Sidney Poitier

Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and ambassador, he was the first black person to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1964. A long-term veteran of many fine films, he made his debut in No Way Out (1950), starred in the Oscar-nominated film The Defiant Ones (1958) and won his Oscar for Lilies of the Valley (1963).

Born in Miami, Florida, Poitier grew up on Cat Island in the Bahamas, the youngest of seven kids. His dad was a tomato farmer and his mom, Evelyn, was a shy, sensitive woman with whom he was very close. He credited her for teaching him to use "please," and "thank you," and "may I?" as the tools to get his foot in the door. When he was done with his chores he spent a lot of time by himself just roaming around, walking the beaches and relating with the elements, the birds and the trees. He had little formal education, entering school when he was 11 and finished a year and a half later. He could barely read and write.

At 15, he went to live with his brother in Miami where he first encountered racism. Finding this incomprehensible, he challenged it, heading North to New York at 16. He slept on the roof of the Brill Building and got a job washing dishes. He'd never seen a subway or an elevator and couldn't dial a telephone. When he was arrested for sleeping in Pennsylvania Station, he joined the army, lying about his age.

After being discharged, he returned to New York to wash dishes. He answered an ad at the American Negro Theatre, telling them that he was an actor and making up a study history. The ruse failed and he was thrown out. Not accepting defeat, he spent months listening to voices on the radio to overcome his accent and he learned to read from a waiter where he worked. He then persuaded the American Negro Theatre to take him on as a student, making a deal to be their janitor.

Poirier's first break came when he was understudying for Harry Belafonte in Days of Our Youth.