Throwback Cinema Spotlight Vol. 6... Sidney Portier


Perhaps no other African - American Male actor has been more important in knocking down barriers for quality Roles than Sidney Portier.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three very well received films—To Sir, With Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner—making him the top box office star of that year.

Poitier has directed a number of popular movies such as Uptown Saturday Night, and Let's Do It Again (with friend Bill Cosby), and Stir Crazy (starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder). In 2002, 38 years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive the Honorary Award, designated "To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being."

Sidney Portier was born February 20, 1927 in Miami, Florida.
He spent his childhood in Cat Island, Bahamas and later moved back to the United States in 1943 at age 15. He acted in the first production of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959, and later starred in the film version released in 1961. He also gave memorable performances in The Bedford Incident (1965), A Patch of Blue (1965) co-starring Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967); and To Sir, with Love (1967). Poitier played Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania detective in the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night and its two sequels: They Call Me Mister Tibbs (1970) and The Organization (1971).

To read more on this Legend of Cinema, Click on "Throwback Cinema Spotlight Vol. 6... Sidney Portier" Located above... Funk McLuvin will catch ya'll on the rebound.

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