VOA文化艺术--首获奥斯卡最佳男主角的黑人演员西德尼·波蒂埃去世

Sidney Poitier, 1st Black Performer to Win Best Actor Oscar Dies

Sidney Poitier, the first Black actor to win an Oscar for a best acting¹ performance, has died. He was 94.

Poitier won the best actor Oscar in 1964 for Lilies of the Field. His performance changed how Blacks were presented in the movies. It also inspired a generation of actors during the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Before Poitier, most Black actors were only given supporting parts in the movies. Hollywood filmmakers rarely attempted to tell a Black person's story.

In 1967, Poitier was the leading actor in three Hollywood movies in the United States.

In Guess Who's Coming to Dinner he played a Black doctor who wishes to marry a young white woman. In In the Heat of the Night he was Virgil Tibbs, a Black police officer dealing² with racism³ during a murder investigation⁴. He also played a teacher in a London school that year in To Sir, With Love.

Messages and honors

Messages honoring and mourning Poitier flooded social media after the announcement of his death from the Ministry⁵ of Foreign Affairs in the Bahamas.

Whoopi Goldberg wrote on Twitter: "He showed us how to reach for the stars." Tyler Perry added on Instagram: "The grace and class that this man has shown throughout his entire life, the example he set for me, not only as a Black man but as a human being will never be forgotten." And musician Lenny Kravitz wrote that Poitier "showed the world that with vision and grace, all is possible."

Poitier's rise as an actor was similar to changes in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. He played the escaped Black prisoner who befriends a racist⁶ white prisoner in The Defiant⁷ Ones. He was the office worker who falls in love with a white girl who could not see in A Patch of Blue. He was a worker in Lilies of the Field who builds a religious center for nuns⁸. And he was the young father whose dreams clashed with those of other family members in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin⁹ in the Sun.

Debates about racial issues in Hollywood often turn to the story of Poitier. For years, he was not just the most popular Black movie star, but the only one.

"I made films when the only other Black on the lot was the shoeshine boy," he told Newsweek in 1988. "I was kind of the lone¹⁰ guy in town."

In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Obama said that the actor "not only entertained but enlightened...revealing the power of the silver screen to bring us closer together."

Poitier's part in Hollywood is often compared to Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. He was also compared to Martin Luther King Jr. who led the civil rights movement. But Poitier also faced discrimination from whites and accusations¹¹ of compromise from the Black community.

In 1967, Black playwright¹² Clifford Mason wrote in The New York Times, "Why Does White America Love Sidney Poitier So?" Mason called the actor a pawn¹³ for the "white man's sense of what's wrong with the world."

Poitier had a hard time finding housing in Los Angeles, California. And he was followed by the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group, when he visited Mississippi in 1964, not long after three civil rights workers had been murdered there.

Early life

Poitier was born in Miami, where his parents had gone to bring tomatoes from their farm in the Bahamas. He spent his early years on the island before moving to Miami and then to New York City.

After a short time in the army, Poitier returned to look for a dishwasher job in the Harlem neighborhood of New York when he saw an advertisement seeking actors at the American Negro Theater. Poitier had never seen a play in his life and could barely read his lines. The director sent him away.

He later told the Associated Press; he was so angry he decided¹⁴: "‘I'm going to become an actor — whatever that is. I don't want to be an actor, but I've got to become one to go back there and show him that I could be more than a dishwasher.' That became my goal."

Poitier then made a deal to clean the theater in return for acting lessons. In 1950, Poitier received his first movie part in No Way Out. He played a doctor whose patient, a white man, dies and is then mistreated by the patient's brother.

In 2002, Poitier received a special honorary Oscar on the same night two other Black actors won best acting awards – Denzel Washington for Training Day and Halle Berry for Monster's Ball.

Washington, who had earlier presented the honorary award to Poitier, said during his acceptance speech: "I'll always be following in your footsteps. There's nothing I would rather do, sir, nothing I would rather do."

Words in This Story

inspire –v. to make (someone) want to do something; to give (someone) an idea about what to do or create

grace –n. a controlled, polite, and pleasant way of behaving

entertain –v. to perform for people by singing, acting or some similar performance

revealing –adj. giving information about something that was not known before

pawn –n. a person or group that does not have much power and that is controlled by a more powerful person or group

1 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

2 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

3 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

4 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

5 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

6 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

7 defiant   

adj.无礼的，挑战的

参考例句：

• With a last defiant gesture,they sang a revolutionary song as they were led away to prison.他们被带走投入监狱时，仍以最后的反抗姿态唱起了一支革命歌曲。
• He assumed a defiant attitude toward his employer.他对雇主采取挑衅的态度。

8 nuns   

n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Ah Q had always had the greatest contempt for such people as little nuns. 小尼姑之流是阿Q本来视如草芥的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Nuns are under vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. 修女须立誓保持清贫、贞洁、顺从。 来自辞典例句

9 raisin   

n.葡萄干

参考例句：

• They baked us raisin bread.他们给我们烤葡萄干面包。
• You can also make raisin scones.你也可以做葡萄干烤饼。

10 lone   

adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的

参考例句：

• A lone sea gull flew across the sky.一只孤独的海鸥在空中飞过。
• She could see a lone figure on the deserted beach.她在空旷的海滩上能看到一个孤独的身影。

11 accusations   

n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名

参考例句：

• There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
• He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。

12 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

13 pawn   

n.典当，抵押，小人物，走卒；v.典当，抵押

参考例句：

• He is contemplating pawning his watch.他正在考虑抵押他的手表。
• It looks as though he is being used as a political pawn by the President.看起来他似乎被总统当作了政治卒子。

14 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。