Meet the Caribbean American: Sidney Poitier, Hollywood’s First Black Man

As we celebrate Caribbean American Heritage Month, we highlight the remarkable contributions of Caribbean Americans whose pioneering work has often gone unrecognized. From revolutionary inventions to pioneering achievements in various fields, these individuals have left an indelible mark on history.

Sidney Poitier, pioneering actor, director and cultural icon, is celebrated for his groundbreaking achievements as a Black and Caribbean American artist. Poitier became the first black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for Lys of the Field (1963). He has also received a Grammy Award, two Golden Globe Awards and a British Academy Film Award. He received numerous honorary awards during his life, including the Academy Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement in Film in 2001. Several film historians and journalists have called him the first African-American film star of Hollywood.

From the heritage of the Bahamas

Born February 20, 1927, in Miami, Florida, to Bahamian parents, Poitier grew up in the Bahamas before moving to the United States as a teenager.

He was the youngest of seven children and his parents were farmers who owned a farm on Cat Island, Bahamas. The family would travel to Miami to sell tomatoes and other produce to wholesalers.

At sixteen, he moved to New York, seeking to become an actor, while in the meantime working a series of dishwasher jobs. After failing his first audition at the American Negro Theater due to his inability to read the script fluently. Later, an old Jewish waiter taught him to read.

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During the Second World War, Poitier enlisted in the army.

After leaving the army, he worked as a dishwasher until a successful audition landed him a role in an American Negro Theater production, the same company with which he failed at his first audition.

Breakout role

Poitier’s breakthrough came in 1950 with the film “No Way Out,” in which he played a doctor treating a white bigot. This role paved the way for a career characterized by groundbreaking performances, each considerably more interesting and impactful than those offered by most African-American actors of the era.

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In 1958, he starred alongside Tony Curtis in director Stanley Kramer’s “The Defiant Ones.” The film earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for both stars, making Poitier the first black actor to be nominated for an Academy Award. Poitier won the British Academy Film Award for Best Foreign Actor for this role.

Over the next few years, he debuted in several other productions and earned a Tony Award and Golden Globe Award nomination.

In 1963, he starred in “Lilies of the Field”. For this role, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor and became the first black man to win this award. He also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama Film.

In 1967, he had the most successful box office draw, the commercial peak of his career, with three popular films, “To Sir, With Love”, “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who comes to dinner. .”

During the last years of his career, Sidney Poitier continued to make important contributions to film, television and literature, while engaging in various humanitarian efforts.

The heritage of Poitiers

Sidney Poitier has been described as the “sole representative” of African Americans in mainstream cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. He also paved the way for black and African American actors in cinema.

In 1994, Poitier received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1981 he received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award and in 2016 he received the BAFTA Fellowship. In 2022, he was inducted into the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum.

In 1995, he received the Kennedy Center Honor and in 2009, Poitier received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama. The president noted that Poitier had “(advanced) the national dialogue on race and respect” and “opened the doors to a generation of actors.”

He was also made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1974. In 1986, he received the honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Miami.

Sidney Poitier was married twice and had six children. He died in 2022 at the age of 94.