I liked Sidney Poitier and I liked his movies. A lot of people did, he was big time. He was so rare, so perfect, I’d heard him referenced as the “magic negro!” (its okay you could say that in the 60’s) He died yesterday at the age of 94. In his late teens when he auditioned in New York for an acting job they hated his thick Bahamian accent so bad they told him to go get a job washing dishes! Which shows his determination as he soon developed the perfect diction he was known for.

Quite a guy, born poor, worked hard, made it. He’d said it was a culture shock when he moved from Cat Island to Miami when he was 15 (1942) to experience the racism he did. Which continued to have great irony later in Hollywood, as during that period Hollywood was a very racist place too. He was it. He said the pressure to ‘represent’ his people was immense. There’s something on his bio page on IMDB about wanting to do acting work and conduct his life in a way that would make his father proud.

He took a lot of crap from people who wanted him to be the Malcolm X of the film world. And you know it occurred to me that by being the class act he was and avoiding scandal, he did as much or more than could be expected from about anyone. In just his second movie (No Way Out – 1950) he teamed with another of my favorite actors Richard Widmark. He later (1967 was a huge year for him) had his blockbusters, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, To Sir With Love, In the Heat of the Night. But my favorite was Lilies of the Field.

I realized just now I think a lot of that was so much of the film just focused on Sidney. You had the 10 or so nuns and a few townspeople, but a lot of it was just the camera focusing in on Sidney. He would have been 35 or 36 when it was filmed. It was made from a novel written just that year. And a busy if little known director named Ralph Nelson. For a budget of $240,000!

Its funny how that works sometimes. Actor, director, story, supporting cast, location, all coming together for one magical moment in time. Just a small little story that works. Everybody was still young and hungry. Good stuff.