{"id":92354,"date":"2022-01-11T17:00:08","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T15:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=92354"},"modified":"2022-01-11T11:04:16","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T09:04:16","slug":"19-00-63","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=92354","title":{"rendered":"Interview Resurfaces of Late Sidney Poitier Saying Jewish Coworker Taught Him to Read"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Interview Resurfaces of Late Sidney Poitier Saying Jewish Coworker Taught Him to Read<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Shiryn Ghermezian<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Actor Sidney Poitier arrives at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscars Party in West Hollywood, California March 2, 2014. Photo: REUTERS\/Danny Moloshok.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The death of Bahamian-American trailblazing actor and director Sidney Poitier at the age of 94, announced Friday, has inspired an outpouring of tributes and remembrances, with \u201cCBS Sunday Morning\u201d sharing a 2013 interview in which the Academy Award winner revealed that a former Jewish coworker taught him how to read English.<\/span><\/p>\n

The youngest of seven children, Poitier was born three months early on Feb. 20, 1927, in Miami, where his Bahamian parents travelled to sell tomatoes. He lived in the Bahamas until age of 15, when his parents sent him back to Miami to live with his older brother.<\/span><\/p>\n

He left for New York at age 16 and tried to launch an acting career, though he had only two years of schooling and was unable to read well. However, a Jewish waiter at a restaurant where Poitier worked washing dishes devoted time to helping him, he told \u201cCBS Sunday Morning\u201d anchor Lesley Stahl.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poitier recalled: \u201cOne of the waiters, a Jewish guy, an elderly man, had a newspaper and walked over to me and said, \u2018What\u2019s new in the paper?\u2019 And I looked up at this man and said to him, \u2018I can\u2019t tell you, I can\u2019t read very well.\u2019 He says, \u2018Let me ask you something, would you like me to read with you?\u2019 And I said to him, \u2018Yes, if you\u2019d like.’\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery night, the place is closed, everyone\u2019s gone, and he sat there with me, week after week after week,\u201d Poitier added. \u201cI learned a lot, a lot. And then things began to happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1992,\u00a0when Poitier\u00a0<\/span>was given the Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, he told the audience, \u201cI must also pay thanks to an elderly Jewish waiter who took time to help a young Black dishwasher learn to read. I cannot tell you his name. I never knew it. But I read pretty good now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Poitier started off his career with an acting apprenticeship at The American Negro Theater, before going on to star on Broadway in \u201cAnna Lucasta\u201d in 1948. Two years later, in 1950, he landed his first movie role in \u201cNo Way Out,\u201d playing a doctor who faced racism from a prisoner played by Richard Widmark.<\/span><\/p>\n

The prolific actor starred in more than 50 films. In 1959, he became the first Black man nominated for an Oscar as best actor for his role as an escaped convict in \u201cThe Defiant Ones,\u201d also starring Tony Curtis. He was the first Black actor to kiss a white woman in the 1965 film \u201cA Patch of Blue,\u201d and when he won the Oscar for best actor in 1964 for his role in \u201cLillies of the Field,\u201d he was the first Black actor to do so and remained the only one until 2002, \u201cCBS Sunday Morning\u201d reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1967, he starred in three films at a time when segregation was enforced in many parts of the United States,\u00a0Reuters<\/em>\u00a0noted. In \u201cGuess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner,\u201d starring Katherine Hepburn, he played a Black man with a white fianc\u00e9e, and \u201cIn the Heat of the Night,\u201d he took on the role of a Black police detective wrongfully accused of murder while investigating the crime. That same year, he played a teacher in \u201cTo Sir, With Love.\u201d Other notable films included \u201cThe Blackboard Jungle\u201d and \u201cA Raisin in the Sun,\u201d which\u00a0Poitier\u00a0<\/span>additionally performed on Broadway.<\/span><\/p>\n

He directed nine films, including\u00a0<\/span>\u201cUptown Saturday Night\u201d in 1974 with co-directors Harry Belafonte and Bill Cosby, and 1980\u2019s \u201cStir Crazy\u201d with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poitier\u00a0<\/span>was knighted by Britain\u2019s Queen Elizabeth II in 1974 and served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan and UNESCO. He was on Walt Disney Co.\u2019s board of directors from 1994 to 2003, and published a number of books, including three autobiographies. In 2009,\u00a0then-President Barack Obama awarded Poitier\u00a0<\/span>with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poitier is survived by his second wife, actress Joanna Shimkus, and six daughters.<\/span><\/p>\n

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