REST IN PEACE: Sidney Poitier, a Bahamian-American actor who became the first Black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, has died at 94.
FILE - Actor Sidney Poitier attends the opening night of"Born For This" at The Broad Stage on July 20, 2017, in Santa Monica, California.
Poitier, who was born in Miami and raised in the Bahamas, was the son of tomato farmers before launching a career that went from small, hard-won theater parts to eventual Hollywood stardom. He became known for some of the first popular film roles to explore seriously the lives of Black Americans. In 1964, he became the first Black man and the first Bahamian to win the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Homer Smith in "Lilies in the Field," in which a traveling handyman stops at a farm in the desert to get water for his car and meets a group of nuns who wish to build a chapel.
"Poitier insisted that the film crew on The Lost Man be at least 50 percent African American, and starred in the first mainstream movies portraying ‘acceptable’ interracial marriages and interracial kissing," the Obama White HouseFILE IMAGES - Bahamian American actor Sidney Poitier is pictured in various shots holding his Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for 'Lilies Of The Field', directed by Ralph Nelson, at the 36th Academy Awards ceremony, on April 13, 1964.
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