SIDNEY POITIER

ACTOR SUPREME

The late Sidney Poitier was the most successful black actor ever to appear in films. He created many memorable characters in his career.

He was born the son of a farmer, Reginald Poitier and his wife Evelyn in Miami, Florida on February 20th, 1927. He was raised and educated in Nassau in the British West Indies, and upon leaving school worked at several jobs before joining the U.S. Army at the age of 18.

He first came to the screen in short Army films. In the early 1950s he began to pick up small parts in such films as No Way Out, Cry, The Beloved Country and The Blackboard Jungle, he really came to notice as the escaped convict chained to Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones in 1958 and was nominated for an Oscar. He was now very much in demand and many films followed, such as The Long Ships, A Patch of Blue, Duel at Diablo and In the Heat of the Night but his talent was really acknowledged when he won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1963 in the film, The Lilies of the Field.

He was married to the actress Joanna Shimkus, they had two children together. We will remember him as one of the finest actors of his generation and also as a man who stood apart as a representative of his race.