Contrary to myth, Sidney Poitier was not the first black actor to play strong, compelling characters on screen. Paul Robeson in the 1930s; Ernest Anderson, Canada Lee, James Edwards and Juano Hernandez in the 1940s all had memorable roles in major integrated Hollywood productions, but Poitier was the first to play such roles consistently over a long period of time, eventually attaining the level of superstar status few actors of any race have ever enjoyed.

Born February 20, 1927 in Miami, Florida to Bahamian parents on a visit to the U.S., Poitier was raised on Cat Island in the Bahamas, but sent to Miami at 15 to live with an older brother. At 17, he moved to New York City where he worked as a dishwasher until joining the U.S. Army. After his discharge, he again found work as a dishwasher until s successful audition earned him a spot with the American Negro Theater. Audiences, however, rejected his strong Bahamian accent.

After working with a voice coach for six months, Poitier returned to the American Negro Theater and was given a lead in the 1946 Broadway production of Lysistrata for which he received good notices. It was quickly followed by a starring role in 1947’s Anna Lucasta.

He made his film debut in an un-credited role in 1947’s Sepia Cinderalla, a film made exclusively for black audiences. In 1949, while still in demand on stage, he was given the opportunity to play a major role in Daryl F. Zanuck’s forthcoming No Way Out and went to Hollywood to make the film.

Poitier’s portrayal of the black doctor who treats a bigoted white patient (Richard Widmark) in the film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz made audiences sit up and take notice of the young actor.

In 1952 he had a strong role in the first film version of Cry, the Beloved Country, directed by Zoltan Korda in support of Canada Lee. His next major role was as a juvenile delinquent in Richard Brooks’ seminal 1955 classic, Blackboard Jungle. At 28, he was a bit old to be playing a high school student, but somehow it worked.

He had his first starring role as a longshoreman battling prejudice along with friend John Cassavetes in Martin Ritt’s powerful 1957 film, Edge of the City. Major supporting roles as flawed but intense flesh and blood characters in two other high profile 1957 films, Richard Brooks’ Something of Value with Rock Hudson and Dana Wynter and Raoul Walsh’s Band of Angels with Clark Gable and Yvonne De Carlo, made audiences hunger for more.

They got more with Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones in which he and Tony Curtis were escaped convicts chained together who must learn to get along in order to survive. The film won numerous awards including several for Poitier who became the first black actor nominated for an Oscar.

Now a major star, he was given the lead in Otto Preminger’s 1959 version of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess opposite Dorothy Dandridge.

Nominated for a Tony for his 1960 Broadway return as the frustrated son, husband and father in Lorraine Hansbury’s A Raisin in the Sun, it would be his last foray onto the stage to date. He won great acclaim for the 1961 screen version as well. It was Ralph Nelson’s 1963’s comedy/drama, Lilies of the Field, however, in which audiences really loved him.

Playing an itinerant Southern Baptist handyman who is cajoled into building a chapel for a group of immigrant Catholic nuns led by Lilia Skala, Poitier’s Homer Smith is his generation’s version of Spencer Tracy’s Father Flanagan in Boys Town and Bing Crosby’s Father O’Malley in Going My Way. Like Tracy and Crosby, Poitier won an Oscar for his portrayal, becoming the first black actor to win an Oscar, and the first black performer of either sex to win a leading Oscar until Denzel Washington and Halle Berry repeated the feat thirty-nine years later.

Playing a reporter aboard a submarine in a tense stand-off with the Soviets, Poitier’s race was not an issue for his character for the first time in 1965’s taut thriller, The Bedford Incident opposite Richard Widmark. Nor did race matter in that same year’s The Slender Thread in which he plays a suicide hotline operator who saves the life of Anne Bancroft. It was, however, very much an issue in that year’s A Patch of Blue in which he had one of his best remembered roles as the young office worker who helps a young blind white woman break free of the chains that bind her to an abusive, bigoted mother. Co-star Elizabeth Hartman was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar and Shelley Winters won the award for Best Supporting Actress as the bigoted mother.

If 1965 was a good year for Poitier, 1967 was a great one. He starred in three critically acclaimed box office hits, first as the teacher in the London set To Sir, With Love, then as the Philadelphia cop embroiled in a homicide case in the deep South in In the Heat of the Night, and finally as the distinguished doctor engaged to the daughter of liberal white bastions of San Francisco society played by screen giants Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

Although not personally nominated for an Oscar, Poitier was very much the center of Oscar’s attention that year. The awards in April, 1968 had to be postponed a week due to the assassination of Martin Luther King. When it was all over, In the Heat of the Night had won Best Picture and Actor for Poitier’s co-star Rod Steiger, and Poitier himself got to open the envelope that announced to the world the surprise win of Katharine Hepburn as Best Actress for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

Poitier never had another year like that, but he remained a major star, appearing in everything from light comedies to two sequels to In the Heat of the Night and eventually turning to direction with 1972’s Buck and the Preacher after the first director was fired.

His portrayal of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1991’s Separate But Equal was the first of eight TV movies he made through his retirement in 2001. He was nominated for Emmys for that and 1997’s Mandela and De Klerk in which he played South African President Nelson Mandela.

He was given an honorary Oscar at the 2001 Academy Awards for “his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence “

He has six daughters from two marriages, the second to Canadian born actress Joanna Shimkus, his co-star in the 1969 film, The Lost Man. At 85, Sidney Poitier can look back on one the most distinguished careers of any actor.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE DEFIANT ONES (1958), directed by Stanley Kramer

A classic tale of two escaped convicts, one white, one black, who are chained to one another and must learn to get along in order to survive, bolstered the careers of the film’s two stars, Tony Curtis and Poitier, both of whom received Academy Award nominations for Best Actor. The film, which was named the year’s Best Film by the New York Film Critics, was nominated for a total of nine Academy Awards, winning two for Best Original Screenplay and Best Black-and-White Cinematography.

LILIES OF THE FIELD (1963), directed by Ralph Nelson

Nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Poitier won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the out of work construction worker and itinerant handyman who stops at a remote desert location for water for his car only to be co-opted into building a chapel for a group of nuns. Poitier’s Homer Smith remains one of his most endearing characters and his scenes with Lilia Skala as the Mother Superior are both touching and hilarious.

A PATCH OF BLUE (1965), directed by Guy Green

Poitier plays a young office worker whose chance meeting with a naïve, young blind woman leads to a life changing and life affirming experience in this emotional tour-de-force. Elizabeth Hartman is sensational as the girl and received a much deserved Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance. Shelley Winters as her mean, nasty, bigoted mother won the year’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her no-holds bared-performance. Wallace Ford also excels as the girl’s alcoholic grandfather.

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967), directed by Norman Jewison

A tense murder mystery as well as a wise social drama, this box office smash and Best Picture Oscar winner provided Poitier with his most mercurial role as the Philadelphia detective who becomes embroiled in a murder case in Mississippi. “They call me Mister Tibbs” became a catch phrase of the day and the scene in which Poitier bitch slaps a wealthy white land owner, played by Larry Gates, remains one of the most iconic in film history. Rod Steiger as the bigoted sheriff who warms to Poitier won the Oscar for Best Actor and he deserved it, but Poitier is right behind him.

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967), directed by Stanley Kramer

There was a built-in box office for this film after the immense success of Poitier’s To Sir, With Love and In the Heat of the Night and the headline death of the legendary Spencer Tracy less two weeks after his completion of the film. Tracy was in such ill health that producer/director Stanley Kramer and co-star Katharine Hepburn had to pledge their salaries in order to obtain insurance for the film in which Tracy and Hepburn star as the upper-class liberal parents of strong-willed Katharine Houghton who brings home her fiancé, a distinguished black doctor, played by Poitier.

Old-fashioned and silly, even by standards of the day, it nevertheless commanded attention due to the high wattage star power attached. Poitier is fine as usual, as are Hougton, Roy Glenn and Best Supporting Actress nominee Beah Richards as his parents, Best Supporting Actor nominee Cecil Kellaway as a local priest and Isabel Sanford as a wise-cracking maid, but the film belongs above all to Tracy and Hepburn.

Two-time Oscar winner Tracy received a posthumous nomination for his performance, his ninth, and one-time winner Hepburn received her tenth. Although given no chance to win, Hepburn won for the first time since her first nomination for 1933’s Morning Glory. She would win a third time for 1968’s The Lion in Winter, tying Walter Brennan’s record, and an unprecedented fourth time for 1981’s On Golden Pond.

SIDNEY POITIER AND OSCAR

• The Defiant Ones (1958) – nominated Best Actor
• Lilies of the Field (1963) – Oscar – Best Actor
• Honorary Award (2001) – Oscar – For his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence.