Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier (born February 20, 1927) is an American actor. He was born in Miami, Florida and grew up on Cat Island in the Bahamas. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1963 film Lilies of the Field and was the first African-American actor to win this award. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2002.

His other films included:

• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, a film about an inter-racial romance and a white liberal's reaction to it
• A Patch of Blue, about a blind white girl and a black man who is moved to help her to a better life
• To Sir, with Love, a fact-based movie about a young teacher in an inner-city neighbourhood
• In the Heat of the Night about a murder investigation in a small Mississippi town.

He acted in the first run of "Raisin in the Sun" on Broadway in 1961.

In addition to authoring This Life (1980) and The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2000), Poitier has also served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan since April of 1997.