Sidney Poitier became a Hollywood star during a time when Black film stars were still a distant dream for many. Born prematurely and underweight in Miami, on February 20, 1927 — during one of his tomato-farming parents’ frequent visits from the Bahamas — Poitier, the youngest of seven, gained automatic American citizenship but still grew up largely on tiny Cat Island, with a population of roughly 1500 without any modern conveniences, including electricity.
The move to Nassau proved to be just as difficult. Poitier dropped out of school at the age of 13 to support his family. He was 15 when the streets seemed to be getting the better of him and he was shipped to Miami to live alongside his brother. Life in Jim Crow America in the 1940s was not for the faint of heart, and a move to New York City didn’t immediately improve his circumstances.
Feigning mental illness to get out of the Army — in which he had enlisted, underage — was perhaps the first flash of the acting greatness that would later become Poitier’s signature. The prolific dishwasher began searching The Amsterdam News, a black newspaper, for jobs and stumbled upon an ad looking for actors for American Negro Theater (ANT). He answered that call and would meet Harry Belafonte. This would set him on a path that would transform his life and the entertainment industry.
Consider that even Paul Robeson (star of The Great Paul Robeson) is a star of “The Emperor Jones”(1933) “Showboat” (1936), failed to break through as a mainstream movie star, acting wasn’t the most practical choice for Poitier. Despite all odds, Poitier decided to pursue acting. He gave up his accent to learn how to act and worked as a janitor for ANT. It paid off, as he was first cast in the short-lived 1946 Broadway production as Probulos. “Lysistrata”Before taking on an understudy position in “Anna Lucasta,”That led to him joining the cast one-year later.
Poitier’s fortunes truly began to change, however, when Darryl F. Zanuck tapped him to play the capable Dr. Luther Brooks, charged with treating a white bigot, in “No Way Out” (1950). This role set the tone and was the starting point for many other race-conscious roles he would play. “model minority.”His success was furthered by a leading role in “Blackboard Jungle” (1955) before teaming with popular star Tony Curtis in director Stanley Kramer’s groundbreaking social-justice drama “The Defiant Ones” (1958). (1958). Poitier and Curtis played prison escapees chained together, and forced to rely on one another to survive. This became a commercial and critical hit.
This performance earned Poitier his first Best Actor Oscar nomination. It was also a first for a Black actor. With “Lilies of the Field” (1963) — as veteran Homer Smith, who assists impoverished nuns in their efforts to build a chapel — he shattered the Hollywood glass ceiling, becoming the first Black man to win the Best Actor Oscar and the only one to do so until Denzel Washington’s win for “Training Day” (2001).
On his way to winning the Academy Award, Poitier had confirmed his Hollywood bona fides as a dramatic actor, both by reprising his Tony-nominated role as Walter Lee Younger in playwright Lorraine Hansberry’s trailblazing Broadway play “A Raisin in the Sun,”in 1961, and by playing the role as Porgy in “Porgy and Bess” (1959). He was also establishing himself to be a rare Black romantic leader man, competing with Paul Newman. “Paris Blues”(1961), Diahann Carroll romancing her in what would eventually lead to an off-screen entanglement.
Poitier took his responsibility as a Black actor seriously, parlaying his stardom into real action and change, insisting on playing dignified Black men in an industry with a long history of perpetuating harmful stereotypes of subservient, lazy, and dangerous characters. That stance was particularly impactful to African American Film Critics Association president and CEO Gil Robertson IV. “In many ways, he was the ambassador of Black masculinity, almost single-handedly debunking the worst stereotypes about us, ranging from his roles as an everyman to those where he played a doctor or teacher,”Robertson stated this in a statement.
Poitier publicly and vocally supported the Civil Rights Movement. He attended the 1963 March on Washington. As the film’s lead actor in 1951 “Cry, the Beloved Country”This allowed him to give his voice to the antiApartheid movement at an early stage of the struggle. He played Nelson Mandela in the television movie after the fall of South African Apartheid. “Mandela and de Klerk”(1997), receiving an Emmy nomination.
1967 saw Poitier star in three hits films about race. For “In the Heat of the Night,” he starred as Philadelphia detective Virgil Tibbs, who travels to Mississippi to investigate a murder alongside a white cop; the film’s release came just three years after the real-life murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, who was Black, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were white, in the state.
In “To Sir, With Love,”He subtly attacked British racism as Mark Thackeray overqualified teacher, and he reunited to Kramer for “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” in which Poitier’s Dr. John Prentice forced white America to examine their feelings about interracial couplings mere months after “Loving v. Virginia”All laws prohibiting such marriages were overturned. Poitier does well in the second film and even goes toe to toe against screen legends Spencer Tracy, Katharine Shepburn.
Poitier’s career was not exempt from criticism, however. Donald Bogle, a Black Hollywood scholar, noted this in his indispensable bestseller “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks,” many in the Black community felt that Poitier’s films, particularly during his 1960s heyday, appealed to integrationist sensibilities.
Poitier moved to the back of the camera to direct and star as Black actors in films that addressed racial issues. The most memorable was his partnership with Bill Cosby for three classic Black comedy films. “Uptown Saturday Night” (1974), “Let’s Do It Again”(1975), “A Piece of the Action” (1977). Poitier’s directorial debut was the Black Western “Buck and the Preacher”(1972), alongside his old friends Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee. He was the first Black director ever to gross $100 million dollars at box office. “Stir Crazy”(1980), Starring Gene Wilder & Richard Pryor
“Through his groundbreaking roles and singular talent, Sidney Poitier epitomized dignity and grace, revealing the power of movies to bring us closer together,”Barack Obama tweeted. “He also opened doors for a generation of actors.”
Denzel Washington, a friend and mentor to Poitier, made this clear when he won his Oscar 2002. It was also the night that Poitier received an honorary award from the Academy and Halle Berry won her historic Oscar. “I’ll always be chasing you, Sidney,”He said. “I’ll always be following in your footsteps.”
Sidney Poitier (who died at 94) will be remembered for being a pioneer and trailblazer who conquered Hollywood with extraordinary talent, dignity, grace and set an example for others.
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