BREAKING: Sidney Poitier, trailblazing Hollywood icon who broke barriers for Black actors, dies at 94, source close to the family says.
Sidney Poitier, the renowned Hollywood actor, director and activist who commanded the screen, reshaped the culture and paved the way for countless other Black actors with stirring performances in classics such as “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” has died, a source close to the family told NBC News on Friday.In a groundbreaking film career that spanned decades, Poitier established himself as one of the finest performers in America.
Poitier was born prematurely Feb. 20, 1927, in Miami, to Bahamian parents while they were on vacation in the United States. He grew up in the Bahamas, spending his early years around his father’s tomato farm on Cat Island before the family relocated to Nassau. The teenage Poitier returned to the U.S., where he enlisted in the U.S. Army and briefly served in a medical unit.
“The Defiant Ones” opened up exciting career opportunities for Poitier. He drew praise as the crippled beggar Porgy in Otto Preminger’s musical “Porgy and Bess” , adapted from the George Gershwin opera, and the determined Walter Lee Younger in “A Raisin in the Sun” , adapted from the Lorraine Hansberry play.
“A Patch of Blue,” released in 1965, was a pathbreaking portrait of the relationship between Poitier’s educated office worker and Elizabeth Hartman’s blind white woman. The film further established him as one of the key leading men in Hollywood. In the early 1970s, Poitier went behind the camera. He made his directorial debut with the Western “Buck and the Preacher” casting himself alongside Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee. Poitier directed Belafonte again in “Uptown Saturday Night,” where they were joined by comedian Bill Cosby.
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