary Academy Award for his lifetime contribution to American cinema in 2002. Denzel Washington received the Award for Best Actor for his appearance in Training Day later this year, making him the second Black actor to receive the honor. In his victory address, Washington lauded Poitier's words, "I'll always be after you, Sidney." I'll be following in your footsteps. Sir, there's nothing I'd rather do.

Poitier became the first living recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actor after Ernest Borgnine's death in 2012. Poitier received the Best Director Award at the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014. He was lauded and praised for all his Hollywood appearances, including: "We are in debt." To warm applause, Poitier delivered a brief address, reminding his followers to "keep the good work." In 2021, the academy dedicated the lobby of the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles as the "Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby" in honor.

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