Sir Sidney Poitier is a Bahamian-American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.

He has been walking tall among Hollywood's most respected and honored stars for more than five decades, making his motion picture debut in Joseph Mankicwicz's No Way Out. He continued to garner critical acclaim and national recognition in Blackboard Jungle, received his first Academy Award nomination for The Defiant Ones in 1958, and won the coveted Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in Lilies of the Field. In 2006, five of Poitiers films appeared in the AFIs list of 100 Most Inspiring Films.

In 1972, he made his directorial debut with Buck and the Preacher in which he co-starred with Harry Belafonte. Other directorial credits include A Warm December, Uptown Saturday Night, Stir Crazy, Fast Forward, Ghost Dad which starred Bill Cosby, Let's Do It Again and A Piece of the Action.

Poitier has served as a leading figure among black achievers. As a film director, he created employment for hundreds of minority actors and made sure that at least 25% of the people working behind cameras were likewise minority representatives.

During his 50 years in film, Poitier has received many honors and awards with the most meaningful being the Knighthood awarded to him by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1968. He has also received the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award; The Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award; The Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award; five NAACP Image Awards; two Golden Bear Awards from the Berlin Film Festival; and Emmy nominations.

He has also been honored with the Giorgi Cini Cultural Foundation Award Because of Human Values Achieving the Summit in the Realm of Both Art and Civilization as well as the Berlin and Venice Film Festival Awards for his role in The Defiant Ones. He also serves as the Ambassador to Japan from the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and is the recipient of four honorary doctorate degrees; the most recent of which from New York University.

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