The Oscar winner died on Thursday in the Bahamas, according to Eugene Torchon-Newry, acting director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Bahamas.Poitier, who held dual US and Bahamian nationality, was “an icon, a hero, a mentor, a fighter, a national treasure,” Bahamas Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper said on his official Facebook page on Friday, local time. His cause of death has yet to be revealed.The renowned actor, director and activist was acclaimed for his stirring performances in classic films including Patch of Blue, To Sir, With Love, In the Heat of the Night, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. In 1963, he won Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his portrayal of an ex-serviceman who helps East German nuns build a chapel in Lilies of the Field. He was the first black person to ever win an Oscar and remained so until Denzel Washington in 2002.Poitier, who rejected film roles based on offensive racial stereotypes, earned acclaim for portraying proud, intelligent men during his groundbreaking career which spanned decades.“I felt very much as if I were representing 15, 18 million people with every move I made,” Poitier once wrote about the experience of being the only black person on a movie set.Tributes have immediately started pouring in from around the world.Whoopi Goldberg wrote on Twitter: “He showed us how to reach for the stars.” Tyler Perry on Instagram wrote: “The grace and class that this man has shown throughout his entire life, the example he set for me, not only as a Black man but as a human being will never be forgotten.”Emmy-winning actor Jeffrey Wright lauded Poitier as “one of a kind” and referenced the classic film “To Sir With Love” in a tribute tweet. “What a landmark actor. One of a kind. What a beautiful, gracious, warm, genuinely regal man,” Wright wrote. “RIP, Sir. With love.”Sidney Poitier has died at the age of 94. He was the first African-American man to win an Oscar for best actor.“Rest in power beautiful human being and actor Sir Sydney Poitier,” Rosanna Arquette tweeted.Barack Obama added: “Through his groundbreaking roles and singular talent, Sidney Poitier epitomised dignity and grace, revealing the power of movies to bring us closer together. He also opened doors for a generation of actors. ”Kiwi actor Sam Neill chimed in: “What an actor. What a life. What a man.”While Russell Crowe simply wrote: “Mr Poitier. Mr Tibbs. RIP Sidney.His trailblazing career, the subject of an upcoming Broadway show announced last month, stemmed from humble beginnings. According to PBS, Poitier moved to New York City at age 16 after living in the Bahamas for several years with his family. In the Big Apple, he found work as a janitor at the American Negro Theater in exchange for acting lessons. From there, he took up acting roles in plays for the next several years until his film debut in the racially charged film No Way Out. As racial attitudes evolved during the civil rights era and segregation laws were challenged and fell, Poitier was the performer to whom a cautious industry turned for stories of progress.The Miami-born star earned his first Academy Award nomination in 1959 for his work in The Defiant Ones in which he played an escaped convict who befriends a racist white prisoner (Tony Curtis)”. The nomination was significant as he was the first African-American to be nominated for Best Actor. That role also earned him a Golden Globe win and a BAFTA Award.Poitier broke even more barriers in 1963 with his hit film Lilies of the Field and subsequent Academy Award.That same year, Poitier received an honorary Oscar “in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human”.Debates about diversity in Hollywood inevitably turn to the story of Poitier. With his handsome, flawless face; intense stare and disciplined style, he was for years not just the most popular Black movie star, but the only one, AP reports.“I made films when the only other Black on the lot was the shoeshine boy,” he recalled in a 1988 Newsweek interview. “I was kind of the lone guy in town.”Poitier penned two autobiographies. This Life” published in 1980, detailed his childhood and his troubled romantic life.He released several more works; The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2007); and, Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter (2008).“As I entered this world, I would leave behind the nurturing of my family and my home, but in another sense I would take their protection with me,” he wrote in Measure of a Man.“The lessons I had learned, the feelings of groundedness and belonging that have been woven into my character there, would be my companions on the journey.”
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