Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier was a Bahamian-American film actor, director, and activist whose professional life encompassed an unusually broad range of roles both in front of and behind the camera.
Born in Miami on February 20, 1927, Poitier held dual citizenship in the United States and The Bahamas. He worked as a film actor and film director, and extended his presence in the industry further as a film producer and television producer. His involvement with the stage added yet another register to his career, as he also worked as a theatre director. Beyond entertainment, he served as a diplomat, a vocation that placed him in a distinctly different arena of public life.
Poitier was additionally a writer and author, as well as a musician, and he pursued work as an activist alongside his professional endeavors. The Academy Award for Best Actor represents a formally recognized distinction within his film career. He died on January 6, 2022, in Los Angeles. The breadth of his professional identities — actor, director, producer, diplomat, writer, and activist — remained a consistent feature of his public life as a Bahamian-American figure who worked across film, television, and theatre.
Quotes by Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier's insights on:
I did not go into the film business to be symbolized as someone else’s vision of me.
The willingness to receive help and appreciate its value when it arrives, sometimes unannounced, is a subject that returns us to the question of why and how our lives turn out as they do.
To be compared to Jackie Robinson is an enormous compliment, but I don’t think it’s necessarily deserved.
I’m telling you this so that if you ever are in the position of carrying a secret about something that you have done that makes you ashamed you will make the choice to confront yourself. It will take guts to admit that you have behaved in a way that prevents you from being your better self, and then choose to act differently. It.
John Cassavetes once gave me some advice that has proved invaluable... He said, ‘We’re good friends, but never, ever do an artistic favor for a friend. Loan friends money, be there for them in every other way, but don’t do them any artistic favors, because you’ve got to have one area of your life where there’s no room for compromise.