Sad news.
Sidney Poitier, the first black man to win a best actor Oscar, has died at 94.
Poitier was a trailblazing actor and a respected humanitarian and diplomat.
He won the Academy Award for best actor for Lilies of the Field in 1963.
Former US President Barack Obama said Poitier "epitomised dignity and grace" and had "singular
talent".
He added that the actor revealed "the power of movies to bring us closer together" and
"opened doors for a generation of actors".
US broadcaster and journalist Oprah Winfrey also paid tribute, saying: "For me the greatest
of the 'Great Trees' has fallen," adding the actor "had an enormous soul I will forever
cherish".
That man was Sidney Poitier.
Poitier broke the mold of what a Black actor could be in Hollywood.
Before the 1950s, Black movie characters generally reflected racist stereotypes such as lazy
servants and beefy mammies.
Then came Poitier, the only Black man to consistently win leading roles in major films from the
late 1950s through the late 1960s.
Like King, Poitier projected ideals of respectability and integrity.
He attracted not only the loyalty of African Americans, but also the goodwill of white
liberals.
In three separate columns in 1957, 1961 and 1962, a New York Daily News columnist named
Dorothy Masters marveled that Poitier had the warmth and charisma of a minister.
Poitier lent his name and resources to King’s causes, and he participated in demonstrations
such as the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage and the 1963 March on Washington.
In this era of sit-ins, Freedom Rides and mass marches, activists engaged in nonviolent
sacrifice not only to highlight racist oppression, but also to win broader sympathy for the cause
of civil rights.
In that same vein, Poitier deliberately chose to portray characters who radiated goodness.
They had decent values and helped white characters, and they often sacrificed themselves.
He earned his first star billing in 1958, in “The Defiant Ones,” in which he played
an escaped prisoner handcuffed to a racist played by Tony Curtis.
At the end, with the chain unbound, Poitier jumps off a train to stick with his new white
friend.
Writer James Baldwin reported seeing the film on Broadway, where white audiences clapped
with reassurance, their racial guilt alleviated.
When he saw it again in Harlem, members of the predominantly Black audience yelled “Get
back on the train, you fool!”
King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
In that same year, Poitier won the Oscar for Best Actor for “Lilies of the Field,”
in which he played Homer Smith, a traveling handyman who builds a chapel for German nuns
out of the goodness of his heart.
The sweet, low-budget movie was a surprise hit.
In its own way, like the horrifying footage of water hoses and police dogs attacking civil
rights activists, it fostered swelling support for racial integration.
The Oscar winning director Spike Lee took to Instagram to celebrate Poitier's legacy,
calling him "A Proud, Dignified, Handsome And Strong Black Man That We See In Our Communities
All The Time But Now Burst And Burnt Through The Silver Screens Of Hollywood".
Star Trek actor George Takei paid tribute, calling the actor "a trailblazer who will
be mourned by so many for whom he opened the very doors of Hollywood".
James Bond and Westworld actor Jeffrey Wright added that Poitier was a "landmark actor".
Rest in peace, Sidney.