Why was sidney poitier

From there, he moved to New York City at the age of 15 with just three dollars in his pocket and decided he wanted to act in the movies. Poitier listened endlessly to radio programs to help him learn to enunciate and lose his Bahamian lilt while working as a dishwasher. Outraged Bahamians of African descent soon gathered together to form the Citizens Committee to demand the ban on the movie be lifted. They won.

Formed to advance self government, wider political representation, and call for more government social programs, the party eventually formed a majority party in , leading to the country achieving full independence from English colonial rule in After his first foray into film, Poitier continued to star in features that subverted typical expectations of Black characters and actors of the time and dealt with race head on.

It was a first for Poitier, and also for any Black actor in a leading role. Showing all 63 items. When he came to New York from the Caribbean to become an actor, he was so impoverished at first that he slept in the bus station. Mankiewicz and told him he was 27, when actually only 22 years old. Stanley Kramer approached him about co-starring in The Defiant Ones , which made him a bigger star, but admitted that if he did not take the role of "Porgy" in Porgy and Bess for Samuel Goldwyn it might kill his chances to get the role in The Defiant Ones as Goldwyn had that much clout in Hollywood.

He was awarded an honorary knighthood of the Order of the British Empire in As an honorary knight, he is not entitled to call himself or to be known as "Sir Sidney Poitier" but he may use the postnomials KBE or K. His Stir Crazy was the highest grossing film directed by a black filmmaker until Scary Movie , directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans almost 20 years later. While trying to sing with some fellow actors in Off-Broadway theatre he found he was tone deaf.

Younger brother of Cyril Poitier. Former brother-in-law of light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore. In the s, for many of his films, he was paid in a way known as "dollar one participation" which basically means he begins collecting a cut of the film's gross from the first ticket sold.

Has an honorary doctorate degree from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. First black actor to place autograph, hand, and footprints in the cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre June 23, Future wife Joanna Shimkus encouraged him to direct his first film, Buck and the Preacher , after he and the original director could not agree creatively.

During the early s, a man named David Hampton conned his way into the homes of several wealthy and prominent New Yorkers including a dean at Columbia University by falsely claiming to be Poitier's son.

Playwright John Guare , fascinated by the way the story illustrated the magic that the mere mention of Poiter's name held for people of his generation especially white people , based his play "Six Degrees of Separation" on Hampton's story.

The play was adapted into the movie Six Degrees of Separation , with Will Smith as the character based upon Hampton. Along with his name uttered in the lyrics, a photograph of Poitier is held by Busta Rhymes in the music video "Gimme Some More" His role in The Bedford Incident marked the first time he would play a role in which his character's race was not an issue. Considered for the male lead for The Owl and the Pussycat , opposite Diana Sands , who had played the role of "Doris" on Broadway.

Appointed as ambassador of the Bahamas to Japan he was born in the United States but is a citizen of the Bahamas. On Jan. In that article, Variety declared that the actor had created fully fleshed-out characters.

This was a simple but extraordinary statement. And it was difficult enough for Black actors in the s to get any roles. But he had his principles and he stuck to them. And in just a decade, the starring roles became better. For the next few decades, Poitier enlightened audiences by bringing three-dimensional characters to people who may have never met a Black person.

He played characters that people wanted to know better. But those criticisms misunderstood the national and international mood. In June , the Supreme Court overturned those laws. Sidney: I have carried her name—a name I was asked to change. Oprah: You were asked to change your name?

Sidney: When I went into the business, the name Poitier was thought to be difficult. Oprah: I was asked to change my name, too! Sidney: Were you? Oprah: The name Oprah was thought to be too different. In my first job, they wanted me to call myself Susan. Sidney: My goodness! Oprah: Susan! Sidney: When I was asked to change my name, I said no. I wouldn't. I couldn't. So, back to my mother—I cannot take credit for who I turned out to be. I have had that woman on my shoulder all my life.

You hear? She has been there taking care of me. I am not a hugely religious person, but I believe that there is a oneness with everything. And because there is this oneness, it is possible that my mother is the principal reason for my life.

Oprah: I also believe in that oneness. Didn't you feel a greater sense of your mother's presence after she'd passed? Because when people die, their energy doesn't leave you, if you're open to it. And so of course your mother has been on your shoulder. That's why you couldn't have lost. Sidney: I was helped. Oprah: And having a mother who loves you—there's nothing stronger. Sidney: We should not limit it to two generations.

I have to accept that my contribution to the man that I have become was a small one. The gift made to my mother, which manifested in me, could have been lying in dormancy across generations. Because let me tell you, my dear—there is something about you that didn't just happen when your father's sperm hit your mother's egg.

The sperm and egg carry a history that includes generations you don't know. Take a person like Stevie Wonder, who was blind from a young age. Where did his gifts come from? His mother? They came through her. And it is conceivable that 5, 10 or 20 generations ago there was someone with an extraordinary gift in Stevie's family, but the external circumstances of that person's life were such that they never gave rise to the gift's blossoming. Oprah: Because it takes a combination of forces to bring out gifts.

Sidney: Exactly. One day, it happens: A kid like Stevie is walking through a living room, and there is a piano, and he hears a note, and it becomes the light. So the journey is not one generation. Each of us is an accumulated effort unfolding. Oprah: That's why it's exasperating when people continue to see you only in the context of race.

Sidney: I deal with race-based questions all the time, but I resent them. I will not let the press thrust me into a definition by feeding me only race questions.

I've established that my concern with race is substantive. But at the same time, I am not all about race. I have had to [deal with this] all my career. And I've had to find balance. So much was riding on me as one of the first blacks out there. Sidney: It's been an enormous responsibility. And I accepted it, and I lived in a way that showed how I respected that responsibility. I had to. In order for others to come behind me, there were certain things I had to do.

Oprah: Did you know you were a hero? Sidney: Listen— Oprah: Sidney, you were more than just the first. By your choices, you became heroic. Sidney: And you know what? I— Oprah: Sidney, just take it! Say, "You know what, Oprah? You're right. Damn, I was a hero—and I still am! If I were to be judged by my father— Oprah: Who is still the standard-bearer for you? And that's my whole compass.

You see? Oprah: Because you feel this way, isn't it frustrating when others define you in terms of color? Sidney: It doesn't aggravate me anymore, but it did. I was fortunate enough to have been raised to a certain point before I got into the race thing. I had other views of what a human is, so I was never able to see racism as the big question.

Racism was horrendous, but there were other aspects to life. There are those who allow their lives to be defined only by race. I correct anyone who comes at me only in terms of race. For instance, I have friends who don't know many blacks.

And sometimes, a friend will say how well he or she knows a black person. Oprah: I grew up in an environment where I was often the only black child, and people would ask me if I knew you! Sidney: You ready for this? I've been told, "You look like Sammy Davis Jr. Or was it Stevie Wonder? Sidney: That joke brings to the fore the fact that others' knowledge of blacks is far from multidimensional. And our difficulties should teach us to see the big picture. The big picture is that racism has been an awful experience—but there are other experiences.

We need to keep an eye on the other human experiences to give ourselves the fullness and the breadth of our own humanity. Our humanity is served back to us through the eyes of those who have diminished us. And they serve back to us a view of ourselves that is incomplete. If we don't look to the bigger picture, our view will narrow to that which is constantly fed to us.

Oprah: You're saying everything that I believe! We define our own lives, and we become what we believe. That's why there were people who were enslaved who could say inside themselves, "This is not who I am. I'm gonna go north, though I'm not sure which way that is. And what troubles me is that so many people don't know how to get ahold of their sense of self, that sense that says, "I am—and I need to strengthen this me.

Do you remember the speech? Sidney: Of course.