Photo: Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain
Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun
Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun, 1959, with Louis Gossett, Jr. and Ruby Dee
As a Milwaukee-born Black journalist and devotee of vintage films who has kept the notes of all my significant interviews, my first exposure to black movie actors was, as a callow youth, 1943’s saucy Stormy Weather. It featured wonderful singers and dancers in non-threatening roles. I didn’t see 1939’s Gone With the Wind with Oscar-winning Hattie McDaniel until one of its re-releases years later.
Among the highlights of my long career was my welcome discovery of the late, great serious Sidney Poitier, who just passed last week at 94. This occurred in his sensitive, yet strong role as a young South African minister in 1952’s Cry the Beloved Country. And I remember it like it was only yesterday.
Years ago, I told Poitier that I had been more impressed by his work as an idealistic doctor in 1950’s No Way Out. In it, he had to endure vile, anti-Black epithets by sneering, racist gangster, Richard Widmark.
“How did you feel about that?” I asked him, during our up-close-and personal 1963 Milwaukee Star interview, following his appearance at the Strand Theater on West Wisconsin Avenue at the local premier of Lilies of the Field, for which he won an Academy Award.
“Widmark was a great actor and a really nice guy, and no way was he racist,” he told me. “In fact, Widmark apologized to me, during a break in the shooting. I told him to forget it, we were only acting.” I then said that although I loved his work in Lilies, I much preferred him in tougher roles—provoking a smile.
In 1988, during our New York Daily News interview in a hotel, I said my fave role for him was in 1965’s taut, Cold War drama, The Bedford Incident. In it, he played a noted magazine writer, again co-starring with Widmark. His reply: “Why do you like that so much? Most people who interview me say they prefer The Defiant Ones.”
“Sure, you were great in that one,” I said, “and so was Tony Curtis. “You got that right,” said Poitier, commenting on the 1958 breakthrough, black-white buddy movie. “Tony was a very underrated actor.”
“But as a black journalist who has struggled to make it,” I continued, “I think I identified with your journalist role in The Bedford Incident and, especially, how you pressed Widmark—the pro-war captain of a nuclear navy vessel. You really took it to him.”
Long Memory
“Thanks, man,” he said. “And by the way, I do remember you from Milwaukee in 1963. I got a long memory.”
Before ending, I mentioned that I’d recently run into his pal and frequent co-star, Harry Belafonte, walking along Madison Avenue. “He looked great, and so do you.”
In concluding, I said: “By the way, I still wonder why, at 28, you played a teenage high-school student in 1955’s Blackboard Jungle.”
“So do I,” he laughed.
Rest in peace, Sidney. You were the best.
