Sidney Poitier^†

Cat Island, Bahamas, in the 1930s: no electricity, no running water, a one-room schoolhouse he barely attended. He made it to New York at 16, barely literate. The American Negro Theatre rejected him for his Bahamian accent, so he trained by listening to the radio for six months and reapplied. In 1964, he became the first Black man to win the Best Actor Oscar, for Lilies of the Field. Denzel Washington didn't win that same award until 2002, which says something about how much ground Poitier had covered alone.

By 1967, he was the only Black actor Hollywood would reliably put at the center of a film, and that year three of the top-grossing movies were his: In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and To Sir, with Love. The critique that his characters were too dignified, too deferential, tracked him for decades. He has said the option of playing a criminal wasn't available to him the way it was for white actors, given what he represented to studios. The Academy Museum named its lobby after him in 2021.

At 16, he lied about his age to join the Army and, hating it, tried to fake insanity to get discharged. When a doctor threatened him with shock therapy, he admitted he'd lied and got out. A Hollywood director once told him to quit acting and get a job washing dishes. Poitier was washing dishes for a living at the time. To shoot Cry, the Beloved Country in apartheid South Africa in 1951, director Zoltan Korda passed him off to authorities as an indentured servant to get the production access to film. He played kings and lawmen on screen. Off it, he was still getting asked to prove he belonged.

Broadway theaters dimmed their lights on January 19, 2022, in tribute. The family held a private memorial and directed donations to the Children's Defense Fund, the United Negro College Fund, and the Alzheimer's Association. A documentary, Sidney, directed by Reginald Hudlin, was released in September 2022. The Gotham Awards launched the Sidney Poitier Initiative that year, a mentorship and project-funding program for emerging filmmakers.