Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier, born February 20, 1927, in Miami, Florida, and raised in the Bahamas, was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and diplomat who lived until January 6, 2022. His birth in Miami occurred while his Afro-Bahamian parents, Evelyn and Reginald James Poitier, were traveling from the Bahamas to sell produce to wholesalers, and the premature birth — two months early — granted him U.S. citizenship. He was the youngest of seven children. The family farmed on Cat Island in the Bahamas, where Poitier spent his early years before the family relocated to Nassau when he was ten. At fifteen he was sent to Miami to live with a brother's family, but the conditions of Jim Crow-era Florida proved intolerable, and at sixteen he moved to New York City to pursue acting while working as a dishwasher.

Poitier's path into theater began with the American Negro Theatre, where an initial failed audition — hampered by difficulty reading the script — was followed by months of literacy coaching from an elderly Jewish waiter who used newspapers to help him improve. After a successful second audition, he secured a leading role in the Broadway production of Lysistrata. Though the production ran only four days, it led directly to an invitation for Poitier to understudy in Anna Lucasta. He appeared on Broadway from 1946 to 1959, with his most prominent stage credit being A Raisin in the Sun, for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play in 1960.

During his early years in New York, Poitier worked to eliminate his Bahamian accent and modeled his speech patterns after radio personality Norman Brokenshire. He also became politically active, serving as a founding member of the Committee for the Negro in the Arts in 1947 and later as a Vice Chair of the organization in the early 1950s. His associations with left-wing performers and organizations, including friendships with Canada Lee and Paul Robeson, led to a period of blacklisting. Despite pressure connected to his role in Blackboard Jungle (1955), he never signed a loyalty oath.

His film career gained momentum with No Way Out (1950), in which he appeared alongside Ruby Dee, and continued with Cry, the Beloved Country (1951), filmed in South Africa. His role in Blackboard Jungle brought him wider recognition, and Martin Ritt's Edge of the City (1957) further established his standing in the industry. He earned his first Academy Award for Best Actor nomination for The Defiant Ones (1958), becoming the first African American to receive that nomination, and also won the Silver Bear for Best Actor for that film. In 1964, he won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field (1963), becoming the first Black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award in that category. The following year a poll named him the top box-office star in the United States.

Poitier appeared in three films in 1967 that each addressed race and race relations in America: To Sir, with Love; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; and In the Heat of the Night, the last of which earned him Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations. His other notable film credits include Porgy and Bess (1959), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), and A Patch of Blue (1965). He made his directorial debut with Buck and the Preacher (1972) and went on to direct A Warm December (1973), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), and Stir Crazy (1980). Later acting credits include Shoot to Kill (1988) and Sneakers (1992).

Among his many honors, Poitier received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1974, the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1982, the Kennedy Center Honor in 1995, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1999, an Honorary Academy Award in 2002, the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2009, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2016. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him number 22 on its list of the 100 greatest American film stars. From 1997 to 2007, he served as the Bahamian Ambassador to Japan. His accolades across his career also include two competitive Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, and a Grammy Award, in addition to Emmy Award nominations.