Sidney Poitier (1927 - 2022)

Bahamian-American actor, film director, author, and diplomat

* February 20, 1927 Miami, Florida, USA
 as Sidney L. Poitier
 January 7, 2022



Sidney Poitier was a Bahamian-American actor and film director who was one of the first African-American actors to achieve widespread success in Hollywood. He was born in Miami, Florida in 1927, and grew up in the Bahamas. Poitier began his acting career in the theater, and made his film debut in 1950. He quickly gained recognition for his performances, and in 1963 he became the first African-American actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, for his role in the film "Lilies of the Field." Poitier has appeared in a number of successful films, including "In the Heat of the Night" (1967), "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967), and "To Sir, with Love" (1967). In addition to his acting career, Poitier was also a film director and has directed a number of successful films, including "A Warm December" (1973) and "Stir Crazy" (1980).

Books by Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier
The measure of a man, a spiritual autobiography
San Francisco, 2000

Sidney Poitier
Life beyond measure, letters to my great-granddaughter
New Rochelle, N.Y., 2008

Articles by Sidney Poitier

Walking the Hollywood Color Line, in: Bert Cardullo, Harry Geduld, Ronald Gottesman, and Leigh Woods (ed.), Playing to the Camera, New Haven and London, 1998

Books on Sidney Poitier

Aram Goudsouzian
Sidney Poitier, Man, actor, icon
Chapel Hill, 2004

Alvin H. Marill
The Films of Sidney Poitier
Secaucus, N.J., 1978

Books with substantial mentioning of Sidney Poitier

George Stevens, Jr. (ed.) Conversations at the American Film Institute with the great moviemakers George Stevens, Jr. (ed.)
Conversations at the American Film Institute with the great moviemakers, The next generation
New York, 2012

Pamela Robertson Wojcik (ed.)
New constellations, Movie stars of the 1960s
New Brunswick, N.J., 2012

Peter Bogdanovich Who the Hell's in It Peter Bogdanovich
Who the Hell's in It, Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Actors
New York, 2004

Tom Pendergast, Sara Pendergast (eds.)
International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 3. Actors and Actresses
Detroit/New York/San Francisco/London/Boston/Woodbridge, CT, 2000

Frank N. Magill (ed.)
Magill's Cinema Annual 1993, A Survey of the Films of 1992
Pasadena, Ca.; Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1993

Robert A. Nowlan and Gwendolyn Wright Nowlan
Movie Characters of Leading Performers of the Sound Era
Chicago and London, 1990

James Robert Parish Great Movie Heroes James Robert Parish
Great Movie Heroes
New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London, 1975

Books with an entry on Sidney Poitier

David Thomson The New Biographical Dictionary of Film David Thomson
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
New York, 2003

Paul Michael, editor in chief. James Robert Parish, associate editor The American movies reference book Paul Michael, editor in chief. James Robert Parish, associate editor
The American movies reference book, The sound era
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,, 1969

Articles on Sidney Poitier

Stanley Crouch, The fundamental principles of Sidney Poitier, in: Filmcomment, nr. 2, 2011 pp. 34-37

Articles with substantial mentioning of Sidney Poitier

Ed Guerrero, The Rise and Fall of Blaxploitation, in: Cynthia Lucia, Roy Grundmann, and Art Simon (eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell History of American Film, Malden, MA, Oxford, Chichester, 2012