Oct. 16, 2007 ( Investor's Business Daily delivered by Newstex) -- Sidney Poitier could win an Oscar simply for his Hollywood impact. He has displayed immense talent and presence on the big screen, plus an ability to break down barriers and reach great heights by overcoming overwhelming odds.
Poitier's accomplishments involve a rags-to-riches script and a racial story line of opening doors to other black actors during the civil rights movement. During the 1950s and '60s, Poitier turned in a string of acclaimed performances that earned him two Oscar nominations from the Motion Picture Academy. One led to victory, making him the first black actor to win an Academy Award for a leading role.
His body of work was honored this decade with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild and an Honorary Oscar from the Motion Picture Academy, which lauded him for "his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence" Poitier began overcoming the odds from his earliest day. He was born on Feb. 20, 1927, at sea -- prematurely -- during one of frequent trips his family took from its home in the Bahamas to Miami, where the Poitiers would sell tomatoes and other produce grown on their farm.
In his memoir "The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography," Poitier wrote that after his birth, his mother went to a fortuneteller to find out what would happen in her son's life. The fortuneteller told her that Sidney would one day walk among kings, a prediction that came true when he was appointed Bahamian ambassador to Japan in 1997 and met the emperor. He accomplished so much else in between.
Getting Plugged In Having grown up on a tiny island without electricity, Poitier didn't discover the cinema until his family moved to the Bahamian capital of Nassau. He was a troubled teen, so his parents sent him to the U.S.
at the age of 17 to live with his brother. He eventually landed in New York, where he took a string of menial jobs that got him nowhere fast. He was rejected by the American Negro Theater because of his lack of experience and his thick Bahamian accent.
Determined, Poitier took a job with the theater company as a janitor in exchange for acting lessons. His first break came when he was selected as the understudy to Harry Belafonte for the stage production of "Days of Our Youth." That breakthrough led to a number of theater gigs on the way to his debut on the silver screen in 1950's "No Way Out.
" The raw and unflinching look at racism earned Poitier kudos in the industry and sparked his career. Poitier continued that decade to make socially conscious films, including "Cry, the Beloved Country," which dealt with apartheid in South Africa; "The Blackboard Jungle," which tackled education in the inner city; and "The Defiant Ones," about two prisoners, one white and one black, shackled together and forced to rely on each other to survive. His "Defiant" portrayal earned him an Oscar nomination along with his co-star Tony Curtis.
Poitier would earn another Academy nomination in 1963 for his work in "Lilies of the Field." He played an itinerant worker meeting East German nuns who feel he's been sent by God to help them build a church. This time, he made history by winning.
Through the 1960s and early '70s, Poitier starred in movies lauded by critics, his peers and the public. He peaked in 1967, when a trio of hits -- "To Sir, With Love," "In the Heat of the Night" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" -- made him king of the box office. Yet Poitier drew zings in the heat of the civil rights movement.
Some blacks criticized him for playing the "Magical Negro" character, a stereotype who shows up to help a white protagonist overcome obstacles. The character seems to be shown in a positive light, but is not equal. According to Krin Gabbard in his book "Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture," the character lets Americans "like individual black people but not black culture.
" "Starting in the mid- to late '60s with the advent (NYSE:AGC) of political militancy among African-Americans, Sidney Poitier began to be disparaged," Jeffrey Wells, the Hollywood-Elsewhere.com columnist, told IBD. "His crime was having handsomely profited from playing black guys that white audiences were comfortable with at the time -- guys who were handsome, dignified and totally unthreatening.
"But look at those performances today -- the ones in 'The Defiant Ones,' 'A Raisin in the Sun,' 'Pressure Point,' 'To Sir, With Love,' 'In the Heat of the Night,' 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' -- and they're all convincing and solid and centered." They were also inspiring. When announcing Poitier's autobiography for her book club, talk show host Oprah Winfrey recalled seeing Poitier win the Oscar in 1963.
"Black people were still considered colored at the time, and there was a colored man getting out of a limousine at the Academy Awards -- Sidney Poitier -- and I was just in awe of that," Winfrey told the Associated Press. "Then that night, he won the Oscar for 'Lilies of the Field.' And that did it for me.
As a little girl, it said to me, 'That is possible. You can be colored and that can happen to you.'" "The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography" became the 57th selection for her book club this year.
Within hours of the announcement, the book went from No. 288,958 to the top five on the best-seller list. In it, Poitier wrote: "I have no wish to play the pontificating fool, pretending that I've suddenly come up with the answers to all life's questions.
Quite the contrary, I began this book as an exploration, an exercise in self-questing. In other words, I wanted to find out, as I looked back at a long and complicated life, with many twists and turns, how well I've done at measuring up to the values I myself have set." Poitier has been married twice.
His first marriage was to Juanita Hardy from 1950 to 1965. He married Joanna Shimkus, a Canadian-born former actress, in 1976, and the two make their home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He has four children by his first marriage and two by his second marriage, all girls.
One of them is actress Sydney Tamiia Poitier. A Knight At The Oscars Poitier became a British knight in 1974. As a citizen of the Bahamas, a commonwealth with Britain's honor system, Poitier could use the "Sir" title, but chooses not to.
Poitier also continues to serve as nonresident Bahamian ambassador to Japan and to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Poitier's impact on Hollywood was magnified in March 2002 when he received his honorary Oscar. At the same ceremony, Halle Berry became the first African-American to win the leading actress Oscar, and Denzel Washington took home the best actor award.
He was the first black actor to win the trophy since Poitier's triumph in 1963.
News RSS