NEW YORK (AP):
Sidney Poitier, the groundbreaking actor and enduring inspiration who transformed how black people were portrayed on screen, became the first black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw, has died. He was 94.
Poitier, winner of the best actor Oscar in 1964 for Lilies of the Field, died Thursday in the Bahamas, according to Eugene Torchon-Newry, acting director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Bahamas.
Few movie stars, black or white, had such an influence both on and off the screen. Before Poitier, the son of Bahamian tomato farmers, no black actor had a sustained career as a lead performer or could get a film produced based on his own star power. Before Poitier, few Black actors were permitted a break from the stereotypes of bug-eyed servants and grinning entertainers. Before Poitier, Hollywood film-makers rarely even attempted to tell a black person’s story.
Poitier’s rise mirrored profound changes in the country in the 1950s and 1960s. As racial attitudes evolved during the civil rights era and segregation laws were challenged and fell, Poitier was the performer to whom a cautious industry turned for stories of progress.
He was the escaped black convict who befriends a racist white prisoner (Tony Curtis) in The Defiant Ones. He was the courtly office worker who falls in love with a blind white girl in A Patch of Blue. He was the handyman in Lilies of the Field who builds a church for a group of nuns. In one of the great roles of the stage and screen, he was the ambitious young father whose dreams clashed with those of other family members in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.
Debates about diversity in Hollywood inevitably turn to the story of Poitier. With his handsome, flawless face; intense stare and disciplined style, he was for years not just the most popular black movie star, but the only one.
Films of Sidney Poitier include:
– From Whence Cometh Help (Army documentary), 1949.
– No Way Out, 1950.
– Cry the Beloved Country, 1952.
– Red Ball Express, 1952.
– Go Man Go!, 1954.
– The Blackboard Jungle, 1955.
– Goodbye My Lady, 1956.
– Edge of the City, 1957.
– Something of Value, 1957.
– Band of Angles, 1957.
– The Mark of the Hawk, 1958.
– The Defiant Ones, 1958.
– Porgy and Bess, 1959.
– All the Young Men, 1960.
– Virgin Island, 1960.
– A Raisin in the Sun, 1961.
– Paris Blues, 1961.
– Pressure Point, 1962.
– Lilies of the Field, 1963.
– The Long Ships, 1964.
– The Greatest Story Ever Told, 1965.
– The Bedford Incident, 1965.
– A Patch of Blue, 1965.
– The Slender Thread, 1965.
– Duel at Diabolo, 1966.
– In the Heat of the Night, 1967.
– To Sir With Love, 1967.
– Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967.
– For Love of Ivy (also story), 1968.
– The Lost Man, 1969.
– They Call Me Mister Tibbs! 1970.
– Brother John, 1971.
– The Organization, 1971.
– Buck and the Preacher (also director), 1972.
– A Warm December (also director), 1973.
– Uptown Saturday Night (also director), 1974.
– Let’s Do It Again (also director), 1975.
– The Wilby Conspiracy, 1975.
– A Piece of the Action (also director), 1977.
– Stir Crazy (director only), 1980.
– Hanky Panky (director only), 1982.
– Fast Forward (director only), 1985.
– Shoot to Kill, 1988.
– Little Nikita, 1988.
– Ghost Dad (director only), 1990.
– Separate But Equal, 1991.
– Sneakers, 1992.
– Children of the Dust, 1995.
– To Sir, With Love II, 1996.
– Mandela and de Klerk, 1997.
– The Jackal, 1997.
– David and Lisa, 1998.
– Free of Eden, 1999.
– The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn, 1999.
– The Last Brickmaker in America, 2001.
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