Screenshot: In the Heat of the Night/MGM
Bahamian-American actor, director, and cultural ambassador Sidney Poitier died last week at 94. Though he retired from filmmaking nearly two decades ago, he remained one of the most influential people in Hollywood: The child of potato farmers in the Bahamas who became a wildly consequential figure in American film and culture.
Poitier made his mark with a series of films produced in the late 1960s that were critical and box office hits, proving to studio chiefs that Black actors and characters could sell tickets as readily as white ones, and paving the way for an explosion of Black-led films in the 70s. The actor was frequently criticized for a filmography featuring a parade of near-saintly Black characters, written either to be non-threatening to white audiences or to self-consciously draw attention to the absurdity of white superiority in the face of a figure like Poitier—suggesting, to some, that everyday mortals might be less worthy of fairer treatment. There’s something there, perhaps, but focusing on the problematic aspects of the films he starred in does a disservice to the complexity of Poitier’s performances—the humanity and relatability that he brought to every of role.
He was good looking in a leading-man sort of way, with a stentorian voice that conveyed authority, but he was also fearless in his choices, taking on roles that directly confronted race and racism in America in ways that Hollywood films rarely had before. The fact that it became his brand, to a point, never robbed those films of their power. The fact that he became incredibly popular with a broad audience paved the way for actors and directors (himself included) to craft increasingly more nuanced stories about increasingly more complex characters of color. He leaves behind an incredible legacy of performances that are as important as they are entertaining—including the 12 that follow.
