Sidney Poitier, first Black actor to win Oscar for Best Actor, dies at 94

Poitier had won his history-making best actor Oscar for "Lilies of the Field" in 1963, playing a handyman who helps German nuns build a chapel in the desert. Five years before that Poitier had been the first Black man nominated for a lead actor Oscar for his role in "The Defiant Ones."

WASHINGTON: Sidney Poitier, who broke through racial barriers as the first Black winner of the best actor Oscar for his role in 'Lilies of the Field', and inspired a generation during the civil rights movement, has died at age 94, an official from the Bahamian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.

Eugene Torchon-Newry, acting director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed Poitier's death. Poitier created a distinguished film legacy in a single year with three 1967 films at a time when segregation prevailed in much of the United States.

In 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner', he played a Black man with a white fiancee and 'In the Heat of the Night' he was Virgil Tibbs, a Black police officer confronting racism during a murder investigation. He also played a teacher in a tough London school that year in 'To Sir, With Love.'