"To Sir Sidney, With Love"

Born in 1927, Sidney Poitier grew up in the small village of Cat Island, Bahamas. His father, a tomato farmer, moved the family to the capital Nassau when Poitier was eleven. It was there that he first encountered cinema. Even at a young age Sidney recognized the ability of cinema to expand one’s view of reality. Sidney later joined the US Army and upon his release from duty, he moved to New York where he auditioned for the American Negro Theater. He was rejected so forcefully that he dedicated the next few months of his life to refining his acting skills and overcoming his noticeable Bahamian accent. He was accepted on his second attempt to enter the theater. Poitier was given the role of understudying Harry Belafonte in the play Days of our Youth. Filling in for Belafonte one night, Poitier made his public debut. Poitier made his Broadway debut in 1946, in an all-black production of Lysistrata a Greek comedy. Though nervous and unsure of his lines, Poitier was a hit.

He continued to perform in plays until 1950, when he made his film debut in No Way Out. No Way Out, a violent tale of racial hatred, made him a hero back home in the Bahamas. The colonial government deemed it too explosive and censored it. Throughout the fifties, Poitier made some of the most important and controversial movies of the time. Addressing issues of racial equality abroad, he made Cry, The Beloved Country, about apartheid in South Africa. He later took on problems closer to home in Blackboard Jungle and The Defiant Ones. This film was about two escaped prisoners who must overcome issues of race in their struggle for freedom. For his role in The Defiant Ones, Poitier was nominated for an Academy Award. The film’s focus on racial politics, as well as his increasing popularity, made Poitier a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Sidney made several films during this period and some of his other great works included Go Man Go!, Edge of the City, Mark of the Hawk and Porgy and Bess.

In 1959, Poitier returned to the stage with a stirring performance of Walter Lee in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, the first play by a Black playwright to show on Broadway. It was an insightful and moving reflection of Black family life, and it had great popular appeal. Poitier would reprise his role for the Hollywood adaptation in 1961. During this time Poitier starred in Paris Blues, Pressure Point, The Slender Thread, The Long Ships, The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Bedford Incident. It was not until 1963, for his role in Lilies Of The Field, that the movie industry saluted Poitier with its greatest award. In an era where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Prize and Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court, Sidney Poitier was the first Black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor.

Poitier followed up this triumph with an electrifying performance as a Black detective from the north trying to solve a murder in a southern town in Norman Jewison’s In The Heat of The Night. Having concerned himself with the problems of racial inequality in many of its manifestations, Poitier tackled one of the great taboos of the time. With Patch Of Blue and Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, he focused on interracial romance. Poitier continued to make racially provocative films, appearing in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as the Black fiancé of a white woman. Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was the first Hollywood movie about interracial romance not to end tragically. By the time of its completion in the late sixties, Poitier was one of Hollywood’s most popular stars. Poitier also starred in The Lost Man, For The Love of Ivy, "To Sir, With Love" and Duel at Diablo.

During the 1960’s fallout from the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, Poitier became the target of criticism from segments of the Black community. Accused of being too passive in a scathing article in the New York Times, Poitier retreated to the Bahamas to reassess his life. In 1969, Poitier founded the First Artists Production Company and, in 1972, announced his directorial debut with Buck and the Preacher. He directed and starred in his next four films which were highly entertaining, A Warm December, Uptown Saturday Night, Let’s Do it Again and A Piece Of The Action. Poitier was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974. The honor entitles him to use the title “Sir”, though he usually chooses not to do so.

During the 1980’s he directed the hit comedy classic Stir Crazy, starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. Then Poitier began to reduce his workload; after two more features, he disappeared from filmmaking altogether for the next few years. In 1988, Poitier appeared onscreen for the first time in over a decade, in the thriller, Shoot to Kill. Eight years later, he starred in the long-awaited follow-up to his ’67 success in"To Sir, With Love II." As an actor, director, and producer, he forever altered the racial perceptions held by both film audiences and executives, rising to superstar status in an industry dominated on both sides of the camera by whites, while becoming the first Black person ever to take home an Oscar for Best Actor.

The Museum Of UnCut Funk recognizes Sidney Poitier's tremendous contributions to film as well as his important role in breaking down racial barriers. We have showcased a few of the movie posters from his films not only to illustrate the beauty of the artwork of these posters, but importantly how Poitier’s image was depicted as a Black movie icon.