The first: on the death of Hollywood legend Sidney Poitier

Created: 01/07/2022Updated: 01/07/2022, 7:10 PM

By: Zoran Gojic

Sidney Poitier received the Honorary Oscar in 2002 - 38 years after he was the first black man to be honored with an Academy Award.

© Mike Nelson / afp

He was the first black man to be honored with an Oscar.

But that was not the only reason why Sidney Poitier went down in cinema annals.

Sidney Poitier wrote film history with a slap in the face in 1967.

In the classic "In the Heat of the Night", a large white landowner blows a whistle to an Afro-American police officer who asks him unpleasant questions.

This is how cheeky black people are treated in the south of the United States.

Poitier as a policeman returns the slap in the face and makes it clear who is in charge here.

Poitier later wrote in his autobiography that he wrote this scene into his own script.

Instead of many words, he wanted to make an unmistakable statement - he succeeded.

At the time, this scene could of course also be interpreted politically and a minor sensation in a Hollywood work.

In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, the film became a huge success and Sydney Poitier became the first African American world star.

At this point Poitier was already the biggest - and first - black star of the dream factory, who in milestones such as "Escape in Chains" (1958) was the first African American to receive an Oscar nomination for leading actor and then won him in 1964 for "Lilies on the Field" also got.

He owes his career to Harry Belafonte

Poitier owed his screen career to the other great black entertainer of those years: Harry Belafonte.

Both were playing at the American Negro Theater in New York, and a Hollywood talent scout wanted to see Belafonte.

But he couldn't appear because in his main job as caretaker he had to put the garbage cans in front of the door that very evening.

So Poitier stood on the stage - and was discovered.

He was considered to be very silent and acted emphatically physical, his natural presence met him there.

The reason the young Poitier was monosyllabic was basically trivial: the fellow from the Bahamas was embarrassed by his melodic Caribbean dialect.

Of course, he was not ashamed of his origins, which shaped him, as Poitier kept telling us.

He grew up on the tiny island of Cat Island, which can be traversed in width without much effort in a day.

Poitier literally lived in nature, had no shoes and could not even imagine a life outside of this little idyll.

His father, a poor tomato farmer, sent him to the USA as a teenager because the family there hoped for a better future for him - a complete culture shock for Poitier.

Upright self-confidence

With only a rudimentary school education, he felt helpless and began to learn obsessively.

Everyday racism made him angry - in the Caribbean he had never felt like an outsider and had no desire to change this because of some narrow-minded, fair-skinned Americans.

It wasn't him who had a problem, it was the others who had one.

That was how Poitier saw it.

The tall, good-looking Poitier didn't have to play the upright self-confidence, this natural sovereignty that made him stand out.

Together with Belafonte, with whom he was close friends, he was involved in the civil rights movement and made it clear to everyone that he did not want to be a “house slave” of the system: that is, nobody who accepts the status quo because of some privileges.

That not only made him friends, by the way, not in the Afro-American community either.

Because Poitier rejected the idea of ​​racism as fundamentally stupid, even if black activists handled it.

Sidney Poitier later switched to director

Poitier then fell out with Belafonte, the lithe Harry was too cheeky for him. And he was particularly annoyed by Belafonte's theory that Poitier would be accepted by the white public because he deliberately acted harmlessly as the ideal image of the good black and posed no danger. Poitier announced the friendship with Belafonte after decades. When asked where the image of the decent man came from, Poitier explained that he was a good person. With everything he does, he wants to honor his father, who made this life possible for him, and that also includes maintaining integrity.

When the number of roles on offer decreased in the 1970s, Poitier simply switched to director - and he was successful. For many, it comes as a surprise with light-footed comedies such as “Drehn wir noch'n Ding” (1975) or “Zwei Wahnsinnig strong guys” (1980). With nice late appearances in hits like "Little Nikita" (1988) or "Sneakers" (1992) he experienced a comeback as an actor and was awarded the honorary Oscar in 2002 for his life's work.

"I can't think of a script that could dissuade me from making this decision," said Poitier when he finally said goodbye to cinema.

"I was who I decided to be," said Poitier when asked about his greatest success.

It must be said that he was a great man.

Now he has died at the age of 94 after an amazing life.

Chester Cooper, Deputy Prime Minister of the Bahamas, announced: "We have lost an icon, a mentor, a fighter, a national treasure."