Sidney Poitier , the first black actor to win an Oscar in 1964 for his performance in The Lilies of the Valley has died at the age of 94. It also garnered two Oscar nominations, ten Golden Globe nominations, two Emmy Award nominations. Six to the BAFTAs, eight to the Laurel de Oro Awards, and one nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Awards .
After the death of Kirk Douglas in 2020, Sidney Poitier was one of the last survivors of the Hollywood Golden Age . In addition to an incredibly prolific acting career, between 1997 and 2007 he also served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan. He was also part of the Disney board of directors between 1995 and 2003.
His most important time as an actor occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. He acted in about 50 films, among the most important are Fugitives, Porgy and Bess, Paris Blues, Classroom Rebellion, Lilies of the Valley and In the Heat of the night. In the 1980s and 1990s his activity was reduced but many of us will remember him for his performance as Donald Crease in Sneakers (Los nosgones or Héroes por azar) premiered in 1992 with Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix and David Strathairn.
He also directed nine films, many of them comedies, in the 1970s and 1980s. Uptown Saturday Night is probably the best known. From its success Sidney Poitier directed two more related films that are considered a trilogy: Let's do it again and A Piece of the Action, all three with Bill Cosby.
Poitier came to be criticized for choosing roles in which he was over-idealized African-American characters who seemed to have no personality flaws. Although the actor was aware of the problem, he chose to ignore it since he considered that for the time, it was important to choose characters who set positive examples in the audience. Although from the 1960s he began to choose more varied interpretations.
