50 Fun Facts About Sidney Poitier

In which US city was Sidney Poitier born in 1927?

His Bahamian parents were there selling tomatoes; the premature birth gave him US citizenship.

Where in the Bahamas did Poitier grow up until the age of ten?

He did not see a car, electricity or a film until the family moved to Nassau.

For which 1963 film did Poitier become the first Black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor?

He played Homer Smith, a handyman who builds a chapel for East German nuns in Arizona.

What is the name of Poitier's Oscar-winning character, a handyman who builds a chapel for nuns?

The nuns believe God has sent him to build their chapel; the film was shot on a ranch owned by Linda Ronstadt's family.

Which hymn do the nuns learn from Poitier's handyman in his Oscar-winning film?

Their echoing rendition plays as he drives away at the end of the film.

Poitier's breakthrough film role was as a high-school student in which 1955 film?

He played the rebellious but musical Gregory Miller opposite Glenn Ford's teacher.

Poitier's 1955 breakthrough film is remembered as the first major Hollywood film to feature what?

Bill Haley's 'Rock Around the Clock' plays over the credits and sparked riots in some cinemas.

What was Poitier's film debut, a 1950 noir in which he played a doctor treating a racist criminal?

Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed; the bigot was played by Richard Widmark, who became a lifelong friend.

In The Defiant Ones (1958), Poitier and Tony Curtis play escaped convicts who are what?

The film earned Poitier the first Best Actor Oscar nomination for a Black performer, and a Silver Bear at Berlin.

Who directed The Defiant Ones and, nine years later, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Kramer specialised in message pictures; Poitier had to audition for Tracy and Hepburn at two dinner parties to win the later role.

What award did Poitier win at the 1958 Berlin Film Festival for The Defiant Ones?

He also won the BAFTA for Best Foreign Actor for the same performance.

Poitier starred in the 1959 Broadway premiere of which Lorraine Hansberry play?

He earned a Tony nomination and repeated the role of Walter Lee in the 1961 film.

Why was Poitier's singing dubbed in the 1959 film Porgy and Bess?

Robert McFerrin supplied Porgy's voice, uncredited; Dorothy Dandridge's Bess was dubbed by Adele Addison.

Which three films did Poitier release in 1967, the commercial peak of his career?

A poll the following year named him America's top box-office star.

What is the name of Poitier's Philadelphia detective in In the Heat of the Night?

The character returned in two sequels, They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) and The Organization (1971).

Who played the prejudiced Mississippi police chief opposite Poitier in In the Heat of the Night?

Steiger won the Best Actor Oscar; the film took Best Picture and five awards in all.

In which state was In the Heat of the Night mostly filmed, despite being set in Mississippi?

The town of Sparta, Illinois lent its name and its storefronts to the fictional Sparta, Mississippi.

What does Tibbs do when the plantation owner Endicott strikes him across the face?

The scene was startling for 1967 audiences; the line 'They call me Mister Tibbs!' ranks 16th on the AFI's list of movie quotes.

Who performed the title song of In the Heat of the Night, over a score by Quincy Jones?

The score was nominated for a Grammy.

In Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Poitier is engaged to the daughter of which screen couple?

It was their ninth and final film together; Tracy died 17 days after finishing his scenes.

Interracial marriage was illegal in how many states just before Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

The Supreme Court struck those laws down in Loving v. Virginia on 12 June 1967, shortly after filming ended.

In To Sir, with Love, Poitier plays a teacher in which part of London?

The film was based on E. R. Braithwaite's autobiographical novel and directed by James Clavell.

Which singer debuted in To Sir, with Love and sang its title song, a five-week US number one?

It ended up as the best-selling single in America in 1967.

How was Poitier paid for To Sir, with Love, in one of the shrewdest deals in film history?

He took 10% of the gross; Columbia had to renegotiate when it realised the annual cap would take 80 years to pay out.

In A Patch of Blue (1965), Poitier befriends a white teenager who is what?

Scenes of the two kissing were cut when the film played in the Southern United States.

What was Poitier's directorial debut in 1972?

He replaced Joseph Sargent after a few days and co-starred with Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee.

Which two comedians star in Stir Crazy (1980), long the top-grossing film by a Black director?

They play friends framed for a bank robbery and given 125-year sentences; it grossed $101 million on a $10 million budget.

With which comedian did Poitier make Uptown Saturday Night, Let's Do It Again and A Piece of the Action?

They were made through First Artists, the company Poitier formed with Barbra Streisand and Paul Newman.

Poitier co-founded First Artists Production Company with Paul Newman and which other star?

The idea was to let actors develop their own projects.

Which company rejected Poitier at his first audition because he could not read the script fluently?

An elderly Jewish waiter then spent months teaching him to read from the newspaper, and he passed the second time.

How did Poitier get out of the US Army in 1944?

He had lied about his age to enlist at 16 and was posted to a veterans' psychiatric hospital in Northport, New York.

Whose radio voice did Poitier model his famous speech pattern on, to shed his Bahamian accent?

He spent six months on it after audiences initially rejected him at the American Negro Theatre.

Which lifelong friend did Poitier meet at the Harlem theatre company where he trained?

They later co-starred in Buck and the Preacher and Uptown Saturday Night.

Poitier's leftist associations in the early 1950s led to what?

He never signed a loyalty oath, even when asked before Blackboard Jungle.

Which honour did Queen Elizabeth II grant Poitier in 1974?

As a US citizen the knighthood was honorary, though he was also a Bahamian.

Which country did Poitier serve as ambassador to for the Bahamas from 1997 to 2007?

He was concurrently the Bahamas' ambassador to UNESCO from 2002.

Which US president awarded Poitier the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009?

Obama later called him 'a singular talent who epitomized dignity and grace'.

Who became the second Black actor to win Best Actor on the night Poitier got his Honorary Oscar in 2002?

Washington told him from the stage: 'I'll always be chasing you, Sidney.'

Poitier sat on the board of directors of which entertainment giant from 1995 to 2003?

In 2021 the Academy Museum named its main lobby the Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby.

Which actress, his co-star in The Lost Man, did Poitier marry in 1976?

They stayed married until his death; he had earlier had a nine-year affair with Diahann Carroll.

In 1964 Poitier recorded a spoken-word album with Fred Katz reciting which philosopher?

It was called Poitier Meets Plato; he won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album decades later, in 2001.

Which 1992 caper film saw Poitier star alongside Robert Redford and Dan Aykroyd?

He co-starred with Richard Gere and Bruce Willis in The Jackal five years later.

Where was Poitier ranked in the American Film Institute's 1999 list of the greatest male screen legends?

He was one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood's Golden Age when he died in 2022 at 94.

At what age did Poitier die in January 2022?

He died at home in Beverly Hills; the Academy had dedicated its museum lobby to him the year before.

Virgil Tibbs returned in They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) and which 1971 sequel?

In the Heat of the Night was directed by Norman Jewison, and Tibbs became Poitier's most successful character.

With which actress did Poitier begin a nine-year affair in 1959, while married to Juanita Hardy?

The two co-starred in Paris Blues (1961) alongside Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Louis Armstrong.

Poitier was a 1947 founding member, and later vice chair, of which left-wing organisation?

Its members shared a left-wing analysis of class and racial exploitation, associations that later cost him work during the blacklist era.

Poitier's 1980 memoir This Life won which literary honour the following year?

He followed it with The Measure of a Man in 2000 and Life Beyond Measure, letters to his great-granddaughter, in 2008.

Besides Japan, Poitier served from 2002 to 2007 as the Bahamas' ambassador to which body?

He held the UNESCO post concurrently with the Tokyo ambassadorship he had taken up in 1997.

Which 1991 TV film about the Brown v. Board of Education case earned Poitier an Emmy nomination?

He played Thurgood Marshall; Mandela and de Klerk in 1997 brought him another Emmy nomination.