Sidney Poitier

Acting · Born 1927-02-20 in Miami, Florida, USA

Biography

Sidney Poitier KBE (February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022) was a Bahamian and American actor, film director, and diplomat. In 1964, he became the first black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, for Lilies of the Field. Other accolades include two competitive Golden Globe Awards, a competitive British Academy of Film and Television Arts award (BAFTA), and a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. Major films featuring Poitier in a starring role include Blackboard Jungle (1955), The Defiant Ones (1958), To Sir, with Love (1967), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), In the Heat of the Night (1967), Sneakers (1992), and The Jackal (1997). Later in his career, he turned to directing with features such as Buck and the Preacher (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974),…

Filmography

• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner as John Prentice
• In the Heat of the Night as Virgil Tibbs
• The Defiant Ones as Noah Cullen
• To Sir, with Love as Mark Thackeray
• Lilies of the Field as Homer Smith
• Duel at Diablo as Toller
• Sneakers as Crease
• The Greatest Story Ever Told as Simon of Cyrene
• Porgy and Bess as Porgy
• Sidney Poitier - The Man Who Changed Hollywood as Self (archive footage)

TV

• The Philco Television Playhouse
• The American Film Institute Salute to ... as Self
• The Oscars as Self
• The Kennedy Center Honors as Self
• Children of the Dust as Gypsy Smith
• The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson as Self
• Separate but Equal as Thurgood Marshall
• The Philco Television Playhouse as Tommy Tyler
• Cinépanorama as Self
• The Dick Cavett Show as Self - Guest