Bahamian-American actor, the first Black recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actor and a defining lead of post-war American film.
Background
Born in Miami, Florida, to Bahamian tomato farmers, Poitier grew up on Cat Island in the Bahamas and moved to New York at sixteen, where he served in the United States Army and joined the American Negro Theatre.
Career
He played teacher Mark Thackeray in “To Sir, with Love,” fugitive Noah Cullen in “The Defiant Ones,” Detective Virgil Tibbs in “In the Heat of the Night,” and Homer Smith in “Lilies of the Field,” for which he became the first Black actor to win Best Actor. He directed “Stir Crazy” and “Buck and the Preacher.”
Style
Poitier brought dignified, principled lead performances to civil-rights-era American film and remained a leading public advocate for diverse representation throughout his career.
Find more actors by letter
Sidney Poitier starts with S and ends with R. Browse other actors along the same letter.
Actors that contain a letter from "Sidney Poitier":