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Hollywood icon Sidney Poitier dies aged 94


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Sidney Poitier, the first black man to win a best actor Oscar, has died at 94.

The Hollywood star's death was confirmed to the BBC by the office of Fred Mitchell, the Bahamas' minister of foreign affairs.

Poitier was a trailblazing actor and a respected humanitarian and diplomat. He won the Academy Award for best actor for Lilies of the Field in 1963.

Born in Miami, he grew up on a tomato farm in the Bahamas and moved to New York aged 16. The actor was a regular on the big screen at a time of racial segregation in the US, appearing in a Patch of Blue in 1965, and then Heat of the Night the year after, followed by Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, playing a black man with a white fiancée.

In Heat of the Night he portrayed Virgil Tibbs, a black police officer confronting racism during a murder investigation.

His other classic films A Patch of Blue, The Blackboard Jungle and A Raisin in the Sun, which he also performed on Broadway. Empire magazine's Amon Warman told the BBC: "He was a pioneer, he's so influential and paved the way for so many in the industry to make their own mark, not least Denzel Washington, who paid tribute to him when he won an Oscar."

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59907931

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9 minutes ago, PunkTheFunk said:

For anyone not familiar with his work:

 

I saw him in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. A great classic that I highly recommend to everyone, with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as well. RIP :heart:

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