Some call him “Sir”; others call him “Mr. Tibbs”, but he is best known as pioneering actor Sidney Portier.
Just over a month until his 95th birthday, Portier died January 7, 2022 in his Los Angeles home.
Winning an Academy Award in 1964 for his role in “Lilies of the Field”, Portier became the first man of colour to win the award in the leading role category. He also crossed the colour line to become a box office draw.
Noting that he was the lone guy in town, Portier once said, “I made films when the only other Black on the lot was the shoeshine boy.”
Along with his 1964 Oscar, Portier has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, an American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement award, a Grammy Award in the Spoken Word category for his book “Measure of a Man”, an honourary Knight Commander of the British Empire, the Chaplin Lifetime Achievement Award, and a second Academy Award – a special award in 2002.
Refusing to take on roles like cowards, Portier said that he would not play any role that did not put a positive light on his father – a Bahamian tomato farmer.
But it was not always smooth sailing; he had to face racism from one side – even being followed around by the KKK and chants of compromise (an Uncle Tom and a “million-dollar shoeshine boy) by his own community. In his memoir “The Measure of a Man”, he wrote, “all those who see unworthiness when they look at me and are given thereby to denying me value — to you I say, ‘I’m not talking about being as good as you. I hereby declare myself better than you.”
His memoir wasn’t the only place, Portier was quit with a sharp tongue. Frequently asked about race and racism, snapped at a journalist during a press conference in 1967 saying, “I am an artist, man, American, contemporary. I am an awful lot of things, so I wish you would pay me the respect due.”
Not a political activist, Portier was not adverse to standing up for his own civil rights or participating in the March on Washington in 1963. During the “red scare” during the ‘50’s he refused to sign a loyalty card.
When roles became more political, Portier turned to directing and producing. Portier directed the films “Ghost Dad”, “Fast Forward”, “Hanky Panky”, “Stir Crazy, “A Piece of the Action”, “Uptown Saturday Night”, “A Warm December”, and “Buck and the Preacher”. As a producer he was a part of “Free of Eden”, “Summer Knowledge”, “Buck and the Preacher”, and “Brother John”.
He was born two month premature on February 20, 1927 in Miami, Florida while on a trip selling tomatoes. He was raised in the Bahamas on Cat Island. He returned to Miami at age 15. Overwhelmed by a New York winter after a move to Harlem, he joined the U.S. Army at age 16 – he lied about his age, swearing that he was 18 – where he put to work in a mental hospital. Oddly enough, it was faking a mental illness that got him out of the Army and back to Harlem where he found a job with the American Negro Theater…as a janitor in exchange for acting lessons. When a young Harry Belafonte could not appear for a role, Portier stood in.
After some understudy and smaller roles, he made his screen debut in 1947 in an uncredited role in “Sepia Cinderella”. He went on to appear in a little over 50 roles including “No Way Out”, “The Defiant Ones”, the 1959 edition of “Porgy and Bess”, “A Raisin in the Sun”, “Lilies in the Field”, “A Patch of Blue”, “To Sir, with Love”, “In the Heat of the Night”, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, “They Call Me Mr. Tibbs”, “Uptown Saturday Night”, “Separate but Equal”, “Sneakers”, “The Jackal”, and his final role in 2001 as Henry Cobb in the made for TV movie “The Las Birckmaker in America”.
Predeceased by daughter Gina Portier-Gouraige, Portier is survived by his second wife of over 40 year Joanna, five daughters – Judith, Pamela, Sherri, Anika, and Sydney -, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
feature photo credit: Photograph Sidney Portier speaking at St. Sabina (14563113787).jpg