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Sidney Poitier, the first man of color to win the Oscar for Best Actor, has died at the age of 94.
The death of the famous actor was confirmed by the office of Fred Mitchell, the Bahamas foreign minister.
Poitier was a progressive actor as well as a respected diplomat and humanitarian activist.
He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his 1963 film ‘Lilies of the Field’.
Born in Miami, he grew up on a tomato farm in the Bahamas and later moved to New York at the age of 16.
Poitier performed a short period of military service and then performed several different jobs, taking acting lessons at the same time, until he became a well-known stage and screen name.
His role in the legendary 1958 film ‘The Defiant Ones’ with the two escaped color prisoners earned him his first Oscar nomination, which was and still is a major achievement for actors of color.
Five years later he won the award for the role in ‘Lilies of the Field’, where he plays the worker who helps the German nun to build the shrine in the desert.
Empire magazine told the BBC: “He was a pioneer, an influencer who paved the way for many others to make their mark on the industry.”
They added that Poitier “openly confronted racism” even though he was very unpredictable in his work.
“He changed the rules of the game for actors of color and the way they were considered at the time.”
Oprah Winfrey has previously said that Poitier had “created and defined the role of the African-American in the film.”
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