The Hindu : To Sidney Poitier, with love

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 26, 2002

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International

To Sidney Poitier, with love

Ron Howard with his two Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture for `A Beautiful Mind'. _ AP

Los Angeles, March 25. Legendary actor Sidney Poitier, a driving force behind the fight for racial equality in Hollywood, has been awarded an honorary Oscar for his dignity and intelligence on and off the silver screen.

Poitier, 74, the first black actor to win an Academy Award for a leading role in 1963's "Lilies of the Field," was one of the first African-American actors to become a major Hollywood star.

In a series of groundbreaking roles in times of great racial tension in the United States, Poitier's roles frequently dealt with race issues, making him one of the film industry's leading civil rights pioneers.

Some 38 years after accepting his first Oscar, Poitier's honorary award was dedicated to "his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen, and for representing the motion picture industry with dignity, style and intelligence throughout the world."

"I accept this award in the name of all the African-American actors and actresses who went before me in the difficult years and on whose shoulders I was privileged to stand to see where I might go," Poitier said on Sunday evening. Poitier also praised the "visionary choices of a handful of American" producers, directors and studio bosses who were not afraid to stand up for the cause of equality despite the difficulties such a stance may have caused them.

Poitier, who has been in the movie business for more than 50 years, was nominated for two Oscars — in 1958 for his role in "The Defiant Ones" and again five years later when he won the statuette. Born in the southern U.S. State of Florida in 1927 where his farmer father was selling his produce, young Sidney and his family moved back to the Bahamas where he grew up in poverty.

As a teenager, he got his first taste of the cinema on his Caribbean island before dropping out of school at the age of 13 and returning to Miami when he was 15 to join his brother Cyril. It was there that the impressionable young man experienced his first taste of racial discrimination, an experience that left an indelible mark on him.

Poitier soon relocated to New York where he worked as a dishwasher and busboy, reportedly sleeping in bus station pay toilets as he tried to scratch a meagre living in the tough city.

During World War II, Poitier joined the U.S. Army as a physiotherapist until 1945, when he returned to New York, setting his heart on becoming an actor.

Poitier worked to lose his Caribbean accent and adopt an American twang which earned him his first stage acting job as an understudy to singing star Harry Belafonte in 1945's "Days of Our Youth," before making his Broadway debut in an all-black production of "Lysistrata". In 1950, the thriving young actor starred in his first film, "No Way Out."

Since then, he has appeared in over 40 films, including such classics as "Blackboard Jungle," "To Sir, with Love," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "Raisin in the Sun."

Honour for Redford too

Veteran Hollywood actor, director and independent movie champion Robert Redford has received an honorary Oscar for his four decades of screen work and his support to independent filmmaking.

Former heartthrob Redford, 64, was awarded the special version of cinema's highest honour to recognise his 40-year career in movies and his contribution to "independent and innovative filmmakers everywhere."

— AFP

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