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Sidney Poitier
Actor; first Black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor
The man who walked into every room Hollywood had locked — and changed who could follow.
The rise
Born on 20 February 1927 in Miami to Bahamian parents and raised on Cat Island, he arrived in New York at sixteen with little education. He trained at the American Negro Theatre and broke through with a dignified intensity that shattered the stereotypes of his era.