Sydney Poitier has gained fame and recognition as the first Black male and Bahamian actor to have won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1964. He subsequently won several awards in his lengthy career.
Sydney Poitier is also a Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and ambassador. He played key roles in Shoot to Kill, Stir Crazy, A Raisin in the Sun, and A Patch of Blue and many other movies.
Sidney Poitier was born on February 20, 1927, in Miami, Florida, in the United States of America but died on January 7th, 2022.
What is Sidney Poitier syndrome?
On September 10, 1967, NY Times journalist Clifford Mason explained why whites Americans love Sidney Poitier so much, using his performance in the 1967 crime/drama In the Heat of the Night as his basis.
He wrote: “Even though the acting, his and Rod Steiger’s particularly, is excellent, we have the same old Sidney Poitier syndrome: a good guy in a totally white world, with no wife, no sweetheart, no woman to love or kiss, helping the white man solve the white man’s problem.”
