Sidney Poitier, Black acting pioneer, dies aged 94

Sidney Poitier, whose groundbreaking acting work in the 1950s and 60s paved the way for generations of Black film stars, has died aged 94. His death was announced on Friday by the minister of foreign affairs of the Bahamas, Fred Mitchell.

Poitier, who was born in Miami and raised in the Bahamas, was the first Black winner of the best actor Oscar for Lilies of the Field and, along with Harry Belafonte, was a pioneering Black presence in mainstream Hollywood cinema.

Though films examining the fraught state of race relations were popular at the time, there were still limited roles for Black actors in the US. As one of the few who had made an impact, Poitier then went to South Africa to shoot the British-produced adaptation of Cry, the Beloved Country; his experience of apartheid in there pushed him towards activism.

Poitier largely retreated from cinema in the late 1980s and 1990s, directing Cosby in Ghost Dad and taking odd roles in the likes of surveillance thriller Sneakers; he assumed the role of elder statesman in both cinematic and diplomatic circles. Having been knighted in 1974 (due to his Bahamian citizenship), he was appointed Bahamas ambassador to Japan in 1997 and received an honorary Oscar in 2002. In 2009 he was awarded the presidential medal of freedom, and in 2016 a Bafta fellowship.

Poitier was married twice: to Juanita Hardy between 1950 and 1965 (with whom he had four children), and subsequently to Joanna Shimkus in 1976 (with whom he had a further two).