Sidney Poyati, the first black to win the 1983 Oscar for Best Actor, has died. He was 94 years old at the time of his death.
Bahamas Foreign Office official Fred Mitchell confirmed to the BBC that the actor had died on Thursday evening (January 6) local time. Popular US television personality Oprah Winfrey also tweeted about the actor's death.
CNN has described Sydney Poyatie as "Hollywood's first black movie star." Five years ago, he was nominated for an Oscar for being the first black man to star in The Defensive Once.
When the anti-apartheid movement began in the United States in the 50's and 60's, Sidney Poyati rose to prominence by projecting that image of society on the silver screen. His 1962 classic, Guess, Who's Coming to Dinner, and In the Heat of the Night, won him a special place in the audience's mind. In 2009, then-US President Barack Obama awarded him the country's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom.
Sidney Poyati was born on February 20, 1926 in Miami, Florida. He grew up in the Bahamas. Although there were few opportunities for blacks to do good work in films at that time, Poyati became one of the top actors of his time due to his acting skills.
The main premise of many of his films was social change in the context of the American citizen movement.
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