Sidney Poitier died at the age of 94, this Friday, January 7. American cinema is losing one of its biggest stars, a comedian who had allowed many black American actors to dream of equality.
Sidney Poitier is dead and with him, a whole section of American cinema is disappearing. Born in Miami, Florida on February 20, 1927, in the middle of segregated America, Sidney Poitier had a remarkable career, which raised him to the Oscar for best actor. He spent his entire childhood on Cat Island in the Bahamas. At 15, he was already passionate about cinema. He leaves his parents to join his brother installed in the United States, with the firm intention of taking his first steps as an actor. First challenge: integrate the North American Negro Theater. But suffering from amusia, a hearing problem preventing him from distinguishing between rhythm and melody, he failed due to his inability to sing. Whatever, the young man is stubborn and does not get discouraged: he then offers his services as a stagehand in exchange for free acting lessons.
Oscar for best actor in 1963
He took his first steps on Broadway, then got his first film role in 1950, in The door opens by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, which deals with racism. The consecration came in 1955, with Seed of Violence. He plays the role of a young boy who has to face exclusion and poverty. Three years later, he was nominated for the Oscar for best actor in Chain, a racial tension thriller in which he stars alongside Tony Curtis. Thanks to his intense and sober acting, the actor manages to erase the caricatural image lent so far to artists of color. The actor is then directed by the great Otto Preminger in Porgy and Bess. He plays a crippled black man who comes to the aid of Bess, a woman trapped by her husband. In this work adapted from an opera, he is voiced by a singer. The successes follow one another: in 1961, he received the Gary Cooper prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his role in A grape in the sun and in 1963, he won the Oscar for best actor for his incarnation of the character of Homer Smith in Lily of the fields. He is the first black actor to receive this legendary award.
A committed actor
Very committed to respecting civil rights, Sidney Poitier does not hesitate to choose his roles when they carry a social message. This is the case The heat of the night, Guess who’s coming to dinner? or Call me Mr. Tibbs! Where The organization. In the 1960s, his career was controversial: the black population thought that his roles were sometimes too caricature and his popularity with the white community annoyed. Tired of all that, he turned to a new career: directing. In 1972, his first feature film was released, a western titled Buck and his accomplice. He will thus make a dozen films, among which The coup to redo, Madness on the hunt Where Daddy is a ghost. However, he continues to act occasionally in films for the cinema (The experts in 1992, Bicentennial Nigger in 2006), as for television (The last Brickmaker in America in 2001).
From the 1980s, he became much more discreet in the cinema and devoted himself to the fight for freedom and equal human rights. He becomes UNESCO Ambassador to the Bahamas, his country of origin. In 2002, he was again celebrated by the Academy with an honorary Oscar for his “remarkable achievements as an artist and as a man”. In 2009, he received the highest American civilian honor: the Medal of Freedom, from President Barack Obama. Side heart, the actor got married twice. A first time with the dancer Juanita Hady, then in 1976 with the actress Joanna Shimkus with whom he had two daughters