Some sad news to report today. The world has lost another legend. Sidney Poitier, the trailblazing and truly iconic Black actor, director and civil rights activist has passed away at the age of 94.
The Bahamian Minister of Foreign Affairs announced the news on Friday, but no details were given. We’re assuming he simply died of old age, but we can’t confirm that.
Before his death, Poitier was the oldest living winner of the Best Actor award. Of course, that’s just one distinction in a career full of them.
The first Black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor — for 1964’s Lilies of the Field — Poitier was towering figure in Hollywood and beyond, starring in such classics as A Raisin in the Sun, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night and To Sir With Love, to name a select few, while taking on a global profile for his unceasing calls for civil rights, racial equality and human dignity.
Shockingly (or perhaps not-so-shockingly) it would be another 38 years before another Black actor won Best Actor at the Oscars. Denzel Washington won the award in 2001 for Training Day.
Among his many honors and awards, Poitier received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement in film in 2001, and in 1992 received the AFI Life Achievement Award. He was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor in 1995 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. He was made Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974.
Safe to say, he was a true legend, and he will be missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his friends and family.
