Sidney Poitier, a cornerstone of 21st century acting, film direction, activism and the first Black male and first Bahamian actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, has died at the age of 94. The Bahamian minister of foreign affairs Fred Mitchell confirmed Poitier’s death on January 7, 2020.
Born in Miami, Florida on February 20, 1927 to Bahamian parents, Poitier recalled coming into the “modern” world when he moved to the city of Nassau at the age of 10, where he was first exposed to motion pictures and the medium of film.
After a brief stint in the military at the age of 16 during World War II, where he was discharged on the grounds of mental illness, he soon found himself as a dishwasher. During this time in his life, he was already pursuing a career in acting, his first opportunity came when a successful audition landed him a role in a American Negro Theater production in 1945.
His breakout role came in 1955, when he was cast as Gregory W. Miller, a member of an incorrigible high-school class in the Richard Brooks-directed Blackboard Jungle.
In 1958, Poitier starred alongside Tony Curtis in the Stanley Kramer-directed film The Defiant Ones, a tale of two prisoners who escaped prison and actively work to avoid re-capture. The film came under critical acclaim, landing Poitier the Academy Award for Best Actor, making him the first Black man to receive the award, alongside the Academy Award, Poitier won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Foreign Actor and the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear Award for the same role.
Later in life, Poitier was appointed as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan where he served from 2002 to 2007. He concurrently acted as the Bahamian ambassador to UNESCO.
He leaves behind six daughters and wife, Joanna Shimkus, as well as a lifetime of work that broke boundaries, sociopolitical barriers and creative limitiations
