I JUST said yesterday that 2022 needs to lay off all this killing of our legends, but it’s come to pass again.
Sidney Poitier, the first black man to win an Oscar for best actor, has died. He was 94. His passing was confirmed on Friday morning by Fred Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Bahamas, where Poitier grew up. His cause of death is not yet known.
His cause of death wasn’t released, but as he was 94 I am assuming it was natural causes.
His film list is full of breakthrough roles and amazing performances. I can not suggest enough that you check out one of these amazing films this weekend.
Those are just his biggest roles. ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner’ was insanely important because it was made in 1967 and he plays a black man meeting his white girlfriends parents for the first time. The great Katharine Hepburn plays the mother he tries to win over.
Besides Golden Globes and BAFTA’s, Sidney was Knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1974 and received the Kennedy Center honor in 1995, and in 2008 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama.
RIP, Sir.
Sidney Poitier sitting with pencil while looking up in a scene from the film ‘To Sir, With Love’, 1967. (Photo by Columbia Pictures/Getty Images)