Sidney Poitier, TCM Star of the Month for September, was the first black superstar, the first African-American to be Oscar-nominated as Best Actor and, eventually, the first to win the award in that category. There was a time in the 1950s and '60s when Poitier's charisma, dignity and polished acting made him one of that era's most valuable and influential players. In 1967 alone he had three hit movies, making him the box-office champion of that year.

Poitier was credited with breaking the color barrier in movies and, by rejecting stereotypical roles, redefining black Hollywood images. Later, in the age of Richard Roundtree, Eddie Murphy and Samuel L. Jackson, Poitier's dignified and non-threatening presence began to seem quaint, and some of his critics attacked him as an "Uncle Tom." But in more recent times, as the British publication The Guardian put it, Poitier has "regained his rightful role as the actor who transformed the way the world perceives African-American men."

Poitier, although born in the U.S., was raised through his early teens in the Bahamas, where his parents lived. He therefore escaped the tensions and prejudices of growing up black in America - which may help account for the equanimity of his screen presence. As he himself put it, "I never had an occasion to question color, therefore I only saw myself as what I was...a human being."

Poitier was born prematurely on February 20, 1927, in Miami, FL, while his parents were visiting. He was the youngest of seven surviving children of Reginald James and Evelyn Poitier, Bahamian farmers on Cat Island. Because of his birthplace, Poitier was automatically granted American citizenship. During his time on Cat Island, his family lived without plumbing, electricity or refrigeration. When he was 10, the Poitiers moved to Nassau and a more modern environment. At 15, he was sent to Miami to live with his brother's family.

Poitier moved to New York City at the age of 16 with thoughts of becoming an actor, but instead could only land a series of menial jobs. In 1943, during World War II, he found himself homeless and lied about his age to enlist in the U.S. Army. Assigned as an attendant at a mental hospital in New York, he found that he hated military life and attempted to fake insanity in order to be discharged. A psychiatrist saw through his scheme but took pity on him and helped arrange for his release from service.

Poitier enrolled in the American Negro Theater, and his studies there led to a Broadway role in Lysistrata and an assignment as understudy for Anna Lucasta. With only work as an extra on his film résumé, he was cast in a key role in the 20th Century-Fox film No Way Out (1950). In this film noir directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Poitier plays a doctor facing bigotry in a hospital prison ward.

His well-received performance quickly led to more featured roles including that of a young minister in the British film version of the Alan Paton novel set in South Africa, Cry, the Beloved Country (1951). Poitier's breakthrough came in MGM's Blackboard Jungle (1955), in which he is a rebellious but gifted student in the inner-city classroom of high school teacher Glenn Ford. Richard Brooks directed this very successful film.

Poitier quickly became the go-to actor when a script called for a young black man of integrity and determination. In the boy/dog drama Good-Bye, My Lady (1956) he is the neighbor of the young hero, Brandon De Wilde. In the film noir Edge of the City (1957), Poitier gets star billing with John Cassavetes in the story of two longshoremen whose interracial friendship leads to strife among coworkers.

In Something of Value (1957), set in Africa, Poitier costars as a native Kenyan whose association with the Mau Mau uprising creates conflict with his longtime white colonial friend (Rock Hudson, the film's star). In the Civil War tale Band of Angels (1957) Poitier has the supporting role of a slave-turned-Union-soldier embroiled in a romance between plantation owner Clark Gable and half-white slave Yvonne De Carlo.

The Defiant Ones (1958) marked Poitier's emergence as a bona fide movie star. He and costar Tony Curtis play escaped prisoners who are shackled together and are forced to cooperate in order to survive. Both men were nominated as Best Actor, and the movie was nominated for seven other Oscars, winning for Best Original Screenplay and Cinematography.

In Hall Bartlett's All the Young Men (1960), Poitier stars alongside Alan Ladd in a war film set during the Korean conflict and focuses on the resentments that arise when a black Marine is placed in command of his unit. A year later, Poitier revived his role in the film adaption of Lorraine Hansberry's Broadway production A Raisin in the Sun (1961).

Poitier's Oscar as Best Actor came for Lilies of the Field (1963), a film version of the William E. Barrett novel in which he received solo star billing. Poitier is cast as an itinerant handyman who meets a group of East German nuns in the Arizona desert and is believed by them to have been sent by God to build them a new chapel.

Other Poitier vehicles of the mid-1960s include The Long Ships (1964), an action film in which he plays a rare villainous role as a Moorish prince who brutalizes Viking Richard Widmark; The Slender Thread (1965), in which Poitier is a sympathetic crisis-center worker offering help to a suicidal Anne Bancroft; A Patch Of Blue (1965), which he is an office worker who befriends a blind girl (Elizabeth Hartman) to the fury of her bigoted mother (Oscar winner Shelley Winters), and The Bedford Incident (1965), a Cold War drama in which he is an intrepid reporter interviewing a headstrong captain (Widmark again) as his ship pursues a Russian submarine.

Many have called 1967 Poitier's "annus mirabilis," since it was the year of his three box-office smashes. The British-made To Sir, with Love (1967) has him in a tailor-made role as an idealistic teacher trying to communicate with rowdy students in a tough secondary school in London's East End. After mild success in England, the movie took off in the U.S.

Stanley Kramer's comedy-drama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) explores the difficulties of an interracial romance between a charming black physician/professor (Poitier) and an upper-class young white woman (Katharine Houghton). The girl's parents are played by Oscar winner Katharine Hepburn and nominee Spencer Tracy. The film won eight other nominations, although Poitier's performance was not among them.

In the Heat of the Night (1967), Norman Jewison's study of racial hostilities in a Mississippi town, stars Poitier as a visiting detective who becomes involved in a murder investigation conducted by a prejudiced white sheriff (Rod Steiger). This time, the movie won five Oscars, including those for Best Picture and Actor (Steiger), with an additional two nominations. Once again, Poitier was overlooked - although many believe this to be his best performance.

Our TCM tribute traces Poitier's career through the early 1970s, including two sequels to In the Heat of the Night: They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970), and The Organization (1971). He also starred in the enigmatic drama Brother John (1971); the comic Western Buck and the Preacher (1972), in which he stars alongside Harry Belafonte and made his directorial debut; and the romantic drama A Warm December (1973), which Poitier also directed.

All told, Poitier directed nine films including the successful Gene Wilder/Richard Pyror comedy Stir Crazy (1980) and a series of comedies featuring Bill Cosby. Poitier was inactive as a performer in films for much of the 1980s but returned to starring in movies and TV dramas in 1988. His last film to date was the TV movie The Last Brickmaker in America (2001).

Poitier was married twice, to Juanita Hardy (1950-65) and Joanna Shimkus (1976-present). He has four daughters by his first wife and two by his second, including actress Sydney Tamiia Poitier.

Over the years, Poitier has received numerous awards and honors, including a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1974. (The Bahamas is part of the Commonwealth of Nations, making him eligible for the honor.) From 1997 to 2007 he served as the Bahamian Ambassador to Japan.

In 2002, Poitier was presented with an honorary Academy Award for his "remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being." The Presidential Medal of Freedom was presented to him by President Obama in 2009, and in 2016 he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for outstanding lifetime achievement in film.

Poitier once commented that he "felt fortunate to play parts in movies that challenged prejudices, took on repressive regimes or involved interracial relationships, whose storylines dared to show a black man as powerful, articulate and important at a time when that wasn't acceptable to many."

by Roger Fristoe