He was born as Sidney Poitier on 20 February, 1927 to Evelyn and Reginald James Poitier and was raised in Nassau, Bahamas.
He moved to New York at the age of 17 and worked as dishwasher. He was taught to read English newspaper by a Jewish waiter over several nights.
Sidney Poitier won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role of Homer Smith in the 1963 film “Lilies of the Field.” He was the first African American actor to win this award.
Sidney Poitier refused to film below the Mason-Dixon line, in southern Pennsylvania, since he and Harry Belafonte had recently been harassed by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. So the film was shot in Illinois The famous slap, where Tibbs retaliates against a racist landowner, wasn’t improvised, though, as has been suggested. I kept telling Poitier that Tibbs was a sophisticated detective, not used to being pushed around. I showed him how to do the slap. “Don’t hit him on the ear,” I said. “I want you to really give him a crack on the fatty side of his cheek.” I told him to practise on me. A black man had never slapped a white man back in an American film. We broke that taboo.- Norman Jewison
