Poitier, who rejected film roles based on offensive racial stereotypes, earned acclaim for portraying dignified, keenly intelligent men in 1960s landmarks such as “Lilies of the Field,” “A Patch of Blue,” “To Sir, With Love,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
He said he felt a responsibility to represent Black excellence at a time when the vast majority of movie stars were white and many Black performers were relegated to subservient or buffoonish roles. He came to be seen as an elder statesmen in the film industry, celebrated for his social conscience and admired for his regal bearing.
January 7, 2022
Goodbye to Sidney Poitier.
"Sidney Poitier, trailblazing Hollywood icon who broke barriers for Black actors, dies at 94/In a groundbreaking film career, Poitier established himself as one of the finest performers in America" (NBC News).
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Godspeed to a remarkable actor. RIP. I enjoyed everything I saw him in. When I was a high school senior in Stratford, Connecticut, our
English teacher took us on a field trip to the Stratford Shakespeare Theater to see “Othello,” starring Sidney Poitier and Katherine
Hepburn. I was seated in the third or fourth row from the stage. It was a remarkable theatrical production, especially to a 17 year old.
I still clearly remember the power and range of his performance as well as that of Katherine Hepburn. For me, it was an overwhelming
experience.. Sadly this theater no longer exists. It burned down about 20 years ago. I was very fortunate to see this performance.
Two wives, six kids, and a 9 year affair with Diahann Carroll.
A life well lived.
"When I was a high school senior in Stratford, Connecticut, our
English teacher took us on a field trip to the Stratford Shakespeare Theater to see “Othello,” starring Sidney Poitier and Katherine
Hepburn. "
Wow. What year was that? I remember long ago going to the Stratford Shakespeare Theater and seeing James Earl Jones as “Othello,” but you must have gone years before that.
So many familiar names all of a sudden. : (
I liked To Sir with Love, and I really liked the beautiful b&w of A Patch of Blue. Not a perfect movie, but definitely a cut above. The South in the early '60s -- they must have filmed some of the exteriors there! -- a vanished place.
OK, no. Looked it up on IMDb -- no location shooting shown. Could have, and did, fool me. Excellent picture.
Denzel Washington didn't play on black social insecurity but just did regular guy action.
I liked Poitier but he got infected with the Obama virus in later years. Denzel is better but Poitier was first.
Because I'm young, the first movie I ever saw with Poitier was Sneakers. He's fantastic in it.
In the Heat of the Night still holds up.
To Ann: I saw Sidney Poitier in “Othello” at the Stratford Shakespeare Theater in 1959-60.
"To Ann: I saw Sidney Poitier in “Othello” at the Stratford Shakespeare Theater in 1959-60."
Thanks. I saw that later he refused to play Othello.
I think I saw JEJ around 1980.
I just hope he doesn't have to go through eternity chained to Tony Curtis.
Poitier's entire family lived in the Bahamas, then still a British colony, but he was born unexpectedly in Miami while they were visiting for the weekend, which automatically granted him U.S. citizenship.
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he could-a-been President - Florida-born 1922 with less confusion than Hawaii-born Obama
Terrific actor, remarkable presence.
People have mentioned his better-known (and better) films, so I'll just point out that The Bedford Incident in 1965 was notable in part because Poitier's race had nothing to do with his character. It doesn't come up in the film. They simply cast a fine actor to play a determined journalist.
He was a lefty lunatic.
In every role he played, all I could see was 'angry black guy.'
But I did like the 'Banana Boat' song.
Odds Against Tomorrow is a fine crime noir with Poitier working alongside a vicious Robert Ryan.
I recently re-watched "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?". Poitier was excellent in that film, as were Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Unfortunately, the most unbelievable part of the movie wasn't that a black man and white woman would fall in love and marry in 1967 California, but that an accomplished mature doctor of international standing would risk so much family and public opposition for such a shallow and silly young woman.
A very good actor, very good at playing off others. Loved his interactions with Steiger in "The Heat of the Night" and Tony Curtis "Defiant Ones". Pretty good in "No Way Out" with Richard Widmark too. Hilariouly, he played a HS student in "Blackboard Jungle" 5 years after being a Doctor in "No Way Out". Miscast in "Duel at Diablo" - he was a little too urban and Caribbean to be a cowboy.
On a personal level there's not much to say.
"Guess who' coming to Dinner" was considered old fashioned when it come out. Very safe. I had the same problem with film. "Hey, can I marry your drip of a daughter. I know I'm just handsome, black, rich, UN Doctor, but maybe you can see past that."
I vaguely remember "To Sir, with Love". Wonder how it would be considered today with a theme song that congradulates the male teacher for taking the Female student from "crayons to perfume"?
RIP. Such an amazing actor. A joy to watch.
However, I was surprised to see him in a truly awful movie, The Jackal, with Richard Gere and Bruce Willis. That movie was beneath him. I'm always perplexed why actors of his caliber (DeNiro is another) relegate themselves to lousy movies when they surely have the freedom to choose better parts.
But his more famous movies were stellar. I hope in his death he isn't treated with the disdain that some black entertainers have been. Louis Armstrong, for instance.
You should've put up the clip of the Slap Heard Round the World from In the Heat of the Night. Beautiful man. RIP.
He was one of my early movie star crushes. He’s been criticized as an Uncle Tom of sorts - not sure why, other than white people liked him. What always struck me was underneath his rather dignified exterior were hints of controlled energy, like a capped volcano. Made him more interesting than he seemed at first glance.
When I was a freelance writer early in my career, a magazine assigned me to interview Poitier about an upcoming TV project. Instead of answering my questions, he spent almost all of our time together lecturing me about spirituality and world peace. (I was too green a reporter -- and, frankly, too starstruck -- to object.) It was very interesting lecture and I was glad to have heard it, but I went away with hardly anything I could use in my article. By that point in his life, I think he was much more interested in getting his ideas out than in anything he did as an actor.
"Lilies", "Heat" and "Sir" are all favorites of mine. Prejudice is confronted in all three of the movies, though none of the others do so to the extent that "Heat" does. And it never came across to me as excessively preachy in any of them.
One of the things imo that elevates Heat in terms of its "social message" is that Tibbs leads himself off the track of the actual killer because of his own ingrained prejudice against men like Endicott.
I never paid much attention to Poitier's political stances. I assume he was at least smart enough to stay off Twitter. He's one of my favorite actors.
From what I've learned about Katherine Hepburn, it's a wonder that Sidney was able to wait until Act V to strangle her.
Andrew,
"I'm always perplexed why actors of his caliber (DeNiro is another) relegate themselves to lousy movies when they surely have the freedom to choose better parts."
Remember Michael Caine, asked why an actor of his stature would agree to Jaws: The Revenge:
"I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."
@JPS,
That's funny, and realistic.
He was great in "Lillies of the Field," one of the first grown-up movies I saw. Rewatched it recently--magnificent.
"Lilies", "Heat" and "Sir" are all favorites of mine. Prejudice is confronted in all three of the movies
What's the prejudice in Lilies of the Field. Maybe a whiff of low expectations prejudice from the building foreman, but what else?
I was thinking about the construction company owner, Bender. And yes, it's just a whiff.
Oh for the days of striving for black excellence. It has been at least a decade since it left the building.
A while ago the American Film Institute pronounced the 25 male screen legends of the Golden Age of cinema and 25 female. With SP's passing all gone except Sophia Loren in her late eighties. Good health to her.
I think I first saw Poitier in the Viking movie, where he was -- shall we say -- not an angel, and I realy liked him. I liked him in most of his movies. In Coming to Dinner he was boring. He was TOO perfectly good -- Hell! I would have married him! I don't blame him; he gave the performance that he was asked to give. The lesson of that movie was that it was OK for a Black man to marry a White woman if he was a very White Black man.
One overlooked film of his was a western, DUEL AT DIABLO. He played a freelance scout and horse-trader. The main character was James Garner. At the very end (SPOILER ALERT) after the Apaches have given up trying to massacre Garner and what's left of the cavalry troop, and the survivors are getting ready to ride off into the closing credits, there's a shot of Poitier, standing near the graves of the soldiers who have been killed, looking down at the graves contemplatively before mounting his horse and riding off after the others. I thought it poignant that he, the outsider, is the one who takes a moment to remember the fallen soldiers.
Probably the iconic moment Poitier moment is in "In the Heat of the Night"
I'm a Police Officer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-g4vCbZsDM
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