Sidney Poitier’s Career Highlights

By Rachel West. 7 Jan 2022 1:51 PM

Actor and longtime activist Sidney Poitier died at age 94 on Jan. 6, 2022, leaving an everlasting legacy. These are just some of the highlights of his life and career.

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He Experienced Racism For The First Time At A Young Age

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An Exciting Start
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Sidney Poitier was born in Miami, Florida, on February 27, 1927. Born to Bahamian farmers, his birth came prematurely while his parents were on a trip to Miami to sell tomatoes. His birth on U.S. soil granted him American citizenship, as well as Bahamian. Raised on Cat Island before the family relocated to Nassau, Bahamas, Poitier’s family are believed to have originated in Haiti and that his ancestors were runaway slaves.
He Experienced Racism For The First Time At A Young Age
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At age 15, Poitier moved to Miami to live with his brother before settling in New York City. It was in the U.S. where he first encountered racism, later recalling, "I lived in a country where I couldn't get a job, except those put aside for my colour or my caste,” he told CNN in 2002.
Acting Beginnings
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After a stint in the U.S. army at a hospital on Long Island treating WWII veterans, he joined the American Negro Theatre in Harlem, setting him on his acting career path. But it wasn’t an easy journey. Still speaking with a Bahamian accent, Poitier wasn’t immediately welcomed into the theatre troupe, telling CNN his first audition was a flop, leading the company’s director to tell Poitier to get a job as a dishwasher.

“[That] implied to me that that was his perception of me,” Poitier recalled. “So I decided before I got to the bus stop at 135 Street and 7th Avenue that I was going to become an actor. But it was to show him that he was wrong in that prognostication of me. That I was going to be an actor.”

Eventually he was able to join the troupe – but as a janitor in exchange for acting lessons. Poitier lost his accent and was soon starring in productions with the company.
Early Film Roles
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After a spell in theatre, Poitier moved into the world of film, landing his first speaking role in 1950’s “No Way Out”, in which he played a young doctor confronted by a racist patient. The part earned him the attention of Hollywood, leading him to be cast in his breakthrough role as a disruptive student in 1955’s “Blackboard Jungle”, a critical and commercial hit.
Major Hollywood Firsts
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Poitier became the first Black actor to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for 1955’s “The Defiant Ones”, a crime drama about two escaped convicts chained together - one Black, one white – who must learn to get along in order to evade capture. Though Poitier didn’t win, only a few years later he would become the first Black actor to win the award for his role in “Lilies Of The Field”. In the film, Poitier plays a travelling handyman who helps a group of nuns build a chapel in the desert.

Poitier was also part of another major on-screen first. He shared cinema’s first interracial kiss, between a Black man and a white woman, in the 1965 drama “A Patch Of Blue”.
A Blockbuster Year
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There’s no denying Poitier was the star of 1967. The actor appeared in the three highest-grossing movies of the year – “In The Heat Of The Night”, “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?” and “To Sir, With Love”. His performance as a Black police detective who works alongside a racist cop to solve a murder in Canadian director Norman Jewison’s “In The Heat Of The Night” gave Poitier one of cinema’s most iconic lines – “They call me Mr. Tibbs!”
Civil Rights Activism
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With the growing civil rights movement in the U.S., Poitier was happy to stand as an example of Black excellence. Poitier attended Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963 and travelled throughout the South with fellow activist and entertainer Harry Belafonte. For Poitier, his acting was also part of his activism. “I was a pretty good actor and I believed in brotherhood. I hated racism and segregation. And I was a symbol against those things,” he later said. “I go in front of a camera with a responsibility to be at least respectful of certain values,” Poitier once told the Museum of Living History. “My values are not disconnected from the values of the Black community.”
A Bizarre Twist
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In 1983, 19-year-old David Hampton pretended to be Poitier’s estranged son and managed to convince wealthy New Yorkers to provide him with food, clothing, money, and a home. Eventually, Hampton was discovered and charged with grand larceny. The bizarre story became the basis for the stage play “Six Degrees Of Separation”, which was eventually adapted into the 1993 movie of the same name starring Will Smith in one of his first film roles.
Later Years
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Retiring from acting in 2001 with his final performance in the TV movie “The Last Brickmaker in America”, Poitier dedicated his later years to diplomacy, philanthropy, and his continued activism. He served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan from 1997 to 2007, was awarded a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1974, as well as almost every single honour that can be bestowed on an actor, including a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars.
Medal Of Freedom
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In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded Poitier the U.S. Medal Of Freedom, the highest honour bestowed upon a civilian. “It’s been said that Sidney Poitier does not make movies; he makes milestones,” Obama remarked during the ceremony. “Milestones of artistic excellence, milestones of America’s progress. On screen and behind the camera… Poitier not only entertained but enlightened, shifting attitudes, broadening hearts, revealing the power of the silver screen to bring us closer together.”

Sidney Poitier’s Career Highlights

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