Sidney L. Poitier (February 20, 1927 â January 6, 2022) was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and ambassador. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Black male and Bahamian actor to win the award. He received two further Academy Award nominations, ten Golden Globes nominations, two Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, six BAFTA nominations, eight Laurel nominations, and one Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination. Poitier was one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema, and after the death of Kirk Douglas in 2020, was the oldest living and earliest surviving male Academy Award winner until his own death in 2022. From 1997 to 2007, Poitier served as Bahamian Ambassador to Japan.
During World War II, in November 1943, he lied about his age and enlisted in the Army. He was assigned to a Veteran’s Administration hospital in Northport, New York, and was trained to work with psychiatric patients.
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