Sidney Poitier

Poitier, Sidney (1927– ), U.S. film and stage actor. He was the first African American actor to become accepted as a star in films made for largely white audiences. Many of these films (e.g., The Blackboard Jungle, 1955; In the Heat of the Night, 1967) deal specifically with racial issues. Poitier directed and starred in A Patch of Blue (1965), played Porgy in Porgy and Bess (1959), and won an Academy Award for his role in Lilies of the Field (1963).