RIP Sidney Poiter.

Sidney Poitier, one of the great movie actors, died today, at the age of 94. He got his first film role in 1950 in No Way Out, playing a doctor attempting to save the lives of two racist hoodlums in a tense little drama. He radiated power. He was obviously a star. He played every role with watchful dignity, blazing one trail after another. He was the first black actor to win an Academy Award (in 1963, with Lilies of the Field), and the first black movie star. He starred in action movies, dramas, westerns, war pictures, and comedies. He directed and produced. He carried the burden of being a black star in white Hollywood with humor and resolve. Everyone likes Sidney Poitier, and it’s easy to forget how magnetic he could be onscreen. He was always good, always strong. Consider his turn as a rough, distrusting delinquent in Blackboard Jungle, how he scrutinizes with his eyes, holds tension in his shoulders. And then there’s that famous slap in In the Heat of the Night, when a white racist slaps Poitier and Poitier slaps him right back. It was incendiary then; it remains powerful now. He was Mr. Tibbs, Homer Smith, Noah Cullen, Luther Brooks, Roy Parmenter, Buck, and near the end of his acting career, Thurgood Marshall. What a wonderful career. What a wonderful man. The world feels sadder, heavier, meaner, with his passing.