Sir Sidney Poitier dead aged 94: Lilies of the Field star who was the first black man to win Best Actor Oscar dies

LILIES of the Field actor Sidney Poitier, the first black man to win a Best Actor Oscar, has passed away at 94.

The Academy Award winner's death was confirmed on Friday by Bahamas Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell.

Speaking about Poitier's death, Mitchell said, "We've lost a great Bahamian and I've lost a personal friend."

Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper said he was "conflicted with great sadness and a sense of celebration when I learned of the passing of Sir Sidney Poitier.

"Sadness that he would no longer be here to tell him how much he means to us, but a celebration 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," Cooper said.

"Through his groundbreaking roles and singular talent, Sidney Poitier epitomized dignity and grace, revealing the power of movies to bring us closer together," former President Barack Obama said in a statement about Poitier's death.

"He also opened doors for a generation of actors. Michelle and I send our love to his family and legion of fans."

A cause of death was not immediately disclosed.

The Bahamian-American star was granted US citizenship after being unexpectedly born in Miami while his parents were visiting.

He grew up in the Bahamas but moved to the US when he turned 15 after his parents decided to send him to live with an older brother in Miami – where they figured he would have better opportunities.

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In a 2009 interview with NPR, Poitier revealed his father took him to the dock and put $3 in his hand.

"He said, 'Take care of yourself, son.' And he turned me around to face the boat," Poitier told the outlet.

MIAMI TO NEW YORK

After a short stay in Miami, Poitier moved up north to New York, where he tried his hands at acting.

However, with limited schooling, he struggled with reading scripts and got a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, where a fortunate encounter changed his life.

An elderly waiter took an interest in the teen and spent nights after work reading the newspaper with him to improve his comprehension, grammar, and punctuation.

"That man, every night, the place is closed, everyone's gone, and he sat there with me week after week after week," Poitier told CBS News.

"And he told me about punctuations. He told me where dots were and what the dots mean here between these two words, all of that stuff."

Soon after, Poitier landed work with the American Negro Theatre, where he took acting lessons, eased his Bahamian accent, and landed a stage role as an understudy to Harry Belafonte.

This led to roles on Broadway and eventually caught the attention of Hollywood.

He started in Hollywood during the 1950s, focusing on the themes of race and social justice in much of his work.

Among Poitier's films included roles in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and Lilies of the Field.

The Miami-born star earned his first Academy Award nomination in 1959 for his work in The Defiant Ones.

The nomination was significant to America as he was the first African-American nominated for Best Actor.

HOLLYWOOD LEGEND

However, it was his role in Lilies of the Field that earned him his first Oscar for Best Actor, becoming the first African-American ever to win an Academy Awards.

Many of his best-known films explored racial tensions as Americans grappled with social changes brought about by the civil rights movement.

In 1967, he appeared as a Philadelphia detective fighting bigotry in small-town Mississippi in the film In the Heat of the Night, and as a doctor who wins over his White fiancée's skeptical parents in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

That same year, Poitier married his wife, Joanna Shimkus, with whom he has two children, Anika and Sydney Tamiia.

As the lone Black leading man in 1960s Hollywood, he came under tremendous scrutiny.

His films struggled for distribution in the South, and his choice of roles was limited to what white-run studios would produce.

He was too often hailed as a noble symbol of his race and endured criticism from some black people who said he had betrayed them by taking sanitized roles and pandering to white people.

"It's been an enormous responsibility," Poitier told Oprah Winfrey.

"And I accepted it, and I lived in a way that showed how I respected that responsibility. I had to. In order for others to come behind me, there were certain things I had to do."

His career continued to rise, starring in They Call Me Mister Tibbs and the 1974 comedy crime film Uptown Saturday Night alongside Bill Cosby.

In April 1997, Poitier was appointed ambassador of the Bahamas to Japan, a position he held until 2007.

By 2000, Poitier had retired from acting and began to write a memoir.

He penned several autobiographies in his lifetime, including This Life, which detailed his childhood and his troubled romantic life, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, and Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter.

From 2002 to 2007, he was concurrently the ambassador of the Bahamas to The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

His career accolades include a Grammy award, two Golden Globe awards, and a British Academy Film Award.

In 2009, Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-President Obama.