Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier reflected on his childhood in the Bahamas, his encounters with racism in America, his break into acting, an early instance of stage fright that nearly caused him to quit, and his refusal to act in certain roles or scenes in a Feb. 17, 2009, with the Academy of Achievement.

Poitier spoke about a famous scene in “In the Heat of The Night,” in which he, playing a Philadelphia detective investigating a crime in the South, gets slapped by a white man. The original script called for Poitier’s character to turn his cheek, but Poitier insisted that he slap the man back.

He recalled, “I said, ‘The black community will look at that and say that is egregious. You can’t do that, because the human responses that would be natural in that circumstance, we are suppressing them to serve values of greed on the part of Hollywood, acquiescence on the part of people culturally who would accept that as the proper approach.’ I said, ‘You can't do it.’ I said, ‘You certainly won’t do it with me.’”

To learn more about Sidney Poitier, read his profile on findingDulcinea.