Sidney Poitier, legendary actor and first black Hollywood star, has died at the age of 94, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Bahamas, where the actor grew up, announced on Friday.
“We have lost an icon, a hero, a mentor, a fighter, and a national treasure,” Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper wrote on his Facebook page about the actor. Chain or even In the heat of the Night, without mentioning the cause of his death.
Born prematurely in Miami, Florida, on February 20, 1927, when his parents moved from the neighboring Bahamas, Sidney Poitier thus obtained dual American and Bahamian nationality.
In 1964, he was the first African American to win the Oscar for Best Actor for The lily of the fields.
“The journey was long to get there,” he said very moved, receiving the golden statuette.
Through his roles, the audience was able to conceive that African Americans could be doctors (The door opens – 1950), engineers, teachers (Angels with tight fists – 1967), or police officers (In the heat of the Night – 1967).
One of the few of his time
But at 37, when the incandescent actor received his Oscar, he was the only color star in Hollywood.
“The film industry was not yet ready to raise more than one personality from minorities to the rank of star”, he deciphered in his autobiography This Life.
“At the time, […] I endorsed the hopes of a whole people. I had no control over the content of the films […], but I could refuse a role, which I did many times. “
In Guess who’s coming to dinner? in 1967, he plays the fiance of a young white bourgeois presenting him to his parents, a couple of intellectuals who believe themselves to be open-minded. The meeting is a shock, and gives a major film on the racism of the time.
Black cause activists, however, harshly criticize Sidney Poitier for having accepted this role of internationally renowned doctor, at odds with the discrimination suffered by his peers. He is referred to as the “Negro on duty”, “white fantasy”. His unreal qualities as an ideal son-in-law mask his skin color and racist issues, they argue.
In 2002, Sidney Poitier received an honorary Oscar for “his extraordinary performances, his dignity, his style and his intelligence”.