Farewell to Sidney Poitier, the first black man to win the Oscar for Best Actor.
The Hollywood star was 94 and the news was announced by Bahamas Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell.
Poitier was known for films including "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?", "Inspector Tibbs' Hot Night" and "Lilies of the Field", for which he obtained the famous gold statuette.
Born in Miami, Florida on February 20, 1927 to modest Bahamian traders, Evelyn Outten and Reginald James Poitier, after being nominated for Best Actor for "The Mud Wall" (1958), for which he won an award Bafta, he obtained the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1964 for his performance in "Lilies of the Field", thanks to which he also won a Golden Globe.
Then the consolidation of fame with some memorable roles, among others those of Virgil Tibbs, in "The hot night of Inspector Tibbs" (1967), by John Prentice in "Guess who's coming to dinner?" (1967) and Warren Stantin in "On the Trail of the Murderer" (1988).
Poitier automatically obtained American citizenship for being born unexpectedly in Miami while his parents were visiting. Raised in the Bahamas, he moved to the States at the age of 15, earning his first film role in 1955 in "The Seed of Violence".
(Unioneonline / vl)