Actor Sidney Poitier, trailblazing star who broke Hollywood barriers, dies at 94
LOS ANGELES — It was the most unlikely of beginnings. Newly arrived from the Bahamas with a thick West Indian accent, Sidney Poitier fumbled his lines so badly when he tried out for the American Negro Theater in Harlem that he was advised he’d be better off getting a job as a dishwasher.
Humiliated but unbroken, Poitier bought a $13 radio and spent hours listening to the announcers, mimicking their pronunciation and the rhythms of their speech. When he returned to the theater, his audition was little better but when another unknown actor, Harry Belafonte, pulled out of a performance, Poitier stepped into the limelight.
His ascent was meteoric, smashing through the Hollywood color barriers during a time when Black people on the Hollywood studio lots were generally kitchen workers and janitors. On film they were often cast in singing and dancing roles, footage that could easily be snipped when the movies rolled out in the Deep South.
At the height of the civil rights movement as the nation heaved with racial tension, Poitier arose as one of the top box office draws of the 1960s in films such as “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” cementing it all as he became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for lead actor.
A towering role model for succeeding generations of Black actors, Poitier died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles,
