Remembering the Hollywood trailblazer and first Black man to win a Best Actor Oscar.
He began his career fully aware of his singular place in movie history.
It’s not just that Poitier crossed a bridge they never had to cross.
Sidney Poitier in ‘Lilies of the Field’.United Artists/Getty Images
Poitier’s rise, though, came at a bitter price.
Could he have been?
It took extraordinary, and almost consistently underestimated, effort.
“He has a capacity for explosion that is incredible.
It takes possession of him.”
That is, when he allowed it to which was rarely.
Nobody knew better than Poitier that exceptionalism had its perils.
So Poitier stepped away from his life as a performer.
He retreated to the Bahamas, and to his family.
Soon after, there was a third, and a fourth, and the achievement became unexceptional.
“I’ll always be following in your footsteps.
There’s nothing I would rather do, sir nothing I would rather do.”
