The Enduring Legacy of Sidney Poitier
As we celebrate Black History Month, The Green Book Project will highlight the lives of four great Black Americans. Our first great African American is American cinema legend Sidney Poitier. Sidney Poitier passed away last month on January 6th, 2022 at the age of 94.
To say that Sidney Poitier was a trailblazer would be an understatement. He forged a path that many other Black actors would have to wait decades to tread. There were no clues in his humble beginnings that he would aspire to, much less obtain, greatness.
Sidney was born unexpectedly and prematurely in Miami on February 20, 1927. His parents had come to Miami in a sailboat to sell the tomatoes they grew on their family farm in the Bahamas. He barely survived his first few weeks, but after three months, his family returned to the Bahamas to their farm on Cat Island. Sidney was the youngest of seven children.
At the age of ten, his family moved to Nassau. This was his first time experiencing the modern conveniences of electricity, plumbing, refrigeration, and movies. Sidney dropped out of school at age twelve to help support his family. When he was fifteen his father sent him to live with his older brother in Miami. However, having grown up in a virtually all Black society, he found it impossible to live in Jim Crow era Florida.
Poitier moved to New York at age sixteen to become an actor. He auditioned for the American Negro Theater in Harlem, but was not accepted because of his accent and his limited reading ability. Struggling to make ends meet, he lied about his age to join the Army, but eventually feigned insanity to obtain a discharge. He worked for months improving his reading and speaking skills. He read the newspaper between shifts as a dishwasher to improve his reading, and listened to the radio for hours, working on his accent and enunciation. He eventually auditioned again and was accepted to the American Negro Theater.
Actor and Influencer
In time Poitier was discovered by a Broadway director who offered him a small role. This ultimately led to bigger roles. He made his first feature film appearance in the 1950 movie No Way Out. Although he landed a handful of roles over the next eight years, he turned down many more. It is no secret among Black moviegoers that Hollywood’s stereotyping of Black characters is not only predictable but purposeful. Poitier was having none of it. Poitier did not take roles where he was killed off to motivate a white character (a popular and lazy Hollywood writing trope called ‘fridging’). He refused to play roles where he was weak, powerless, or a victim.
In 1958 he co-starred with Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones, a commercial and critical success. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including a Best Actor nomination for Poitier. This catapulted him to movie star status. His many accolades, awards, and achievements are astounding considering not only his humble beginnings, but also considering the overwhelming obstacles he faced as a Black man and actor in the mid-20th century. He broke many barriers and forged paths for future men of color in Hollywood, on Broadway, and television. He is most famous for his strong, serious leading man roles. However, he actually directed several comedies and even starred in three of them.
Although Poitier starred in many influential and serious films, I remember him most fondly from the three comedy films he starred in and directed. These were: Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Let’s Do It Again (1975), and A Piece of the Action (1977). When I was a child it was rare that a movie had a Black lead, much less a Black director. I grew up on a military base, and whenever a movie that featured Black (or Asian) actors came to the base theaters, every showing would attract a full house. Soldiers and their families would be lined up around the block to see it. Movies with a Black cast and/or lead gave us all a sense of pride. Sidney Poitier’s comedy films gave us that, plus a fun escape.
Poitier’s impact as a pioneer in the film industry paved the way for such influential Black actors as James Earl Jones, Sammy Davis Jr., Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, Idris Elba, Mahershala Ali, and the late great Chadwick Boseman. Poitier’s success contributed to opening doors for Black actresses as well.* He made history with many notable firsts as a Black man: first Black actor to win an international film award (Venus Film Festival, 1957); first to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1958 (The Defiant Ones); first to star as a romantic lead (Paris Blues, 1961); first Black man to portray an interracial kiss in a major Hollywood film (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967), first to win the Oscar (Lilies of the Fields, 1963), first Black man to become the number one box office star (1968) and the first to insist that at least half of the film crew be Black (The Lost Man, 1969).
Filmography
Poitier’s filmography is too extensive to list here, so I have linked it here. For those unfamiliar with Poitier’s work and interested in recommendations, try these to start: Blackboard Jungle (1955); A Raisin in the Sun (1961) [ which he was instrumental in bringing to the stage and film]; A Patch of Blue (1965); To Sir, With Love (1967); and In the Heat of the Night (1967). A notable and historic movie moment occurs in the movie In the Heat of the Night. It was the “slap heard ‘round the world.” In the **scene, Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs, a homicide detective who is interrogating a rich white man in a small Southern town in Mississippi. The man slaps Poitier for his ‘insolent’ manner, and Poitier (unscripted) slaps him right back. It’s an electric scene that you can easily find on YouTube. That slap was a groundbreaking moment in film, and one that solidified Poitier’s screen persona as a Black man who would not be intimidated, dismissed or disregarded.
Awards and Distinctions
Honors, Tributes and Legacy
Poitier was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1974, received the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995. He was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002, and was awarded the Presidential Freedom Award by President Barack Obama in 2009.
Paying tribute to Sidney Poitier in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “He is a man of great depth, a man of great social concern, a man who is dedicated to human rights and freedom. Here is a man who, in the words we so often hear now, is a soul brother.”
Sidney Poitier was a man who was well loved, well respected, and epitomized a life well lived. On Oprah’s Master Class, Poitier stated,
“I think about death, but I’m not fearful of it. I’ve reduced the concept of my existence by saying, ‘I truly, truly try to be better tomorrow than I was today.’ And I mean ‘better’ as simply a better human being, not a better actor, not a better anything, but just a better human being. That will please me well. And when I die, I will not be afraid of having lived.”
Sidney Poitier inspires us all to do better and to follow his example of striving to be better human beings. The Green Book Project seeks to empower everyone to be better human beings by crowdsourcing safe spaces. It takes a village to do this. Would you like to join us on this mission? Download The Green Book Project in the Apple App Store or Google Play, write a review and share it today!
