# ADSactly Hollywood Legends: Sidney Poitier, the defiant one

Earlier this year, one of the last surviving stars of the Hollywood Classic Era celebrated quietly his 92th birthday - Sidney Poitier, the first black actor ever to be awarded an Oscar, back in the distant 1964. In 1999, Sidney Poitier was ranked 22 on the American Film Institute’s Greatest Male Stars of the 20th century.

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At a time where there’s a lot of talk about race and diversity in the film industry, a look back at Sidney Poitier’s outstanding career should serve as an example - as he rose from extreme poverty to Hollywood fame not by endless complaining about his lot, but by sheer will and talent. As he later wrote in his autobiography, his parents had taught him from a very young age that *‘failure was not an option’.*

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_{[source](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/movies/sidney-poitier-92nd-birthday.html)}</center>

Born in Miami, but raised in the Bahamas, Sidney Poitier had only one and a half years of schooling, as his family needed him to work on their farm. At the age of 15 he was sent to Miami to live with an older brother and from there he made his way to New York, surviving on odd jobs while trying to be admitted into the North American Negro Theater. That was not easy since he had a distinct Bahamian accent, could not read and, contrary to popular expectations about black performers, he was completely tone deaf and unable to sing. He could not change that, but he did work on his accent and learned to read, finally gaining acceptance into the theater world. The first play in which he had a leading role was a complete flop, but it helped him get noticed.

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_{[source](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sidney-Poitier/media/1/466599/187971)}</center>

At the age of 22, Sidney Poitier was offered a major part in Darryl F. Zanuck’s **’No Way Out’** (1950), opposite Richard Widmark. The movie explored racial tensions by exploring the changing relationship between the young black doctor and his bigoted white patient. The film proved to be a springboard for Poitier’s career, who received a steady flow of increasingly better parts.

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_{[source](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/sidney-poitiers-7-most-memorable-performances/)}</center>

His first real breakthrough was the 1955 **’The Blackboard Jungle’**, once again a movie exploring racial problems. This time, Sidney Poitier is cast as a streetwise student with a disruptive behavior in class. Besides the racial aspect, a significant part of the plot is based upon the young student’s interest in a very noisy music, rock-n-roll, a novelty for the the 1950s. Sidney Poitier almost didn’t make the movie as, before filming started, he was asked to turn against some of his friends and denounce them as communists. Aware that he risked losing the part, Poitier chose to stay loyal to his friends. Later on, he remarked with undiluted bitterness that people had no problem seeing red, but were blind to the black.

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_{[source](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/sidney-poitiers-7-most-memorable-performances/)}</center>

In 1958, Sidney Poitier starred in **‘The Defiant Ones’** alongside Tony Curtis. The plot revolves around the adventures of two escaped prisoners shackled together, who must overcome prejudice and learn to cooperate if they want to make it to freedom.
Sidney Poitier made a lot of movies about racial problems, yet he got an Academy Award for a film where the idea of race is not even mentioned. **’Lilies of the Field’** (1963) is a movie about a drifter who encounters a group of nuns of East German origin trying to build a chapel in the Arizona desert. It is a movie about faith and solidarity between people accustomed to hardship. Although he depends on odd-jobs for survival, Sidney Poitier’s character, Homer Smith, decides to stay on the farm and help the nuns even when it becomes clear they are just as destitute as he is and are never going to pay him.

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_{[source](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sidney-Poitier/media/1/466599/187971)}</center>

The part of Homer Smith brought him an Oscar in 1964, something which, at the time, was a major achievement for a black actor. Hattie McDaniel had preceded him by receiving an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her part in ‘Gone with the Wind’(1939). Times had changed since then, as in 1940, McDaniel was not even allowed at the Oscar gala.
Throughout his career, Sidney Poitier had to fight against stereotypes and many times refused parts that would have him play a subservient character, like a butler.
> “During the period when I was the only person here — no Bill Cosby, no Eddie Murphy, no Denzel Washington — I was carrying the hopes and aspirations of an entire people. I had no control over content, no creative leverage except to refuse to do a film, which I often did. I had to satisfy the action fans, the romantic fans, the intellectual fans. It was a terrific burden.”
>

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*A 1959 photo shoot for ‘The New York Times’*
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Another great movie of that time was the 1965 **’A Patch of Blue’**, where he plays the part of a black man falling in love with a blind white girl, whom he helps escape from an abusive mother. The film was considered very provocative for its time and the scenes where the two protagonists kiss were censored in movie theaters in the Southern parts of the United States.
In the 1967 **’To Sir with Love’**, Poitier portrayed a charismatic schoolteacher who earns the respect of his students at a troubled inner-city school, a reversal of the part he played years earlier in ‘The Blackboard Jungle’. The same year, Sidney Poitier appeared in another major film exploring racial relationships, **’Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’**, opposite Hollywood’s formidable duo Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, who play the parts of his girlfriend’s parents.

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_{[source](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/sidney-poitiers-7-most-memorable-performances/)}</center>

As if this was not enough, also in 1967, Sidney Poitier lands the part of Virgil Tibbs a Philadelphia detective in the crime drama **’In the Heat of the Night’**. The film was so successful, he will reprise the role of Virgil Tibbs in two sequels. In the 1970s, his career started to wane, but Sidney Poitier still made a good number of movies and had several TV appearances. He even tried his hand at directing with the 1980 **’Stir Crazy’**, a comedy starring Gene Wilder.
In 1997, Sidney Poitier played the part of Nelson Mandela in a television movie called **’Mandela and de Klerk’**.

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In 2001, Hollywood celebrated his career with a Honorary Academy Award for“his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being.”His last appearance in Hollywood was at the Oscars ceremony in 2014, when he joined Angelina Jolie to present the Best Director Award. Sidney Poitier received a standing ovation and Angelia Jolie spoke on behalf of the film industry telling him ‘we are in your debt’. As his parting words, Sidney Poitier urged his fellow actors to ‘keep up the wonderful work’.
In an interview discussing his career and his struggle to success, Sidney Poitier once recalled the advice he’d been given by his mother as a young man: **‘Charm them, son!’** - something he never failed to do over his long career.
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**Post authored by @ladyrebecca.**
**References**: [1](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sidney-Poitier), [2](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/movies/sidney-poitier-92nd-birthday.html), [3](https://people.com/archive/restricted-measure-of-a-man-vol-53-no-13/).</center>