Legendary Actor Sidney Poitier Passes Away
The picture above shows a security guard shields actor Sidney Poitier from being mobbed by fan as he arrives at Brentano’s book story to meet the public and sign copies of his new book “This Life,” June 11, 1980 in New York. Poitier, the groundbreaking actor and enduring inspiration who transformed how Black people were portrayed on screen, became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw, died Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022 in the Bahamas. He was 94.
His career included classic films, “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”, “To Sir, with Love”, and “In The Heat of the Night”.
He was the first black actor to win the Academy Award for acting in 1963’s “Lilies of the Field”.
In the 1970’s Poitier moved to Directing. Between 1995 and 2003 he served as a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company.
Poitier was born in Miami, Florida in 1927.
(AP PhotoFile)
