Star Broke the Color Barrier

Actor/director Sidney Poitier has passed at 94. This Hollywood legend was a major force in breaking the color barrier by becoming a lead actor in the fifties and sixties and being the first black to win a leading actor Oscar (for Lillies of the Field). His career spanned old Hollywood to the new and an impressive roster of film classics like  The Blackboard Jungle, Edge of the City, The Defiant Ones, Duel at Diablo, and my personal favorite, A Patch of Blue. But few actors had as powerhouse year as he had in 1967 when he had three Oscar nominated box office hits in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, To Sir With Love, and In the Heat of the Night (Best Picture winner).

 He would go to direct several films including the smash hit Stir Crazy. The year Denzel Washington won his Best Actor Oscar, he noted that the Academy awarded Sidney a lifetime Oscar. This was a movie star period.