Sidney Poitier, the Oscar-winning actor who brought a quiet dignity to his characters on screen and helped break down the color barrier in Hollywood, has died. He was 94 years old, reports ABC News.
Poitier became the first Black man to win an Academy Award for best actor in 1964 for his role in “Lilies of the Field.” He was perhaps best known for his role as a Black doctor engaged to a white woman in 1967’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” in which he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.
That same year, he portrayed his most successful character, Philadelphia detective Virgil Tibbs in the Southern crime drama “In the Heat of the Night.” It was a role he would reprise in two sequels. He played an inner-city teacher in “To Sir, with Love,” his third film in 1967.
Paying tribute to Sidney Poitier in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “He is a man of great depth, a man of great social concern, a man who is dedicated to human rights and freedom.”
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