Sidney Poitier has died, aged 94.
The Hollywood star was known for films including Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night and Lilies of the Field, for which he became the first Black man to win a Best Actor Oscar.
The news was announced by Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell, prompting tributes.
Bahamian-American star Poitier was automatically granted US citizenship after being unexpectedly born in Miami while his parents were visiting. He grew up in the Bahamas but moved to American when he was 15, scoring his first film role in 1955’s Blackboard Jungle.
His first brush with award nominations came with The Defiant Ones (1958), which saw him nominated for Best Actor alongside co-star Tony Curtis.
Six years later, he historically won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Lilies in the Field. Denzel Washington praised Poitier when he became the second Black man to win Best Actor for 2001 film Training Day, saying: “I’ll always be chasing you, Sidney. I’ll always be following in your footsteps. There’s nothing I would rather do, sir.”
In an interview published on Thursday (6 January), Washington told Variety he would have loved to have starred in a film with Poiter, who was retired at the time of his death.
“God bless him – He’s still here, but yeah, I missed that opportunity,” the actor said.
In 1967, Poitier starred in three films that addressed the issue of race relations: To Sir, with Love, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night, which was directed by Norman Jewison.
In the latter, he played Virgil Tibbs, a black police detective from Philadelphia, who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a small town in Mississippi. It became so known for Poitier’s line of dialogue “They call me Mr Tibbs” that a sequel named after the quote arrived in 1970.
In the 1980s, he directed Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in comedy film Stir Crazy.
Poitier married twice, the first time to Juanita Hardy from 1960 to 1965. After a nine-year affair with actor and singer Diahann Carol, Poitier married Joanna Shimkus in 1976. They stayed together for the remainder of his life.
Poitier is survived by six children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
More to follow
