Poitier << PWAH tee ay >>, Sidney (1927-2022), was an American motion-picture actor. He became the first African American to rise to the top in the film industry as a leading man rather than as a singer, dancer, or comedian. Poitier acted in a number of movies that deal realistically with racial problems in the United States. These films include No Way Out (1950), The Blackboard Jungle (1955), Edge of the City (1957), The Defiant Ones (1958), A Patch of Blue (1965), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), and In the Heat of the Night (1967). Poitier won an Academy Award for his performance in Lilies of the Field (1963). He was the first African American to win the Oscar in a leading role.
Poitier was born in Miami, Florida, on Feb. 20, 1927, and grew up in the Bahamas. About 1945, he began taking acting lessons at the American Negro Theater in New York City. He joined the cast of the Broadway play Anna Lucasta (1944) in 1947. In 1959, Poitier performed in the original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun. He performed in a motion-picture version of the play in 1961. Poitier’s other films include Cry, the Beloved Country (1951), Porgy and Bess (1959), To Sir, with Love (1967), For Love of Ivy (1968), and Shoot to Kill (1988). Poitier also directed a number of films, beginning with Buck and the Preacher (1972).
Poitier wrote three autobiographies: This Life (1980), The Measure of a Man (2000), and Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter (2008). In 2015, he won the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor given by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Poitier died on Jan. 6, 2022.
