Actors - Sidney Poitier

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	Actors - Sidney Poitier

Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE (born February 20, 1927) is a Bahamian American actor. He has been hailed as a breakthrough star whose acclaimed performances, which consciously defied previous racial stereotyping, gave a new dramatic credibility for Black actors to mainstream film audiences in the Western world.

He was born in Miami, Florida to Bahamian parents and grew up in poverty on Cat Island in the Bahamas. His breakout role was that of one of a classroom of incorrigible high school students in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle. Remarkably, nobody seemed to notice Poitier was 27 at the time of filming. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1963 film Lilies of the Field
and was the first actor of African descent to win this award. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (by right and recommendation of his Bahamian citizenship) in 1974. In 2000 he received the Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and in 2002 he received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

He acted in the first run of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959, and in its Hollywood adaptation in 1961.

Married first to Juanita Hardy from April 29,1950 - 1965, and he is currently married to Canadian-born former actress Joanna Shimkus since January 23, 1976. He has 4 children by his first marriage and 2 children by his second marriage.

In addition to authoring This Life (1980) and The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2000). He is mentioned extensively in John Guare's play Six Degrees of Separation, as one of the characters (falsely) claims to be his son.

Poitier was appointed a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) in 1974. As a citizen of the Bahamas, which recognizes the British monarch as head of state and uses the British Honours System, this is a substantive (rather than honorary) knighthood. He is thus entitled to use the title "Sir", although chooses not to do so. Poitier has also served as non-resident Bahamian ambassador to Japan (since April 1997), and to the United Nations (UN) Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In these diplomatic roles, the Bahamian Ministry of Foreign Affairs refers to him as "His Excellency Sir Sidney Poitier" .

Awards and recognition

; Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album

Grammy Awards of 2001
*Rick Harris, John Runnette (producers) & Sidney Poitier
for The Measure of a Man

; NAACP Image Award - Hall of Fame Award

2001: Sidney Poitier

; NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special

2000: Sidney Poitier, The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn

; Kennedy Center Honors

1995: Sidney Poitier

; AFI Life Achievement Award

1992: Sidney Poitier

; Golden Globe Awards: Film, Best Actor, Drama

1964: Sidney Poitier, Lilies of the Field

; Academy Award for Best Actor :

1963: Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field

; BAFTA Award for Best Actor

1958: Foreign: Sidney Poitier for The Defiant Ones

;British Honours System

Appointed a Knight of the British Empire in 1974.

Filmography

As Actor:

From Whence Cometh My Help (1949) (documentary)
No Way Out
(1950)
Cry, The Beloved Country
(1951)
Red Ball Express (1952)
Go, Man, Go! (1954)
Blackboard Jungle
(1955)
Good-bye, My Lady (1956)
Edge of the City (1957)
Something of Value (1957)
Band of Angels (1957)
Virgin Island (1958)
The Mark of the Hawk (1958)
The Defiant Ones
(1958)
Porgy and Bess
(1959)
All the Young Men (1960)
A Raisin in the Sun
(1961)
Paris Blues (1961)
Pressure Point (1962)
The Long Ships
(1963)
Lilies of the Field
(1963)
The Bedford Incident
(1965)
The Greatest Story Ever Told
(1965)
A Patch of Blue
(1965)
The Slender Thread (1965)
Duel at Diablo (1966)
To Sir, with Love
(1967)
In the Heat of the Night
(1967)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
(1967)
For Love of Ivy (1968)
The Lost Man (1969)
King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970) (documentary) (narrator)
They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!
(1970)
Brother John (1971)
The Organization (1971)
Buck and the Preacher (1972)
A Warm December (1973)
Uptown Saturday Night
(1974)
The Wilby Conspiracy (1975)
Let's Do it Again
(1975)
A Piece of the Action (1977)
Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist (1979) (short subject) (narrator)
Shoot to Kill
(1988)
Little Nikita (1988)
Sneakers
(1992)
A Century of Cinema
(1994) (documentary)
Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1996) (documentary)
The Jackal
(1997)
Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey (2001) (documentary) (narrator)
Tell Them Who You Are (2004) (documentary)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Sidney Poitier ]

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