Poitier became the first Black performer to win the Academy Award for Best Actor and a central figure in Hollywood’s changing representation of race.
The Defiant OnesPorgy and BessLilies of the Field
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Two escaped prisoners, one Black and one white, are chained together and forced into uneasy cooperation.
The Gershwin opera reached the screen in a large-scale production led by Poitier and Dandridge.
Poitier plays a traveling handyman who helps a group of nuns build a chapel, earning a historic Best Actor Oscar.
Poitier plays a compassionate man who befriends a blind young woman in a drama about racism and isolation.