Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier is an actor,director and singer who won the Academy Award for "Best Actor" for his portrayal of the itinerant worker Homer Smith in the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.

Raised on a small Bahamian island, Poitier began acting in the late 1940s after leaving the U.S. Army. He first appeared in the 1950 Joseph Mankiewicz film No Way Out and had his first breakout role at the age of 27 by playing a high school delinquent in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle. In 1958, he became the first black actor ever nominated for a competitive Academy Award, for his role as escaped prisoner Noah Cullen in The Defiant Ones, and in 1963, became the first black actor to win the Academy Award for "Best Actor" for Lilies in the Field. Through these successes, Poitier became Hollywood's first African-American leading man, and his films In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, To Sir, With Love and A Patch of Blue have become American classics. He has also directed several films, including the 1980 Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor comedy Stir Crazy.

• Note: The majority of the links in this timeline are to IMDb, which has pop-ups.

• February 20, 1927: born

• 1947: Sepia Cinderella

• 1950: No Way Out

• 1954: Go, Man, Go!

• 1956: Good-bye, My Lady

• 1957: Band of Angels

• 1959: Porgy and Bess

• 1961: A Raisin in the Sun

• 1963: Lilies of the Field

• 1964: Becomes first African-American actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor forLilies of the Field

• 1965: A Patch of Blue

• 1967: To Sir, with Love

• 1967: In the Heat of the Night

• 1967: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

• 1970: They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!

• 1973: A Warm December

• 1974: Is bestowed the title of "Sir" from the Order of the British Empire

• 1988: Little Nikita

• 1997: The Jackal

• 2000: Wins a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild

• 2001: The Last Brickmaster in America

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