Sidney Poitier – legend dies aged 94

Sidney Poitier, the US-Bahamian star, the first black man to win a best actor Oscar, has died aged 94. The trailblazing actor and a respected humanitarian and diplomat won the Academy Award for the best actor for Lilies of the Field in 1963.

Former US President Barack Obama said Poitier “epitomised dignity and grace” and had “singular talent. The power of movies to bring us closer together and opened doors for a generation of actors”. 

Oprah Winfrey said “ For me the greatest of the “Great Tree” has fallen and had an enormous soul, I will forever cherish”.

Miami born Poitier grew up on a tomato farm in the Bahamas and moved to New York aged 16. After his short stint in the army and did several odd jobs, while taking acting lessons before becoming a star of the stage and screen in the 1950s and 60s. 

The actor appeared in a Patch of Blue in 1965, Heat of the Night the year after followed by Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, playing a black man with a white fiancée.

In the Heat of the Night he portrayed Virgil Tibbs, a black police officer confronting racism during a murder investigation.

His other films included  A Patch of Blue, The Blackboard Jungle and A Raisin in the Sun, which he also performed on Broadway.

Denzel Washington who won an Oscar in 2002 on the  same night Poitier won an honorary Oscar, joked “Forty years I’ve been chasing Sidney and what do they do- they go and give it to him in the same night.”

Whoopi Goldberg quoted the lyrics to the song To Sir With Love, which sound tracked Poitier’s 1967 film, “He showed us how to reach for the stars” . Joseph Gordon-Levitt called him “an absolute legend”.

Poitier became the first black actor to receive a life achievement award from the American Film Institute in 1992. Five years later he was appointed the Bahamas’ ambassador to Japan and he received a knighthood from the Queen in 1974. He was married twice and had six children.