Sidney Poitier on the set of To Sir With Love in 1966.
Larry Ellis/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Iconic film star Sidney Poitier, the primary Black actor to win the perfect actor Oscar, has died. He was 94.
Poitier received the Oscar for 1963 drama Lilies of the Field, changing into the second African-American to win an Academy Award. He had been the primary Black particular person nominated as finest actor, for 1958’s The Defiant Ones, however his win got here after Hattie McDaniel received Best Supporting Actress for Gone with the Wind.
Get the CNET Culture e-newsletter
Explore motion pictures, video games, superheroes and extra with CNET Culture. Delivered Tuesdays and Fridays.
Born unexpectedly on a weekend journey to Miami in 1927, Poitier was raised within the Bahamas. At 15 he moved to the US and, after mendacity about his age, served within the US Army throughout World War II, working in a veterans hospital. After changing into a stage actor with the American Negro Theater, he bought his breakthrough movie position in 1955’s Blackboard Jungle.
As nicely as a pioneering Black main man, he was a visual activist for civil rights. In 1967 alone, on the peak of the civil rights motion, he starred in three basic movies that handled racial stress: To Sir, with Love; Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner; and In the Heat of the Night.
Other movies during which he starred included Porgy and Bess, Paris Blues, Uptown Saturday Night, The Wilby Conspiracy and Sneakers.
Poitier additionally directed a lot of movies, together with the hit Stir Crazy, and in later life served because the Bahamian ambassador to Japan.
Tributes poured in from mates and followers together with Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Morgan Freeman.
Through his groundbreaking roles and singular expertise, Sidney Poitier epitomized dignity and charm, revealing the facility of films to carry us nearer collectively. He additionally opened doorways for a technology of actors. Michelle and I ship our like to his household and legion of followers. pic.twitter.com/zkYKFSxfKA
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 7, 2022