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11214 |
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Date: January 07, 2022 at 10:34:14
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: RIP, Sidney Poitier |
URL: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/07/311902059/sidney-poitier-obituary |
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"Sir, we loved you: Sidney Poitier dies at 94
Sidney Poitier, groundbreaking star of American movies,
has died at the age of 94. His death was confirmed by the
office of the prime minister of the Bahamas, according to
multiple news organizations — including both wires.
Poitier was the first Black person to win a Best Actor
Oscar — and for people of a certain age, his image was
indelible: his smooth, commanding presence, his dark
skin, his searing good looks, bemused eye rolls and
memorable physicality. It all symbolized — and offered a
challenge to — the way Black men were represented in
movies, and how they might be seen in the real world.
In A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry's landmark
work about the dreams and disappointments for a Black
family in 1950s America, Poitier plays Walter Lee
Younger. Walter aspires to open his own business, but
finds his big plans frustrated. Poitier first played the
role on stage, with actor Glynn Turman as Walter's son
Travis.
"We were in Chicago and it was just freezing," he
recalls. "And I remember watching him take the time to
stand there, in this cold, and sign all of these
autographs. I said, 'Doesn't he feel the cold? Doesn't he
know it's freezing out here?' Because the time he took
with each person to sign these autographs just made him
in my view grow bigger, taller and stronger... I said,
man, who IS this guy?"
Sidney Poitier was well aware of his own symbolism. His
life began far more humbly than the fame he would later
negotiate; his first years were spent on Cat Island in
Bahamas, as the youngest of nine. His parents, Evelyn and
Reggie, were tomato farmers.
The Poitiers brought their harvest to market in Miami by
boat, and Sidney was born prematurely on one such trip.
He was so small that he wasn't expected to survive. But
he did.
Speaking with NPR in 2009, Poitier recalled his family's
move to Nassau when he was 10. He had never seen his face
in a mirror before then. "I saw my teeth. and they were
quite acceptable, they looked pretty ok. And my eyes, my
hair... me! I was looking at myself," Poitier remembered.
His life in the Bahamas could hardly prepare him for
becoming the most familiar of all Black men seen in
Hollywood movies. His everyday workers and professional
businessmen were elegant, flawless, dignified; they never
were villains. In the 1958 movie, The Defiant Ones,
Sidney Poitier shared top billing with Tony Curtis, and
even as a fugitive, he was hard to dislike.
Poitier's name above the title marked a turning point for
his career. He was becoming more widely accepted by
moviegoers. Sidney Poitier's rise in popularity seemed
linked with the hopes of the civil rights movement.
Five years later, in Lilies of the Field, Poitier
portrayed Homer Smith, a handyman reluctant to help a
group of German nuns lacking bricks or money for a new
chapel. He made history with Lilies of the Field: In
1964, the same year as the passage of the Civil Rights
Act, he became the first Black man ever to win as Oscar
for Best Actor."
--the rest at link...
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Responses:
[11215] [11216] [11217] |
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11215 |
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Date: January 07, 2022 at 11:07:46
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: RIP, Sidney Poitier |
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i just watched "to sir with love" the other day...he was a class act...
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Responses:
[11216] [11217] |
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11216 |
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Date: January 07, 2022 at 13:55:21
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: RIP, Sidney Poitier |
URL: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Sidney-Poitier-A-trailblazing-life-in-his-own-16758166.php |
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Sidney Poitier: A trailblazing life in his own words
JAKE COYLE, AP Film Writer
Jan. 7, 2022
Updated: Jan. 7, 2022 1:45 p.m.
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REMOVES REFERENCE TO THE BAHAMAS - FILE - President Barack Obama presents the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Sidney Poitier during ceremonies in the East Room at the White House in Washington on, Aug. 12, 2009. Poitier, the groundbreaking actor and enduring inspiration who transformed how Black people were portrayed on screen, became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw, died Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. He was 94.
REMOVES REFERENCE TO THE BAHAMAS - FILE - President Barack Obama presents the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Sidney Poitier during ceremonies in the East Room at the White House in Washington on, Aug. 12, 2009. Poitier, the groundbreaking actor and enduring inspiration who transformed how Black people were portrayed on screen, became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw, died Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. He was 94.J. Scott Applewhite/AP
NEW YORK (AP) — As a trailblazing actor to generations of Black performers in Hollywood, Sidney Poitier often spoke about his larger off-screen role.
Poitier, who died Thursday at the age of 94, entered the film industry at a time when portrayals of African Americans were generally stereotypical. But Poitier, who refused to play such caricatures, emerged as a matinee idol, an Oscar-winning actor and one of the most potent and graceful screen presences of his time, paving the way for countless who followed him.
In interviews and in his 2000 autobiography, “The Measure of a Man,” Poitier spoke and wrote about the hardships, responsibilities and importance of his historic ascent in Hollywood. Here are excepts of Poitier in his own words through the years.
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“There was almost no frame of reference for us except as stereotypical, one-dimensional characters. ... Not only was I not going to do that, but I had in mind what was expected of me — not just what other Blacks expected but what my mother and father expected. And what I expected of myself. ... To walk through my life as my own man.” — From a 2000 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
“OK listen, you think I’m so inconsequential? Then try this on for size. All those who see unworthiness when they look at me and are given thereby to denying me value - to you I say, I’m not talking about being AS GOOD as you. I hereby declare myself BETTER than you." — From his memoir.
“I felt very much as if I were representing 15, 18 million people with every move I made.” — From his memoir.
“It’s a choice, a clear choice. If the fabric of the society were different, I would scream to high heaven to play villains and to deal with different images of Negro life that would be more dimensional. But I’ll be damned if I do that at this stage of the game.” — On playing heroic, altruistic characters, from a 1967 interview.
“I can tell you what I think the flak was about. For a long time, I got all the jobs — one picture after another after another. And the roles I played were very unlike the average Black person in America at the time. The guy always had a suit, a tie, a briefcase! He was a doctor, lawyer, police detective. Middle-class. The characters weren’t reflective of the diversity of Black life. I don’t know that I wouldn’t have had resentments myself, had I been an actor on the outside looking in.” — On criticism of his on-screen persona, from a 1995 interview with the Washington Post.
“In the original script, I looked at him with great disdain and, wrapped in my strong ideals, walked out,” he wrote. “That could have happened with another actor playing the part, but it couldn’t happen with me.” — On returning a white man's slap in 1967's “In the Heat of the Night,” from his memoir.
“I was happy for me, but I was also happy for the ‘folks.' We Black people had done it. We were capable. We forget sometimes, having to persevere against unspeakable odds, that we are capable of infinitely more than the culture is yet willing to credit to our account." — On becoming the first Black actor to win an Oscar in 1964, from his memoir.
“I was part of an influence that could be called paving the way. But I was only a part of it. I was selected almost by history itself. Most of my career unfolded in the 1960s, which was one of the periods in American history with certain attitudes toward minorities that stayed in vogue. I didn’t understand the elements swirling around. I was a young actor with some talent, an enormous curiosity, a certain kind of appeal. You wrap all that together and you have a potent mix.” — From a 1992 interview with the Times of London.
“Those of us that go before you glance back with satisfaction and leave you with a simple trust. Be true to yourselves and be useful to the journey.” — Accepting the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992.
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11217 |
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Date: January 07, 2022 at 14:18:17
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: RIP, Sidney Poitier |
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Thanks for this one, ryan...does far better justice to the
measure & scope of him than that little NPR blurb...
Talk about breaking the mold afterward...
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