Sidney Poitier, the first black man to win an Academy Award for best actor in 1964, died at the age of 94 on Thursday.
His death was confirmed on Friday by Clint Watson, press secretary for the prime minister of the Bahamas, according to CNN.
Poitier was known for such roles as Dr. John Wade Prentice in the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. He won a variety of awards and was nominated to receive two more Academy Awards, 10 Golden Globes awards, 10 Primetime Emmy Awards, and one Screen Actors Guild Award.
Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper of the Bahamas, where Poitier grew up, told ABC News that he was “conflicted with great sadness and a sense of celebration” upon learning of Poitier’s death.
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Cooper said he was sad because Poitier “would no longer be here to tell him how much he mean to us” but that he wanted to celebrate knowing that “he did so much to show the world that those from the humblest beginnings can change the world and that we gave him his flowers while he was with us.”
Born on Feb. 20, 1927, in Miami, Florida, Poitier was raised on a tomato farm located in the Bahamas, according to the Daily Mail. He went out to receive his first big break in acting after he met the casting director of the American Negro Theater and was cast as an understudy in Days of Our Youth.
Poitier was an actor and director over the ensuing years who broke barriers for black people in the film industry. He received an Oscar Award for best actor in 1964 for his role in Lilies of the Field, and before that, he was nominated for an Oscar Award for his lead role in The Defiant Ones. His other film credits include In the Heat of the Night.
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Poitier retired from acting in 1997 and served as an ambassador from the Bahamas to Japan for 10 years.
Poitier received an honorary Academy Award for his “remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being” in 2002, according to ABC News, and was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 by then-President Barack Obama.
He is survived by five daughters and his second wife, Joanna Shimkus. His daughter Gina died in 2018, according to People.
