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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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I was not expected to live.

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I was born two months premature.

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When it was determined
that I would not survive…

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my father came back to the house…

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with a shoebox.

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They were prepared to tuck me away.

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I believe that my life has had

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more than a few wonderful,
indescribable turns.

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The world I knew was quite simple.

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I didn't know there was
such a thing as electricity.

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I didn't know that there was
such a thing as

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having water come into the house
through a pipe.

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I learned by observation
what the world was like.

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I saw creatures. I saw birds.

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And I had to figure out for myself
what they were.

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I was the youngest of all the children.

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And I caught the most hell,
of course, from them.

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But I was the youngest

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and who was very often left at home,

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when my folks went to the fields.

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My folks were tomato farmers.

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There was very little schooling.
Very little.

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Everything I knew in terms of values,
in terms of right and wrong,

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in terms of who I was, value-wise,
had to come from my parents.

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I was always watching them.

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Their treatment of each other.
How they cared for each other.

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How they behaved with their friends.

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How they behaved
with other people in the village.

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And I would behave
as close to that as I could

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because I would see the results
of their behavior.

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The Florida government put an embargo

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on tomatoes coming from the Bahamas.

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My father's business fell apart.

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So he sent my mother,
and she took me, to Nassau

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to find a place that we could afford.

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As we're heading into the harbor,
I saw something moving.

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And it looked like a beetle
coming down the street.

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And I asked my mother, "What is that?"

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And she said, "That's a car."

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I said, "What is a car?"

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And she described it to me.
I was fascinated.

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As we walked the streets,
I saw glass windows

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with all kinds of wonderful things
behind the glass.

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But then I saw a woman.

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But she is standing opposite another
woman who looks exactly like her.

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And whatever the woman is doing,
the other one is doing.

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Obviously, there was a mirror.

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But I hadn't-- I didn't know
there were such things as mirrors.

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Do you hear me?
I didn't know what a mirror was.

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I never thought about what I looked like.

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I would only see what I saw.

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There was one white person on Cat Island.

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When I got to Nassau,
I saw other white people,

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but they were in the minority.

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Black people were 90% of the population.

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I ran with a group of guys
who were pretty much my age.

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Within a matter of months,

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three or four of those guys wound up
in a reform school.

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And my dad decided

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that I was probably heading for
some kind of trouble.

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I was sent to Miami, Florida.

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I left the Bahamas at 15
with this sense of myself.

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I had ten and a half years of it
on Cat Island.

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Then I had four and a half years
of it in Nassau.

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So I arrived in Miami, Florida,
with a sense of myself.

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And from the time I got off the boat,
Florida began to say to me,

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"You're not who you think you are."

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When you grew up
in a community on Cat Island,

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where everybody's Black,

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everything you know
and see around you is powerful

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and good and nurturing,

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and it's Black.

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But there's no concept of, really, race.

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Because that was his worldview
and his personal view,

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he moved through
the entire world space that way.

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He just always thought
that he was who he was.

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And, you know, there were times
when that got him into trouble.

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I was sent to live with my brother,
the only relative we had there.

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He got me a job at a place called
the Burdines department store

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in Miami, Florida, to make deliveries.

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And I was told the lady's name and--

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So I got on the bike,
and I went to Miami Beach.

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And I got to the address,
and I walked up to the front door,

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and I rang the bell.

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Then the lady of the house came out,
and she said,

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"What are you doing at the front door?"

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And I said,
"I'm here to deliver this package."

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She said, "Get around to the back door."

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And she slammed the door in my face.

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Well, I'm new to this whole
experience of race in the US.

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I just couldn't understand it.

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Why would I have to go to the back door,
and she's standing right here?

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But she slammed the door in my face,
and I don't know what to do.

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And my decision was,
I put it right there on the doorstep.

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After the evening was done,
I went home to my brother's house.

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I got there. It's dark.

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I'm approaching the house.
There's no lights.

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And I wondered why there was no lights,
but I walked up to the front door.

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His wife opened the door and grabbed me

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and pulled me in, to the floor,

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and slammed the door.

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And I-- She said, "What did you do?
What did you do today?"

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And I said, "I didn't do anything.
What did I do?"

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She said, "The Klan was here.
What did you do today?"

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I decided I had to get out of town.
I wanted to get out of town.

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I had put a few pieces of clothing

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into the dry cleaner.

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I went to this place.
It's in a totally white community.

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On the way back,
I go to what would be the bus stop,

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and the buses have stopped running.

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A car stopped and pulled right up to me,

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and it's loaded down with cops.

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And they asked me, "What are you doing?"

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I said I was just trying
to hitch a ride back to town.

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"What are you doing here?"
And I explained everything.

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He pulls out his pistol,

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and he leans it
outside the window of the car.

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And he put it right up against my head.

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There.

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And he said to his compatriots,

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"What should we do with this person?"

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They didn't use the word "person."

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He said, "If we let you go,

126
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you think you could walk all the way
back to where you came from,

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without looking back?
You think you can do that?"

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And I said, "Yeah, I can do that."

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He said, "If you look back once,
we're gonna shoot you."

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For the next 50 or more blocks,

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every time I passed a window,
I would shift my eyes only,

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and I would pick up that police car
at the back of me.

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And they stayed there…

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all the way back to the little street

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00:10:04,479 --> 00:10:07,858
where my relatives were living.

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And at that point,
they just simply drove on.

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Within a matter of a few months,

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I had to kind of switch
my whole view of life.

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I began to learn who had the power.

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And I would witness the
application of that power.

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I knew by then I had to get out of town.

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I knew I had to get out.

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I didn't know that I would ever find

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a place different from Florida.

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I heard from some guys
that there was a place

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where we had
a different set of opportunities.

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New York.

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I got to New York
at the Greyhound bus station

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at 50th Street and 8th Avenue.

150
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And I walked out on the street,

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and I'm just amazed at this place.

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And an African American guy
walked up to me.

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He says, "How are you doing?"
And I said, "Fine."

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He says, "Where are you going?"

155
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I said, "Could you tell me
how I can get to Harlem?"

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He said, "Oh, yes."

157
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He says, "You go down there,
and you take the A train."

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I'm very skeptical now
because he said, "Go down there.

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There's some steps going down
into the ground."

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So I said, "Okay."

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I very gingerly kind of went
down the steps.

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Then I heard this rumbling, rumbling up.

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And in no time, this train came--

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It got to 116th Street, and I got off.

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And I followed people
who were getting off,

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and I walked up the steps.

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And there I was in Harlem.

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Everywhere I looked
there were some Black people.

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I would say, "Hello."
They would say hello to me.

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I was just thrilled.

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Black artists were just very present
in Harlem.

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And you were just aware
of the greatness that was around.

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You know, Ellington.

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Lena Horne. Billie Holiday.

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You know, I mean,
superstars were walking the land.

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You knew what the measure
of an artist was then.

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It was right there in front of you,
like, no filter.

178
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So, this is the way in which this era

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was waiting for Sidney Poitier.

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You were here
in search of fame and fortune.

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-I was here in search.
-In search.

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I must say that my search
was fruitless for quite a long time.

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At 49th Street and Broadway,

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there was a bar and grill.

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In the window,
it said, "Dishwasher wanted."

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I walked in.
He said, "When can you start?"

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I said, "I can start right now."

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And he hired me.

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Not only did they put me to work,
they were paying four bucks a night.

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00:13:41,738 --> 00:13:43,323
And I could eat.

191
00:13:43,407 --> 00:13:45,701
When I finished the first night's work,

192
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I went to the bus station.

193
00:13:49,037 --> 00:13:52,249
I went to sleep in the toilet.

194
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There used to be pay toilets in them,
and it cost a nickel.

195
00:13:55,502 --> 00:13:58,255
So I put a nickel in. And I got in.

196
00:13:58,338 --> 00:14:02,009
I put down the seat. I sat there,
put my feet up against the door,

197
00:14:02,092 --> 00:14:03,260
and I would sleep.

198
00:14:03,343 --> 00:14:05,888
Uncomfortably, needless to say.

199
00:14:07,264 --> 00:14:08,891
On one particular evening,

200
00:14:08,974 --> 00:14:11,894
I'm sitting right next to the kitchen,

201
00:14:11,977 --> 00:14:13,854
and I'm reading a paper.

202
00:14:13,937 --> 00:14:17,065
And one of the waiters looked over
and saw me sitting there.

203
00:14:17,149 --> 00:14:20,068
I said, "I'm trying to learn to read
better than I can read."

204
00:14:20,152 --> 00:14:23,238
And he said, "Would you like it
if I read with you?"

205
00:14:23,906 --> 00:14:26,200
Every night,

206
00:14:26,992 --> 00:14:30,996
that man, that Jewish waiter

207
00:14:31,663 --> 00:14:34,917
came over to where I would read the paper

208
00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:41,924
and sit there with me until I really
began learning to read.

209
00:14:42,007 --> 00:14:45,928
This was like the beginning
of a journey for me.

210
00:14:46,011 --> 00:14:49,181
If you stop struggling,
people are gonna walk past you.

211
00:14:49,890 --> 00:14:51,767
But if they see you working at it,

212
00:14:51,850 --> 00:14:54,061
somebody's gonna grab you by the hand

213
00:14:54,144 --> 00:14:57,022
and just give you that little lift up
that you need to keep going.

214
00:14:57,731 --> 00:14:58,982
It's always gonna happen.

215
00:15:01,318 --> 00:15:04,363
I was on 125th Street in Harlem,

216
00:15:04,446 --> 00:15:07,574
and I bought a newspaper
called the Amsterdam News--

217
00:15:07,658 --> 00:15:10,244
it was a Black newspaper--
because it had a want ad page.

218
00:15:10,327 --> 00:15:14,081
On the want ad page were places
that I had gotten jobs from.

219
00:15:14,164 --> 00:15:16,291
Dishwashing jobs, porter jobs,

220
00:15:16,375 --> 00:15:18,752
all kinds of other jobs that I could do.

221
00:15:19,336 --> 00:15:23,090
On the opposite page, it says,
"Actors wanted."

222
00:15:23,674 --> 00:15:28,178
And I said to myself,
"My God. They want actors?

223
00:15:28,262 --> 00:15:31,014
What would I be doing as an actor?"

224
00:15:32,307 --> 00:15:35,269
So I went to this address.
I knocked on the door.

225
00:15:35,352 --> 00:15:37,271
And after a while, a guy came.

226
00:15:37,354 --> 00:15:42,276
He was a mountainous guy. Huge.
Frederick O'Neal was the guy.

227
00:15:43,068 --> 00:15:46,864
I went in. I walked on the stage,
and I turned to page so-and-so.

228
00:15:46,947 --> 00:15:49,950
And he opened another script.
He was sitting in the audience.

229
00:15:50,033 --> 00:15:52,703
And he turned the page.
He says, "Now read the part of John."

230
00:15:52,786 --> 00:15:55,581
And I looked, and I saw "John,"
and I said, "Okay."

231
00:15:56,164 --> 00:16:01,587
"He said, 'Where are you going?'"

232
00:16:01,670 --> 00:16:04,798
And he-- He was quite upset and angry,

233
00:16:04,882 --> 00:16:07,467
and he tossed me out of there and stuff.

234
00:16:07,551 --> 00:16:09,720
He said, "Why don't you just stop
wasting people's time

235
00:16:09,803 --> 00:16:12,181
and go get yourself a job
as a dishwasher or something?"

236
00:16:12,264 --> 00:16:14,766
That's the moment I became an actor,
you see.

237
00:16:15,267 --> 00:16:18,187
I said, "I am going to become an actor.

238
00:16:18,812 --> 00:16:24,443
And when I do, I'm going to come back
and show that man."

239
00:16:24,526 --> 00:16:25,944
You had an accent problem

240
00:16:26,028 --> 00:16:27,988
when you first started to work
in New York, I've read.

241
00:16:28,071 --> 00:16:30,991
Can you show us
what your speech was originally like?

242
00:16:31,074 --> 00:16:32,451
A line like…

243
00:16:34,036 --> 00:16:35,245
"I'm going home."

244
00:16:36,079 --> 00:16:39,082
When I was a child,
we would say, "I gwine 'ome."

245
00:16:39,166 --> 00:16:42,085
I was told I had to get rid of it
if I wanted to be an actor.

246
00:16:42,711 --> 00:16:44,421
So I got rid of it myself.

247
00:16:45,214 --> 00:16:47,841
I bought a radio for $14.

248
00:16:47,925 --> 00:16:51,678
And I would look for a man
named Norman Brokenshire.

249
00:16:51,762 --> 00:16:56,225
Norman Brokenshire was a newsreader.

250
00:16:57,976 --> 00:16:59,478
And he had a magnificent voice.

251
00:17:00,062 --> 00:17:02,731
How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?
How do you do?

252
00:17:02,814 --> 00:17:04,233
This is Norman Brokenshire.

253
00:17:04,316 --> 00:17:08,444
I would listen to his--
And after a while, I would repeat.

254
00:17:08,529 --> 00:17:11,949
You know, I've been in front
of microphones for over 25 years,

255
00:17:12,031 --> 00:17:14,660
and I can tell you
this is a tense business.

256
00:17:14,742 --> 00:17:19,080
And I lost my accent almost completely.

257
00:17:19,164 --> 00:17:21,375
I went out, and I s-- bought books,

258
00:17:21,458 --> 00:17:24,377
and I learned
to struggle through lines and stuff.

259
00:17:24,461 --> 00:17:27,631
And I went back, and I took an audition.

260
00:17:27,714 --> 00:17:28,966
And I was accepted.

261
00:17:29,591 --> 00:17:34,805
So I used the theater, I used acting
and acting classes, as a therapy.

262
00:17:36,557 --> 00:17:39,101
I would go there
after working in the Garment District

263
00:17:39,184 --> 00:17:42,563
or any other of the 14,
18 places I did work.

264
00:17:43,397 --> 00:17:44,690
I would go to class at night,

265
00:17:44,773 --> 00:17:47,776
and I would sit and study and do scenes.

266
00:17:47,860 --> 00:17:50,737
At the time, when I was 17, 18 years old,

267
00:17:50,821 --> 00:17:54,575
acting offered me an area
where I could be an exhibitionist,

268
00:17:54,658 --> 00:17:57,202
where I could give vent
to some of my frustrations,

269
00:17:57,286 --> 00:18:01,957
where I could pour out
some of my confusion and other ills

270
00:18:02,666 --> 00:18:04,877
into a fictitious character.

271
00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:08,672
I felt this is something
that gives me a badge of distinction.

272
00:18:08,755 --> 00:18:10,799
I can be many things here,

273
00:18:10,883 --> 00:18:13,510
and the areas of life,
socially and otherwise,

274
00:18:13,594 --> 00:18:15,512
that were then restricted to me--

275
00:18:15,596 --> 00:18:20,017
I had ways of retaliating
in this kind of illusion.

276
00:18:21,852 --> 00:18:24,313
Tyrant, show thy face.

277
00:18:24,396 --> 00:18:25,731
What is thy name?

278
00:18:27,024 --> 00:18:30,485
I think one of the things
that's been lost is Black theater.

279
00:18:31,570 --> 00:18:33,113
My name's Macbeth.

280
00:18:33,197 --> 00:18:37,534
From probably after
the war all the way into the '80s,

281
00:18:37,618 --> 00:18:39,786
Black theater was the voice of Black art.

282
00:18:39,870 --> 00:18:42,331
American Negro Theatre was a precursor

283
00:18:42,414 --> 00:18:45,417
to the Negro Ensemble Company
and other great theater groups.

284
00:18:47,711 --> 00:18:51,048
And it was a place
where young talent could get on stage

285
00:18:51,632 --> 00:18:52,841
and get their chops up.

286
00:18:52,925 --> 00:18:54,510
Everybody came through Black theater.

287
00:18:54,593 --> 00:18:57,554
It wasn't probably till the '90s
when you could cast a Black actor

288
00:18:57,638 --> 00:18:59,806
who had not been
in the Black theater somewhere.

289
00:18:59,890 --> 00:19:02,518
I went down there for an audition.

290
00:19:02,601 --> 00:19:03,769
When I got there,

291
00:19:03,852 --> 00:19:08,482
I saw this rather surly Black man
across the room from me.

292
00:19:08,565 --> 00:19:11,610
And he didn't look too happy to see me.

293
00:19:11,693 --> 00:19:13,153
I looked at him, and I knew

294
00:19:13,237 --> 00:19:15,989
that I would have to be competing
with this guy

295
00:19:16,073 --> 00:19:17,866
for the rest of my days.

296
00:19:18,367 --> 00:19:22,621
I have decided that I must
hitch my wagon to Sidney's star…

297
00:19:23,705 --> 00:19:26,500
and be led to great celestial experiences.

298
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:28,418
And I--

299
00:19:28,502 --> 00:19:30,170
You could cut it with a knife.

300
00:19:31,046 --> 00:19:34,091
My dad and Harry have
such a bromance. It's crazy.

301
00:19:34,174 --> 00:19:35,217
They've been together

302
00:19:35,300 --> 00:19:38,262
since these early years at
the American Negro Theatre company.

303
00:19:38,345 --> 00:19:42,140
And they were the best of friends,

304
00:19:42,933 --> 00:19:45,686
and then they had falling-outs,
periodic falling-outs, you know?

305
00:19:45,769 --> 00:19:48,730
They were like a married couple.
You know, like--

306
00:19:48,814 --> 00:19:52,109
They separate. They have a divorce.
They get married again.

307
00:19:52,192 --> 00:19:54,278
-We disagree on occasion.
-Yeah.

308
00:19:54,361 --> 00:19:57,531
And I don't mean that funny.
We do disagree on occasion,

309
00:19:57,614 --> 00:20:00,325
on various subjects.

310
00:20:00,409 --> 00:20:03,161
But we exchange
on these subjects, you see.

311
00:20:03,245 --> 00:20:06,707
I've learned a great deal
from this man in 26 years.

312
00:20:06,790 --> 00:20:09,626
I suspect he has learned
some things from me.

313
00:20:10,502 --> 00:20:13,839
We are artists.
I have an ego. He has an ego.

314
00:20:13,922 --> 00:20:14,965
Tell 'em, honey.

315
00:20:18,385 --> 00:20:19,386
So…

316
00:20:20,345 --> 00:20:23,724
I was 18 years old
coming out of Birdland,

317
00:20:23,807 --> 00:20:29,188
and I saw Sidney, Harry Belafonte
and Marlon Brando.

318
00:20:29,271 --> 00:20:33,108
Oh, man, come on. That was like history.
History.

319
00:20:33,734 --> 00:20:36,320
We were wild.
Everybody was wild back then.

320
00:20:36,403 --> 00:20:38,697
They used to love, and they used to fight.

321
00:20:39,323 --> 00:20:41,783
They got close. They stayed close.

322
00:20:42,618 --> 00:20:43,619
And worked close.

323
00:20:43,702 --> 00:20:45,829
And they kept playing that stink eye.

324
00:20:46,705 --> 00:20:48,498
And they still do.

325
00:20:48,582 --> 00:20:50,792
We were doing a play
called Days of Our Youth.

326
00:20:50,876 --> 00:20:52,503
And Sidney Poitier was my understudy.

327
00:20:52,586 --> 00:20:54,463
We worked for nothing, of course.

328
00:20:54,546 --> 00:20:55,631
And I had a job.

329
00:20:56,298 --> 00:20:58,467
And I was a janitor's assistant.

330
00:20:58,550 --> 00:21:00,302
They were having a performance one night.

331
00:21:00,385 --> 00:21:03,138
And Harry Belafonte was the lead.
He was supposed to go on.

332
00:21:03,222 --> 00:21:05,015
He was also a garbageman at the time.

333
00:21:05,098 --> 00:21:07,935
And he got called in on a shift
that he had to take.

334
00:21:08,018 --> 00:21:10,687
And so my dad, being the understudy,
took his place.

335
00:21:10,771 --> 00:21:13,440
And there happened to be
a Broadway producer

336
00:21:13,524 --> 00:21:15,359
in the audience that night

337
00:21:15,442 --> 00:21:17,694
casting, I believe, Lysistrata.

338
00:21:19,029 --> 00:21:21,240
And cast my dad.

339
00:21:21,323 --> 00:21:23,659
I think Harry was probably pretty
pissed about that one.

340
00:21:23,742 --> 00:21:27,329
20th Century Fox
had flown scouts to the East

341
00:21:27,412 --> 00:21:28,664
to hunt for an actor.

342
00:21:28,747 --> 00:21:30,040
They saw Sidney Poitier.

343
00:21:30,123 --> 00:21:31,625
They flew him to California,

344
00:21:31,708 --> 00:21:33,794
gave him his screen test,
and the rest is history.

345
00:21:33,877 --> 00:21:36,797
Every time he gets out a line
I remind him, to humble him,

346
00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:40,259
that his career was made on garbage.

347
00:21:40,342 --> 00:21:43,262
Now, that could make a man bitter
if he hadn't done reasonably well,

348
00:21:43,345 --> 00:21:44,263
as you have since.

349
00:21:44,346 --> 00:21:46,181
No, I've done reasonably well,
and I am bitter.

350
00:21:57,651 --> 00:21:58,819
-Hi, Lefty.
-Hey, Luth.

351
00:21:58,902 --> 00:22:01,446
What do you know?
I've been looking for you.

352
00:22:02,155 --> 00:22:03,907
The beginning of my career

353
00:22:03,991 --> 00:22:06,076
was with a man named Joe Mankiewicz.

354
00:22:06,159 --> 00:22:07,828
-Hello, Brooks.
-Good evening, Doctor.

355
00:22:07,911 --> 00:22:10,873
He wanted to make a movie
about Black people in America.

356
00:22:10,956 --> 00:22:16,837
And it was a very interesting movie.
The first of its kind.

357
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:21,800
I played a young Black doctor
at a Los Angeles hospital.

358
00:22:21,884 --> 00:22:23,260
I'm Dr. Brooks.

359
00:22:23,343 --> 00:22:25,220
Yeah, they said you'd be up.

360
00:22:25,304 --> 00:22:28,056
It was really explosive stuff.

361
00:22:28,140 --> 00:22:29,892
I don't want him. I want a white doctor.

362
00:22:29,975 --> 00:22:31,977
We'll turn the lights out.
You won't know the difference.

363
00:22:32,060 --> 00:22:34,146
-Haven't I got any rights?
-No!

364
00:22:34,229 --> 00:22:35,981
There were people in the industry

365
00:22:36,064 --> 00:22:37,733
who didn't have the courage

366
00:22:37,816 --> 00:22:40,736
to make a film like that
about Black people.

367
00:22:40,819 --> 00:22:43,822
There was a habit pattern

368
00:22:43,906 --> 00:22:48,702
of utilizing Blacks
in the most disrespectful way.

369
00:22:48,785 --> 00:22:52,372
I know I can eat my mashed potatoes
without a knife and--

370
00:22:52,706 --> 00:22:54,041
-Stop this foolishness!
-I…

371
00:22:54,124 --> 00:22:55,834
We're talking about the '40s,

372
00:22:55,918 --> 00:22:58,545
when if you're gonna work
in the movies, you better be funny.

373
00:22:58,629 --> 00:22:59,963
Stepin Fetchit.

374
00:23:00,464 --> 00:23:01,673
Mantan Moreland.

375
00:23:01,757 --> 00:23:04,760
Oh, Mr. Bill, does I has to?
Can I stay up here with you?

376
00:23:04,843 --> 00:23:08,889
No. You understand that it might set
a bad example for the other servants.

377
00:23:08,972 --> 00:23:09,973
Well, certainly.

378
00:23:10,057 --> 00:23:12,851
Those were the stars--
Black stars of their time.

379
00:23:12,935 --> 00:23:15,103
If you ain't funny, you ain't working.

380
00:23:15,687 --> 00:23:19,399
Mantan Moreland,
Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel.

381
00:23:19,483 --> 00:23:23,153
I knew when I came on the scene
how painful it had to have been

382
00:23:23,237 --> 00:23:28,075
for them to say some of those words
and behave in some of those ways.

383
00:23:28,784 --> 00:23:30,744
Jeff, you're the laziest man I ever saw.

384
00:23:31,328 --> 00:23:35,082
Oh, Mr. Frank, I ain't lazy.
I is just relackatin'.

385
00:23:35,165 --> 00:23:39,753
Hollywood was
a really insensitive place

386
00:23:39,837 --> 00:23:41,505
when it came to Black people.

387
00:23:41,588 --> 00:23:42,881
Wait. Don't leave me here.

388
00:23:42,965 --> 00:23:45,425
Hattie McDaniel was nominated in 1939,

389
00:23:45,509 --> 00:23:47,386
and she won in 1939.

390
00:23:47,469 --> 00:23:50,889
I knew that she was not allowed
in the hotels and all of that.

391
00:23:51,139 --> 00:23:54,601
And I knew that,
of course, playing a maid,

392
00:23:55,394 --> 00:23:57,062
brilliantly as she did,

393
00:23:57,938 --> 00:24:02,609
was about all they really wanted
out of people like her.

394
00:24:02,693 --> 00:24:03,694
May I say thank you…

395
00:24:03,777 --> 00:24:08,365
I don't think Sidney ever played
a "subservient" part.

396
00:24:08,448 --> 00:24:10,534
Never bugged his eyes.

397
00:24:11,285 --> 00:24:12,578
Never ducked his head.

398
00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:15,289
Never said anything funny.

399
00:24:15,372 --> 00:24:17,749
You're watching a man in a world

400
00:24:17,833 --> 00:24:20,627
where he really doesn't have
a whole lot to say.

401
00:24:21,670 --> 00:24:24,256
And turns out, yes, he does.

402
00:24:25,299 --> 00:24:28,177
Every time anybody dies in a county
hospital, somebody yells murder.

403
00:24:28,260 --> 00:24:29,887
But it's not the same
when they yell it at me.

404
00:24:29,970 --> 00:24:31,305
It's got to be. You're a doctor.

405
00:24:31,388 --> 00:24:34,308
They're not yelling at the doctor.
They're yelling at the nigger.

406
00:24:34,892 --> 00:24:37,436
The movies changed
the day he hits the screen.

407
00:24:37,519 --> 00:24:38,520
You know what I mean?

408
00:24:38,604 --> 00:24:40,939
Like, never seen
a brother like this before.

409
00:24:41,023 --> 00:24:42,024
He-- Yeah. I mean,

410
00:24:42,107 --> 00:24:45,277
he carved out something
that was just without precedent.

411
00:24:45,819 --> 00:24:47,571
I had things driving me.

412
00:24:48,071 --> 00:24:50,782
I came from a very poor family.
Very, very poor family.

413
00:24:50,866 --> 00:24:53,702
And I came from a poor,
uneducated family in the Caribbean.

414
00:24:54,203 --> 00:24:58,665
And my poor, uneducated family
in the Caribbean looked on America

415
00:24:58,749 --> 00:25:01,084
as a place where there is gold
in the streets.

416
00:25:01,919 --> 00:25:05,506
And once you've gathered some of it,
you certainly should send some home.

417
00:25:06,298 --> 00:25:08,300
And because
I couldn't send gold back home,

418
00:25:08,383 --> 00:25:12,304
I developed a terrible,
neurotic attitude towards home.

419
00:25:12,387 --> 00:25:13,472
I cut home off.

420
00:25:13,555 --> 00:25:17,100
I didn't write because I couldn't
put anything in the envelope.

421
00:25:17,184 --> 00:25:20,521
He has this really deep love
and respect for his parents,

422
00:25:20,604 --> 00:25:23,232
and I think that's always, like,
weighed on him a little bit,

423
00:25:23,315 --> 00:25:24,983
that he spent eight years away.

424
00:25:26,318 --> 00:25:29,821
I saw my mother and father
for the first time in eight years.

425
00:25:29,905 --> 00:25:32,533
The family was able to gather
in a theater in Nassau

426
00:25:32,616 --> 00:25:35,744
to see the first picture I ever made,
No Way Out.

427
00:25:35,827 --> 00:25:37,246
Yes, it's very important.

428
00:25:37,329 --> 00:25:38,664
For my parents,

429
00:25:38,747 --> 00:25:41,667
it was the first time
they had ever seen a movie.

430
00:25:42,167 --> 00:25:45,420
It must have been something
like a fantasy for them. A dream.

431
00:25:45,504 --> 00:25:49,508
I'm not entirely sure how much
they grasped of the concept.

432
00:25:49,591 --> 00:25:52,135
They were absolutely enthralled.

433
00:25:52,219 --> 00:25:57,057
Letting go with "That's my kid!"
and all that kind of stuff.

434
00:25:57,641 --> 00:26:02,604
After that initial burst of success,
I was back in Harlem washing dishes.

435
00:26:02,688 --> 00:26:04,022
Despite the setback,

436
00:26:04,106 --> 00:26:06,733
I still had faith in myself
and faith in the future.

437
00:26:06,817 --> 00:26:10,237
Enough of each to marry
a beautiful young girl named Juanita,

438
00:26:10,487 --> 00:26:13,115
and try to get on with my life.

439
00:26:13,198 --> 00:26:16,368
Soon our first child was born,

440
00:26:16,451 --> 00:26:18,829
and then another was on the way.

441
00:26:19,538 --> 00:26:22,624
I think that my mother was
a total optimist,

442
00:26:22,708 --> 00:26:25,252
and my father was a bit of a pessimist.

443
00:26:26,044 --> 00:26:29,673
But her optimism overwhelmed him.

444
00:26:29,756 --> 00:26:33,218
And I think that
her being able to read people,

445
00:26:33,302 --> 00:26:34,845
he was fascinated by that.

446
00:26:34,928 --> 00:26:38,807
And the fact that she just--
she loved people unconditionally

447
00:26:38,891 --> 00:26:41,101
captivated his imagination.

448
00:26:42,644 --> 00:26:47,191
I was the only girl
and the only Black person

449
00:26:48,358 --> 00:26:50,903
in my class at Columbia University.

450
00:26:50,986 --> 00:26:53,572
I had two strikes against me, so…

451
00:26:54,323 --> 00:26:57,034
I had written an essay

452
00:26:57,117 --> 00:27:01,496
about the Black and white situation
in the United States.

453
00:27:01,580 --> 00:27:04,541
They said, "Well,
where did you get these ideas from?"

454
00:27:04,625 --> 00:27:07,127
I said, "From the people who lived it."

455
00:27:07,211 --> 00:27:11,381
When I met Sidney,
he had only been to the third grade.

456
00:27:11,465 --> 00:27:14,384
He was always out there to learn.

457
00:27:14,468 --> 00:27:16,345
He needed to know

458
00:27:16,428 --> 00:27:20,682
everything he could get his mind on.

459
00:27:21,725 --> 00:27:25,938
And I was trying to feed him all the time

460
00:27:26,021 --> 00:27:28,690
the things that I felt that he didn't know

461
00:27:28,774 --> 00:27:30,901
that it would help him if he knew.

462
00:27:30,984 --> 00:27:34,404
Then he could start feeling and reacting

463
00:27:34,488 --> 00:27:37,282
to the movies that he was offered.

464
00:27:37,366 --> 00:27:39,618
I said, "Everything is not about money."

465
00:27:40,369 --> 00:27:44,915
He got offered a role in a film.
I think it was by Marty Baum.

466
00:27:44,998 --> 00:27:48,210
And he turned it down.

467
00:27:48,293 --> 00:27:50,754
And Marty Baum was like,
"I'm sorry. I don't understand.

468
00:27:50,838 --> 00:27:54,925
Like, this is gonna pay you
more money than you make in a year."

469
00:27:55,509 --> 00:27:57,469
My second daughter was about to be born.

470
00:27:57,553 --> 00:27:58,679
My second child.

471
00:27:59,346 --> 00:28:00,639
And I didn't have the money.

472
00:28:02,683 --> 00:28:04,935
The part called for me as a janitor,

473
00:28:05,018 --> 00:28:07,354
which is--
nothing wrong with playing janitors.

474
00:28:07,437 --> 00:28:10,941
But in this particular script,
a murder took place.

475
00:28:11,441 --> 00:28:14,361
And the murderers, or the people
who knew about the mur--

476
00:28:14,444 --> 00:28:17,114
or who were associated with the murderers,

477
00:28:17,990 --> 00:28:21,201
felt that I, the janitor,
had witnessed it.

478
00:28:21,285 --> 00:28:25,455
In the narrative,
the janitor's daughter is murdered,

479
00:28:26,206 --> 00:28:31,712
and the janitor has no recourse
to speak about how he feels

480
00:28:31,795 --> 00:28:35,465
about his daughter's body
being thrown upon the lawn.

481
00:28:35,549 --> 00:28:37,009
They're not gonna change the script

482
00:28:37,092 --> 00:28:39,511
to give him some kind of reaction to that.

483
00:28:41,180 --> 00:28:42,347
And he said,

484
00:28:42,431 --> 00:28:46,059
"Reginald Poitier would never allow

485
00:28:46,143 --> 00:28:49,563
a child of his to be thrown upon the lawn

486
00:28:49,646 --> 00:28:51,690
and not have something to say about it."

487
00:28:51,773 --> 00:28:54,318
He wanted to make sure
that whatever he did in life,

488
00:28:54,735 --> 00:28:57,196
reflected well on his father.

489
00:28:57,696 --> 00:28:59,990
He said that when he looked up

490
00:29:00,073 --> 00:29:04,953
and saw his name on the screen
or on the marquee,

491
00:29:05,037 --> 00:29:07,539
it was not his name.
It was his father's name.

492
00:29:08,123 --> 00:29:09,917
I cannot play that

493
00:29:11,043 --> 00:29:16,048
if I'm the son of the man I believe I am.

494
00:29:16,882 --> 00:29:18,550
I could not play that

495
00:29:18,634 --> 00:29:24,139
if my mother is the mother
that I think she was.

496
00:29:24,223 --> 00:29:26,934
And so he turns it down.

497
00:29:27,643 --> 00:29:31,271
He turns it down and goes out
and takes a loan

498
00:29:31,355 --> 00:29:33,982
so that he can pay for his baby
in the hospital.

499
00:29:34,483 --> 00:29:37,569
He did what he had to do

500
00:29:38,070 --> 00:29:43,033
because not so much of
what people expected out of him

501
00:29:43,116 --> 00:29:45,911
but what he expected out of himself.

502
00:29:46,453 --> 00:29:50,958
My faithfulness to my values
belongs to my mom.

503
00:29:57,422 --> 00:29:58,799
And to my dad.

504
00:30:10,269 --> 00:30:13,564
First you duck, and then you cover.

505
00:30:15,899 --> 00:30:18,819
The Cold War
after World War II produced

506
00:30:18,902 --> 00:30:22,239
a kind of paranoia in America
about communism

507
00:30:22,322 --> 00:30:25,367
that impacted every aspect
of American life.

508
00:30:25,450 --> 00:30:30,330
The communist underground directed
its agents, in effect,

509
00:30:30,414 --> 00:30:32,541
to infiltrate Hollywood

510
00:30:32,624 --> 00:30:36,253
and to do everything possible
to poison the screen.

511
00:30:36,336 --> 00:30:38,672
They are enemies! They are not Americans.

512
00:30:38,755 --> 00:30:40,382
-They're homosexuals.
-That's right!

513
00:30:40,465 --> 00:30:41,884
-They're communists!
-They are!

514
00:30:41,967 --> 00:30:43,385
They're communists!

515
00:30:43,468 --> 00:30:46,221
Even if there were only one communist
in the State Department

516
00:30:46,305 --> 00:30:49,308
that would still be
one communist too many.

517
00:30:49,391 --> 00:30:52,477
I remember that period
'cause I was just getting to college

518
00:30:52,561 --> 00:30:53,729
at Howard University.

519
00:30:53,812 --> 00:30:56,565
I saw the McCarthy hearings

520
00:30:56,648 --> 00:30:59,818
on the first television set I'd seen,

521
00:30:59,902 --> 00:31:02,237
which was in the dormitory lounge.

522
00:31:02,321 --> 00:31:03,697
It was really scary.

523
00:31:03,780 --> 00:31:05,782
The requirement of a loyalty oath

524
00:31:05,866 --> 00:31:08,368
becomes increasingly widespread
in the government

525
00:31:08,452 --> 00:31:09,620
and throughout the nation.

526
00:31:10,204 --> 00:31:14,333
There were lists made of possible
communists or communist sympathizers.

527
00:31:14,416 --> 00:31:16,877
So many people didn't make it
through that, Paul Robeson being one.

528
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:20,255
Have you come back from
Moscow still a convinced communist?

529
00:31:20,339 --> 00:31:22,841
I don't see how you can ask me that.
How do you know I'm a communist?

530
00:31:22,925 --> 00:31:24,343
-Nobody else knows.
-Are you?

531
00:31:24,426 --> 00:31:26,386
-So I resent the question.
-I beg your pardon.

532
00:31:26,470 --> 00:31:28,096
Will you rephrase it, please? Yes.

533
00:31:34,102 --> 00:31:36,188
Paul Robeson was as significant

534
00:31:36,271 --> 00:31:39,733
an African American cultural figure
in the 1930s as existed.

535
00:31:39,816 --> 00:31:42,528
He stood atop of
this world of Black entertainment

536
00:31:42,611 --> 00:31:44,530
that people like Sidney Poitier
and Harry Belafonte

537
00:31:44,613 --> 00:31:45,614
were becoming a part of.

538
00:31:45,697 --> 00:31:48,033
And they very much admired Paul Robeson.

539
00:31:50,035 --> 00:31:52,120
Well, he had America on his butt

540
00:31:52,204 --> 00:31:54,915
because he was supportive
of the proletariat.

541
00:31:54,998 --> 00:31:56,917
"Yeah, but they're communists." So?

542
00:31:58,126 --> 00:32:01,880
Robeson becomes
an interesting dual template

543
00:32:02,589 --> 00:32:05,425
for Poitier and Belafonte

544
00:32:05,509 --> 00:32:10,806
you know, as to which side of the line
are you going to fight on.

545
00:32:13,308 --> 00:32:15,853
Robeson was blackballed,
and not only was he blackballed,

546
00:32:15,936 --> 00:32:17,563
but when he could've gone
to Europe to work,

547
00:32:17,646 --> 00:32:19,439
the American government
took his passport away.

548
00:32:19,523 --> 00:32:23,652
We have seen that people
will so fight for their freedom

549
00:32:23,735 --> 00:32:27,072
that if it is not given to them,
they will take it.

550
00:32:27,155 --> 00:32:31,827
So for Sidney, he saw
how Paul Robeson was disrespected

551
00:32:31,910 --> 00:32:33,662
and the abuse he took.

552
00:32:34,246 --> 00:32:37,791
And when you see something like that…

553
00:32:39,334 --> 00:32:41,295
it's like a-- can be a road map.

554
00:32:41,879 --> 00:32:45,507
Yeah, well, just try and
pay attention, Santini.

555
00:32:45,591 --> 00:32:46,884
I pay attention.

556
00:32:51,221 --> 00:32:54,308
Hey, Miller. Come here.
I want to talk to you a minute, Miller.

557
00:32:54,391 --> 00:32:56,643
What film was it, Blackboard Jungle?

558
00:32:56,727 --> 00:32:58,187
You were asked to sign a loyalty oath.

559
00:32:58,270 --> 00:33:00,022
-Several times.
-Why was that?

560
00:33:00,355 --> 00:33:03,942
Well, I think mainly
because I knew Paul Robeson,

561
00:33:04,026 --> 00:33:07,446
and my admiration was not
a well-kept secret.

562
00:33:07,529 --> 00:33:10,782
That seemed to have been enough
to make me suspect.

563
00:33:11,408 --> 00:33:13,118
Now, don't be modest with me, Miller.

564
00:33:13,202 --> 00:33:14,536
You know you're a little brighter,

565
00:33:14,620 --> 00:33:16,371
a little smarter
than the rest of those guys.

566
00:33:16,455 --> 00:33:17,664
-Me?
-Yeah.

567
00:33:18,248 --> 00:33:19,958
And every class needs a leader.

568
00:33:20,042 --> 00:33:22,294
Poitier appeared
on the pages of Counterattack,

569
00:33:22,377 --> 00:33:25,297
which was this
conservative watchdog publication

570
00:33:25,380 --> 00:33:28,717
that looked to investigate
the various leftist associations

571
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:30,511
of various figures
in American public life.

572
00:33:30,594 --> 00:33:34,014
Clearly someone had been keeping tabs
on Poitier throughout the 1950s.

573
00:33:34,598 --> 00:33:37,059
At that time,
there was the politics of filmmaking

574
00:33:37,142 --> 00:33:39,353
that required that, if you wanted to work,

575
00:33:39,436 --> 00:33:42,481
you had to be on very good terms

576
00:33:42,564 --> 00:33:46,443
with whatever forces
were putting people on blacklists.

577
00:33:46,527 --> 00:33:47,528
You said no.

578
00:33:48,862 --> 00:33:49,988
Let's go, bright boy.

579
00:33:50,614 --> 00:33:52,574
Hey, wait. He means me.

580
00:33:53,075 --> 00:33:55,786
You're gonna jeopardize
your career and everything.

581
00:33:55,869 --> 00:33:59,373
Yeah, well, there are some
things that you have to say no to.

582
00:33:59,456 --> 00:34:03,168
My integrity was more important
than to play politics.

583
00:34:03,919 --> 00:34:06,797
It's brave. I mean,
when everything was on the line--

584
00:34:07,089 --> 00:34:08,924
He could've easily been blackballed.

585
00:34:09,007 --> 00:34:13,262
I could only imagine in those days
what it was like to speak out.

586
00:34:15,681 --> 00:34:17,266
Of all my father's teachings,

587
00:34:17,349 --> 00:34:21,812
the most enduring was the one
about the true measure of a man.

588
00:34:22,312 --> 00:34:26,108
That true measure was how well
he provided for his children.

589
00:34:26,190 --> 00:34:30,237
And it stuck with me
as if it were etched in my brain.

590
00:34:30,904 --> 00:34:32,947
I didn't know where I was going next,

591
00:34:33,031 --> 00:34:36,243
but I knew that failure wasn't an option.

592
00:34:37,411 --> 00:34:39,996
That's when I got the call
from Richard Brooks

593
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:42,623
to make Something of Value in Kenya.

594
00:34:42,708 --> 00:34:45,835
And from there, my career really took off.

595
00:34:45,918 --> 00:34:49,380
Did I say to myself,
"This country is waking up

596
00:34:49,464 --> 00:34:53,302
and beginning to recognize
that certain changes are inevitable"?

597
00:34:53,927 --> 00:34:55,429
No, I did not.

598
00:34:55,512 --> 00:34:59,558
The moment
a Negro child walks into the school,

599
00:34:59,641 --> 00:35:03,395
every decent,
self-respecting, loving parent

600
00:35:03,478 --> 00:35:06,899
should take his white child
out of that broken school.

601
00:35:08,066 --> 00:35:10,944
This was still 1950 America,

602
00:35:11,195 --> 00:35:12,696
an America in which

603
00:35:12,779 --> 00:35:15,991
a career like this
had never even been dreamed of.

604
00:35:16,074 --> 00:35:20,120
It had never happened before
in the history of the movie business.

605
00:35:20,204 --> 00:35:22,372
A Black leading man.

606
00:35:27,753 --> 00:35:30,589
You heard what the man said, nigger.
Now shut up.

607
00:35:34,718 --> 00:35:37,387
You call me nigger again, Joker,
and I'm gonna kill you.

608
00:35:38,013 --> 00:35:39,223
Make your move.

609
00:35:40,474 --> 00:35:41,892
Look out!

610
00:35:50,192 --> 00:35:53,529
I've always
thought there was a great connection

611
00:35:53,612 --> 00:35:56,114
to Jews and Blacks.

612
00:35:56,198 --> 00:36:00,702
When I saw The Defiant Ones,
Tony Curtis, the Jew,

613
00:36:00,786 --> 00:36:04,248
and Sidney Poitier, who was Black--

614
00:36:04,331 --> 00:36:08,252
And it just had this chemistry
about, almost, people in chains.

615
00:36:08,335 --> 00:36:10,838
We know about that in our DNA.

616
00:36:11,797 --> 00:36:14,925
The Defiant Ones.
That was the first one I ever saw.

617
00:36:15,008 --> 00:36:16,927
And, man, it was impactful.

618
00:36:17,010 --> 00:36:20,472
To this day, I still remember
him saying to Tony Curtis,

619
00:36:20,556 --> 00:36:22,850
"I got a needle sticking in me.
Don't call me 'boy.'"

620
00:36:22,933 --> 00:36:25,769
Yeah. And I got a needle
sticking in me right now.

621
00:36:25,853 --> 00:36:27,521
Look, Joker, don't call me "boy."

622
00:36:28,105 --> 00:36:30,190
It was the first time I had really seen

623
00:36:30,274 --> 00:36:34,820
a Black man assert his power
and command respect

624
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:36,738
from a white man on film.

625
00:36:36,822 --> 00:36:40,701
That moment in the film
where Sidney makes the decision…

626
00:36:44,580 --> 00:36:47,082
to sacrifice his possible freedom…

627
00:36:47,165 --> 00:36:48,417
Come on!

628
00:36:48,500 --> 00:36:51,461
I can't make it!

629
00:36:51,545 --> 00:36:53,255
…to save his white friend…

630
00:36:58,927 --> 00:37:02,973
is something that Black people
still don't like and still don't believe.

631
00:37:03,473 --> 00:37:04,808
It's a magic Negro moment,

632
00:37:04,892 --> 00:37:07,561
which was basically
a trope that happened--

633
00:37:07,644 --> 00:37:10,606
The Defiant Ones is
one of the most prime examples

634
00:37:10,689 --> 00:37:14,484
of a Black character sacrificing
their well-being

635
00:37:14,568 --> 00:37:15,903
or risking something

636
00:37:15,986 --> 00:37:17,529
or going out of their way

637
00:37:17,613 --> 00:37:20,657
to help a white character
in a moment of distress.

638
00:37:20,741 --> 00:37:26,413
And that was a huge trope
in Hollywood storytelling for years.

639
00:37:26,914 --> 00:37:29,333
And it was a way, to them,

640
00:37:29,416 --> 00:37:32,169
of showing the humanity
and the empathy of Black people

641
00:37:32,252 --> 00:37:33,921
even in the face of their struggles.

642
00:37:35,047 --> 00:37:38,634
But to Black people, it seemed like,
"Yo, these people are punks."

643
00:37:38,717 --> 00:37:41,637
I questioned it just a little bit.

644
00:37:42,304 --> 00:37:44,848
"What would I have done?" You know?

645
00:37:47,226 --> 00:37:48,727
Probably would've jumped off too.

646
00:37:50,145 --> 00:37:52,439
We've been through all of this
chained together.

647
00:37:54,191 --> 00:37:56,068
I'm not gonna let you go by yourself.

648
00:37:57,027 --> 00:37:59,029
James Baldwin was on the program.

649
00:37:59,112 --> 00:38:02,282
And he says, "Defiant Ones?
Middle-class whites loved it,

650
00:38:02,366 --> 00:38:03,951
but in Uptown, in the Black community,

651
00:38:04,034 --> 00:38:06,245
they hollered,
'Get back on that train, you fool!'"

652
00:38:06,870 --> 00:38:08,247
What's your reaction to that?

653
00:38:08,330 --> 00:38:09,915
I have no reaction to that.

654
00:38:09,998 --> 00:38:12,584
Listen, the picture then was
a revolutionary film.

655
00:38:12,668 --> 00:38:14,044
-It was.
-You know?

656
00:38:14,127 --> 00:38:16,964
It stands today as a revolutionary film.

657
00:38:17,756 --> 00:38:19,424
We're doing all right, Joker.

658
00:38:19,508 --> 00:38:20,509
Yeah.

659
00:38:22,302 --> 00:38:23,929
Defiant Ones was the movie

660
00:38:24,012 --> 00:38:26,849
that would help to define
Sidney Poitier as we know him, right,

661
00:38:26,932 --> 00:38:28,851
as this incredibly powerful actor.

662
00:38:28,934 --> 00:38:32,312
Alongside Tony Curtis, their names
appeared above the name of the film,

663
00:38:32,396 --> 00:38:35,649
which was the symbol of becoming
a genuine Hollywood leading man.

664
00:38:36,108 --> 00:38:39,987
My dad and Tony Curtis
were both nominated for Oscars.

665
00:38:40,070 --> 00:38:43,156
It was the first time a Black person
had been nominated for an Oscar

666
00:38:43,240 --> 00:38:44,491
since Hattie McDaniel.

667
00:38:44,575 --> 00:38:46,910
The fact that my dad came home
with this plaque

668
00:38:46,994 --> 00:38:50,581
that said he was nominated,
that he could put up on the wall,

669
00:38:50,664 --> 00:38:51,957
was a big deal for him.

670
00:38:53,041 --> 00:38:55,002
The amount of media attention,

671
00:38:55,085 --> 00:38:57,671
the profiles, magazine covers…

672
00:38:57,754 --> 00:39:00,716
He's on the cover of Ebony magazine.
He's clearly emerged as a star.

673
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:06,388
He was beautiful in many ways.

674
00:39:06,471 --> 00:39:08,640
First of all, what smile is like that?

675
00:39:08,724 --> 00:39:11,560
Maybe only Brando's. Come on.

676
00:39:15,856 --> 00:39:18,483
I mean, part of Sidney's beauty

677
00:39:18,567 --> 00:39:21,987
is he's like a walking Yoruba mask.

678
00:39:22,070 --> 00:39:24,114
You know what I mean? Like Benin bronze.

679
00:39:24,698 --> 00:39:25,908
He's so sculptural.

680
00:39:25,991 --> 00:39:28,827
He was, like, this gorgeous creature.

681
00:39:28,911 --> 00:39:32,497
I wanted to marry Sidney Poitier.
You know what I mean?

682
00:39:32,581 --> 00:39:37,920
He was definitely my idea
of what a perfect Black man would be.

683
00:39:38,003 --> 00:39:39,546
Sidney had conviction.

684
00:39:40,047 --> 00:39:45,010
And he understood what imagery
is about, the power of imagery.

685
00:39:45,677 --> 00:39:47,804
I have seen people cry.

686
00:39:47,888 --> 00:39:49,723
I have seen women swoon.

687
00:39:49,806 --> 00:39:51,892
I've seen their husbands swoon.

688
00:39:51,975 --> 00:39:56,438
I've seen everybody
sort of melt in his presence.

689
00:39:57,022 --> 00:40:00,817
He was so elegant, so statuesque.

690
00:40:00,901 --> 00:40:04,780
He was, like, "wow."
Movie stars should be "wow."

691
00:40:08,867 --> 00:40:12,412
I did Raisin in the Sun in 1959.
So I got to know Sidney pretty well.

692
00:40:12,496 --> 00:40:14,748
We got to know one another very well.

693
00:40:18,961 --> 00:40:20,879
Every Black person had read
Raisin in the Sun

694
00:40:20,963 --> 00:40:23,257
because that was
one of those plays you read

695
00:40:23,340 --> 00:40:25,551
when they started letting us read
Black stuff at school.

696
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:37,312
Sidney had bought me
a mink coat or something.

697
00:40:37,813 --> 00:40:40,107
And I said,
"I don't need a mink coat.

698
00:40:40,190 --> 00:40:41,650
I just want to…"

699
00:40:42,192 --> 00:40:45,028
So I took it back to the store,
and I got the money

700
00:40:45,112 --> 00:40:48,240
and invested it in Raisin in the Sun.

701
00:40:48,323 --> 00:40:50,492
And I was the largest investor

702
00:40:50,576 --> 00:40:53,620
in the play that he was doing on Broadway.

703
00:40:54,246 --> 00:40:55,831
I had done Broadway before.

704
00:40:55,914 --> 00:40:57,791
Didn't know
whether it was gonna be good or bad.

705
00:40:57,875 --> 00:40:58,709
It felt good.

706
00:40:58,792 --> 00:41:01,378
The first act intermission,
when the curtain went down,

707
00:41:01,461 --> 00:41:02,629
you could hear a pin drop.

708
00:41:03,213 --> 00:41:05,090
We thought it was a failure.

709
00:41:05,174 --> 00:41:07,384
By the time we got to
the second intermission,

710
00:41:07,926 --> 00:41:12,431
that audience was so involved with us
that by the time the play was over,

711
00:41:13,098 --> 00:41:14,349
there was a--

712
00:41:14,433 --> 00:41:18,145
A breath of fresh air,
a scream, a "Bravo!"

713
00:41:18,228 --> 00:41:19,313
It was amazing.

714
00:41:20,063 --> 00:41:22,774
I knew for certain
that I was meant to be an actor

715
00:41:22,858 --> 00:41:25,736
when the curtain came down
on opening night in New York.

716
00:41:25,819 --> 00:41:28,155
After all the doubts that had accumulated

717
00:41:28,238 --> 00:41:29,948
since that serendipitous meeting

718
00:41:30,032 --> 00:41:33,202
between myself and that gentleman
at the American Negro Theatre,

719
00:41:33,285 --> 00:41:35,412
when he threw me out and slammed the door,

720
00:41:35,996 --> 00:41:38,123
that night I knew for certain

721
00:41:38,207 --> 00:41:42,586
that I had just been formally
introduced to my true calling.

722
00:41:42,669 --> 00:41:43,837
I was an actor.

723
00:41:45,714 --> 00:41:47,382
I got me some plans, man.

724
00:41:47,466 --> 00:41:51,094
I got me some plans
that'll turn this city upside down.

725
00:41:51,178 --> 00:41:52,179
You know what I mean?

726
00:41:52,262 --> 00:41:54,765
There's the film made the next year

727
00:41:54,848 --> 00:41:56,600
that brings the play
to a much wider audience.

728
00:41:56,683 --> 00:41:59,061
It is arguably Poitier's
most electric performance.

729
00:41:59,144 --> 00:42:02,940
And it's no accident that it is
a role written by an African American

730
00:42:03,023 --> 00:42:05,025
in the tumult
of the early Civil Rights Movement,

731
00:42:05,108 --> 00:42:06,443
unlike so many of his roles,

732
00:42:06,527 --> 00:42:09,404
which are written by white,
male, liberal screenwriters.

733
00:42:09,488 --> 00:42:11,281
Lorraine Hansberry is able to tap into

734
00:42:11,365 --> 00:42:13,700
a certain authenticity
of the Black experience

735
00:42:13,784 --> 00:42:15,827
that none of those other
Hollywood screenwriters could.

736
00:42:15,911 --> 00:42:19,790
-I know you are a busy little boy.
-Walter, please.

737
00:42:21,208 --> 00:42:25,045
I know ain't nothing in the world
as busy as you colored college boys

738
00:42:25,128 --> 00:42:27,297
with your fraternity pins
and your white shoes.

739
00:42:27,381 --> 00:42:28,215
Oh, Wally.

740
00:42:28,298 --> 00:42:30,926
I see you all the time with
your books tucked under your arm,

741
00:42:31,009 --> 00:42:33,136
going to your classes.

742
00:42:33,762 --> 00:42:36,473
What are you learning down there?
What are they filling your head with?

743
00:42:36,557 --> 00:42:40,769
The kind of ceiling on the possibilities
that-- that Black people had,

744
00:42:40,853 --> 00:42:44,231
and especially sort of aggressive
young Black men had at that time--

745
00:42:44,314 --> 00:42:46,733
It's right there. And you--
He really embodies that.

746
00:42:46,817 --> 00:42:50,529
So, there's not a huge difference
from Sidney in Raisin in the Sun

747
00:42:50,612 --> 00:42:53,991
to see, you know,
the kids in Boyz n the Hood.

748
00:42:54,074 --> 00:42:56,827
You know, man, you are
all wacked up with bitterness.

749
00:42:58,620 --> 00:43:00,372
How about you? Ain't you bitter, man?

750
00:43:00,873 --> 00:43:04,376
Don't you see no stars gleaming that
you can't reach out and grab, huh?

751
00:43:05,419 --> 00:43:06,420
I'm talking--

752
00:43:09,131 --> 00:43:10,132
Bitter?

753
00:43:11,049 --> 00:43:14,386
I'm a volcano. I'm a giant,
and I'm surrounded by ants.

754
00:43:14,469 --> 00:43:17,306
Ants who don't even know
what I'm talking about. How's that?

755
00:43:17,389 --> 00:43:20,726
It's an art of making a moment
and knowing what you're gonna do

756
00:43:20,809 --> 00:43:22,477
and knowing where the camera's going to be

757
00:43:22,561 --> 00:43:23,729
and learning all those moves.

758
00:43:23,812 --> 00:43:25,480
He had it all figured out.

759
00:43:25,564 --> 00:43:28,483
Very difficult not to copy that man.

760
00:43:41,330 --> 00:43:43,165
The first time I would've met Sidney,

761
00:43:43,248 --> 00:43:44,541
I would've been quite young,

762
00:43:44,625 --> 00:43:47,503
because he and my aunt Diahann
were together.

763
00:43:47,586 --> 00:43:48,837
So I would have been five.

764
00:43:49,338 --> 00:43:52,466
I really learned about that relationship

765
00:43:53,175 --> 00:43:57,554
when I read Sidney's book
when I was much older,

766
00:43:58,180 --> 00:44:02,935
because Aunt Diahann didn't really
talk about that at that point.

767
00:44:03,435 --> 00:44:07,648
As I got older, there were
conversations that were had,

768
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:09,942
where it was appropriate now.

769
00:44:10,692 --> 00:44:13,487
I was surprised 'cause
I didn't know it was like that.

770
00:44:14,029 --> 00:44:16,323
There were a lot of feelings involved.

771
00:44:17,449 --> 00:44:18,575
-You're beautiful.
-Yeah?

772
00:44:18,659 --> 00:44:19,826
Yes.

773
00:44:19,910 --> 00:44:21,828
You make me feel beautiful.

774
00:44:22,329 --> 00:44:24,164
I don't feel average when I'm with you.

775
00:44:24,248 --> 00:44:27,459
I feel very, very special.

776
00:44:27,543 --> 00:44:29,545
It's a very sexy movie.

777
00:44:29,628 --> 00:44:31,922
The black and white is gorgeous.

778
00:44:32,005 --> 00:44:34,091
Paris, the city, is gorgeous.

779
00:44:34,174 --> 00:44:37,594
You're in these caves--
in these jazz caves, you know?

780
00:44:37,678 --> 00:44:38,846
You've got Paul Newman.

781
00:44:40,013 --> 00:44:41,723
And you've got my aunt Diahann,

782
00:44:41,807 --> 00:44:46,562
who is the most stunning woman
you've ever seen in that film.

783
00:44:46,645 --> 00:44:49,231
He and Diahann Carroll are
one of the most beautiful couples

784
00:44:49,314 --> 00:44:50,566
in cinema history.

785
00:44:50,649 --> 00:44:51,859
They have these trench coats,

786
00:44:51,942 --> 00:44:53,944
and they're walking at night
through Paris.

787
00:44:54,027 --> 00:44:57,322
And they're bantering about
the Civil Rights Movement and love.

788
00:44:57,406 --> 00:45:00,242
You stick around Paris for a while
and stretch a bit.

789
00:45:00,325 --> 00:45:02,703
Sit down for lunch somewhere
without getting clubbed for it.

790
00:45:02,786 --> 00:45:04,830
And you'll wake up one day,
look across the ocean,

791
00:45:04,913 --> 00:45:06,290
and you'll say, "Who needs it?"

792
00:45:06,790 --> 00:45:10,794
As Poitier is becoming
this symbol to the entire country,

793
00:45:10,878 --> 00:45:13,255
he's also undergoing this personal crisis.

794
00:45:13,338 --> 00:45:14,339
On the one hand,

795
00:45:14,423 --> 00:45:16,967
he feels an intense connection
and a love with Diahann Carroll

796
00:45:17,050 --> 00:45:18,969
that he feels is missing
from his marriage.

797
00:45:19,052 --> 00:45:20,512
On the other hand, he's a father.

798
00:45:20,596 --> 00:45:23,182
And he has the lessons
of Reginald Poitier, his father,

799
00:45:23,265 --> 00:45:25,767
that say the measure of a man is
how you provide for your family.

800
00:45:25,851 --> 00:45:29,188
Is he abandoning those values
by engaging in this affair?

801
00:45:29,897 --> 00:45:31,648
I can't let you go.

802
00:45:32,858 --> 00:45:34,234
Then come with me.

803
00:45:35,402 --> 00:45:37,654
By the end of the filming of Paris Blues,

804
00:45:37,738 --> 00:45:39,281
they were still both in flux.

805
00:45:39,364 --> 00:45:41,241
Unsure about the next steps
in their lives.

806
00:45:41,325 --> 00:45:43,285
Unsure about whether
they were gonna stay together.

807
00:45:43,368 --> 00:45:46,330
Unsure about what to do
about their larger family situations.

808
00:45:46,830 --> 00:45:49,249
He was busy. He said he had to go.

809
00:45:49,333 --> 00:45:52,920
He couldn't stay out at the house

810
00:45:53,003 --> 00:45:56,673
because he needed to get an apartment
so he could write.

811
00:45:56,757 --> 00:45:59,092
He was writing now and so forth.

812
00:45:59,676 --> 00:46:02,012
And, of course, it turned out

813
00:46:02,095 --> 00:46:04,765
it was something else

814
00:46:04,848 --> 00:46:08,060
and not what he said.

815
00:46:15,025 --> 00:46:17,236
Freedom Now Movement, hear me.

816
00:46:18,529 --> 00:46:21,865
We are requesting all citizens
to move into Washington.

817
00:46:21,949 --> 00:46:24,535
To go by plane, car, bus.

818
00:46:24,618 --> 00:46:26,203
Any way that you can get there.

819
00:46:35,337 --> 00:46:38,882
Negroes want the same things
that white citizens possess.

820
00:46:38,966 --> 00:46:40,300
All of their rights.

821
00:46:40,384 --> 00:46:43,011
Freedom!

822
00:46:56,358 --> 00:46:59,403
The whole purpose of
this march is to demonstrate support

823
00:46:59,486 --> 00:47:02,281
for President Kennedy's Civil Rights Bill.

824
00:47:02,364 --> 00:47:05,242
We were really a Southern Black movement

825
00:47:05,325 --> 00:47:07,619
until 1963 in August.

826
00:47:07,703 --> 00:47:12,040
It was not only Dr. King
relating the dreams

827
00:47:12,124 --> 00:47:14,251
of African Americans in the South,

828
00:47:14,334 --> 00:47:19,131
but it was the presence
of the stars of Hollywood.

829
00:47:35,606 --> 00:47:40,027
Harry and Sidney Poitier made this
a global event.

830
00:47:40,110 --> 00:47:42,279
And that was before
Martin Luther King said a word.

831
00:47:44,281 --> 00:47:47,075
Dr. King did not know Marlon Brando.

832
00:47:48,285 --> 00:47:50,370
He did not know Paul Newman.

833
00:47:51,496 --> 00:47:55,792
Hollywood stars who marched
with Dr. King movements.

834
00:47:55,876 --> 00:48:00,047
And it was Sidney and Harry.
That's the connection.

835
00:48:00,130 --> 00:48:01,924
I noticed today, all day long,

836
00:48:02,007 --> 00:48:04,343
in all of the speeches,
on all of the placards,

837
00:48:04,426 --> 00:48:07,888
I saw the word or heard the word
"now, now, now," repeatedly.

838
00:48:07,971 --> 00:48:08,972
-Insistently.
-Now!

839
00:48:09,056 --> 00:48:13,185
The urgency that was evident today
has been bubbling in me, personally,

840
00:48:13,268 --> 00:48:14,478
for most of these years.

841
00:48:14,561 --> 00:48:17,022
At least, most of the years
I came into adulthood.

842
00:48:17,105 --> 00:48:19,066
I became interested
in the Civil Rights struggle

843
00:48:19,149 --> 00:48:20,901
out of a necessity to survive.

844
00:48:20,984 --> 00:48:25,489
And I think my interest started
many years ago,

845
00:48:25,572 --> 00:48:29,326
never as intensely, however,
as it exists today.

846
00:48:29,409 --> 00:48:30,994
Gentlemen, I think that it's about time…

847
00:48:31,078 --> 00:48:33,789
In terms of Sidney's activism,
I was not only impressed,

848
00:48:33,872 --> 00:48:35,290
but I was inspired by it,

849
00:48:35,374 --> 00:48:38,961
'cause I thought, "Well,
I can do that too. In my own way.

850
00:48:39,044 --> 00:48:41,922
I'll have to find my own way,
but I can do that, you know?

851
00:48:42,005 --> 00:48:44,216
I have a voice. I can use it."

852
00:48:44,299 --> 00:48:46,134
He was up against tremendous odds.

853
00:48:46,218 --> 00:48:48,345
You knew he was gonna get
accused by people saying,

854
00:48:48,428 --> 00:48:49,471
"Who are you to speak out?"

855
00:48:49,555 --> 00:48:51,014
Just not fair.

856
00:48:51,098 --> 00:48:53,350
He had a voice.
He had every right to use it.

857
00:48:53,433 --> 00:48:55,352
He had earned that voice.

858
00:48:55,435 --> 00:48:58,188
And just being an actor doesn't mean
you can't speak out.

859
00:48:58,689 --> 00:49:03,193
Through the eyes of
the average American, unfortunately,

860
00:49:04,069 --> 00:49:07,030
it was impossible for them to see me.

861
00:49:07,739 --> 00:49:10,742
Sometimes I would be pissed about it,

862
00:49:10,826 --> 00:49:14,454
meaning that I would be unable to change

863
00:49:14,955 --> 00:49:17,666
the way Black people were used, treated.

864
00:49:18,250 --> 00:49:20,711
Hollywood was not ready,
at that point,

865
00:49:20,794 --> 00:49:23,672
for even more than one Black star.

866
00:49:23,755 --> 00:49:26,258
There's one Black star.
Now, there's other Black actors.

867
00:49:26,842 --> 00:49:30,345
But for the most part,
it was a very conservative industry

868
00:49:30,429 --> 00:49:32,389
that had to be dragged into the present,

869
00:49:32,472 --> 00:49:33,932
and it took them a long time.

870
00:49:34,433 --> 00:49:36,894
Nobody's grooming, necessarily,

871
00:49:36,977 --> 00:49:39,188
the next Sidney Poitier,
you know what I mean?

872
00:49:39,271 --> 00:49:41,398
Sidney's like a-- He's like a complex.

873
00:49:41,481 --> 00:49:44,484
There's a Sidney Poitier complex.
It's like a matrix.

874
00:49:44,568 --> 00:49:46,195
And in the way that racism works,

875
00:49:46,278 --> 00:49:48,280
it's like it really is, like,
a Highlander thing.

876
00:49:48,363 --> 00:49:49,656
We got Sidney.

877
00:49:49,740 --> 00:49:52,451
Like, what do we need other Negroes for?

878
00:49:52,534 --> 00:49:57,706
He was a race soldier who's leading
the army for everybody else

879
00:49:58,457 --> 00:50:03,337
but who really, fully got
that he was not defined by his color.

880
00:50:04,004 --> 00:50:09,718
And he wasn't saying it
as resistance or as explanation.

881
00:50:09,801 --> 00:50:11,595
It just was a fact.

882
00:50:11,678 --> 00:50:14,806
There's so much about us and around us

883
00:50:14,890 --> 00:50:19,102
that has been instrumental
in some of the turns I have made,

884
00:50:19,186 --> 00:50:21,104
some of the choices I have made.

885
00:50:21,188 --> 00:50:23,023
And some of those choices were not

886
00:50:23,106 --> 00:50:27,778
just me looking at the scoreboard
of life and saying,

887
00:50:27,861 --> 00:50:30,822
"This is what I should do.
This is what I intend to do."

888
00:50:30,906 --> 00:50:35,244
No. You live according

889
00:50:35,327 --> 00:50:38,121
to the values that drives you.

890
00:50:52,803 --> 00:50:55,305
Lilies of the Field is
this low-budget production,

891
00:50:55,389 --> 00:50:57,808
sort of this modest story
about a Black handyman

892
00:50:57,891 --> 00:51:00,853
who arrives in the American Southwest
at a nunnery, or a group of nuns,

893
00:51:00,936 --> 00:51:02,604
and he helps to build them a church.

894
00:51:02,688 --> 00:51:06,608
God is good.
He has sent me a big, strong man.

895
00:51:06,692 --> 00:51:09,069
He didn't say anything to me
about sending me anyplace.

896
00:51:09,152 --> 00:51:10,279
I was just passing by.

897
00:51:10,362 --> 00:51:13,115
'63, I was six years old.

898
00:51:13,198 --> 00:51:17,035
I'm like, "Sidney, leave.
Why you messing around with them?"

899
00:51:18,245 --> 00:51:20,455
"Get in your car." And I was--

900
00:51:20,539 --> 00:51:22,833
I mean, this is what I thought
at six years old.

901
00:51:22,916 --> 00:51:28,922
He said, "They can't pay me enough.
They are not offering anything."

902
00:51:29,006 --> 00:51:31,008
I said, "Sidney, you know what you can do?

903
00:51:31,091 --> 00:51:34,469
Do the movie not for a salary,

904
00:51:34,553 --> 00:51:38,515
but do the film as part of ownership."

905
00:51:38,599 --> 00:51:42,144
He said, "I never thought of that."
I said, "Think and know it."

906
00:51:42,227 --> 00:51:44,313
The role is
first offered to Harry Belafonte.

907
00:51:44,396 --> 00:51:45,480
He turns it down. He says,

908
00:51:45,564 --> 00:51:48,400
"This man doesn't have
any connection to a larger world."

909
00:51:48,483 --> 00:51:50,861
Terrible movie. Terrible.

910
00:51:50,944 --> 00:51:52,905
The most awful movie I'd ever read.

911
00:51:52,988 --> 00:51:55,866
And I turned it down with a great flair.

912
00:51:56,450 --> 00:51:58,368
And Sidney Poitier took the part.

913
00:51:59,453 --> 00:52:01,455
He was wonderful in that picture.

914
00:52:01,538 --> 00:52:03,874
Harry was singing too.
He had another career.

915
00:52:03,957 --> 00:52:05,542
Harry was doing all right.

916
00:52:05,626 --> 00:52:07,544
Harry could afford to turn stuff down.

917
00:52:07,628 --> 00:52:10,923
You could turn stuff down when--
you know, when the house is paid for.

918
00:52:11,006 --> 00:52:15,302
Not knocking Harry,
but Harry was, you know, Day-O'ing.

919
00:52:16,887 --> 00:52:17,930
Okay?

920
00:52:20,307 --> 00:52:21,934
When we were doing Hello, Dolly!

921
00:52:22,017 --> 00:52:24,561
I was on Broadway with Pearl Bailey.

922
00:52:24,645 --> 00:52:27,898
And whenever anybody
who was anybody came to the show,

923
00:52:27,981 --> 00:52:29,942
she would invite 'em up on stage.

924
00:52:30,025 --> 00:52:31,610
And they would do…

925
00:52:34,863 --> 00:52:37,616
So she asked Sidney up when he came.

926
00:52:37,699 --> 00:52:40,244
And she said, "Come on, Sidney.
Let's do it."

927
00:52:40,327 --> 00:52:43,288
And he said, "I can't sing!"

928
00:52:43,789 --> 00:52:45,040
Okay. Now here we go.

929
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:50,087
She said, "What are you talking about?

930
00:52:50,170 --> 00:52:52,339
I saw you hollering
in Lilies of the Field."

931
00:52:52,422 --> 00:52:54,132
He said, "That was somebody else!"

932
00:53:01,348 --> 00:53:02,432
Now, come on.

933
00:53:05,143 --> 00:53:08,188
This tiny, low-budget
film builds an audience over time.

934
00:53:08,272 --> 00:53:10,691
It plugs into a certain mood
in the country.

935
00:53:10,774 --> 00:53:11,775
And then in particular

936
00:53:11,859 --> 00:53:14,736
there's an appreciation
for Poitier's character, Homer Smith,

937
00:53:14,820 --> 00:53:16,071
and for Poitier's performance.

938
00:53:16,154 --> 00:53:19,366
This very sweet, endearing style
that he brings to the movie.

939
00:53:19,449 --> 00:53:21,493
And it just captures the right mood.

940
00:53:21,577 --> 00:53:23,203
I think the kind of part it was,

941
00:53:23,287 --> 00:53:28,125
I think it was a lovable, wonderful,
uplifting character,

942
00:53:28,208 --> 00:53:31,044
the reflection of whom is to be found

943
00:53:31,128 --> 00:53:33,505
in the better part of all human beings.

944
00:53:38,427 --> 00:53:39,803
Hollywood's big night.

945
00:53:39,887 --> 00:53:42,055
For the 36th time,
the world's amusement capital

946
00:53:42,139 --> 00:53:44,933
recognizes the year's
top artists and achievements

947
00:53:45,017 --> 00:53:47,728
with the bestowal of the coveted Oscars.

948
00:53:47,811 --> 00:53:50,772
I was just
a ten-year-old kid in Milwaukee.

949
00:53:50,856 --> 00:53:53,108
I'm watching this thing
called the Academy Awards,

950
00:53:53,192 --> 00:53:58,113
and you're seeing people pulling up
in limousines and the whole thing.

951
00:53:58,697 --> 00:54:02,159
And any time a Black person
was on television,

952
00:54:02,242 --> 00:54:04,703
I remember literally
getting on the phone going,

953
00:54:04,786 --> 00:54:06,830
"Colored people on, colored people.
Colored people on!

954
00:54:06,914 --> 00:54:08,207
Colored people. Turn on now."

955
00:54:08,290 --> 00:54:10,000
And I'd end up missing whatever it was.

956
00:54:10,667 --> 00:54:12,836
The nominees for
the best performance by an actor

957
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:15,047
are Albert Finney in Tom Jones,

958
00:54:16,173 --> 00:54:18,175
Richard Harris in This Sporting Life,

959
00:54:19,301 --> 00:54:21,053
Rex Harrison in Cleopatra,

960
00:54:23,013 --> 00:54:24,556
Paul Newman in Hud,

961
00:54:25,390 --> 00:54:27,559
Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field.

962
00:54:29,561 --> 00:54:32,022
The winner is Sidney Poitier
in Lilies of the Field.

963
00:54:33,398 --> 00:54:34,816
When my name was called,

964
00:54:34,900 --> 00:54:37,110
I jumped up saying,

965
00:54:37,194 --> 00:54:41,490
"I won!"

966
00:54:41,573 --> 00:54:43,492
Well, I couldn't help that.

967
00:54:44,076 --> 00:54:46,912
It was an expression of self,

968
00:54:46,995 --> 00:54:49,289
but it was also an expression

969
00:54:49,373 --> 00:54:51,667
that belonged to an awful lot of people.

970
00:54:51,750 --> 00:54:53,418
Can you imagine?

971
00:54:53,502 --> 00:54:56,171
This was before we had a Civil Rights Act.

972
00:54:56,255 --> 00:54:58,215
Can you imagine the shock in that room?

973
00:54:58,298 --> 00:55:03,720
Can you imagine just the sheer joy, magic,

974
00:55:03,804 --> 00:55:07,975
and something utterly divine
happening in that moment

975
00:55:08,058 --> 00:55:12,938
that surpassed everything else
that was happening in the culture.

976
00:55:13,021 --> 00:55:16,108
Mr. Poitier is the first
Negro to win such a high award,

977
00:55:16,191 --> 00:55:18,819
and the announcement is
received warmly by the audience.

978
00:55:24,658 --> 00:55:27,244
It was a turning point,

979
00:55:27,327 --> 00:55:28,912
truly a turning point

980
00:55:28,996 --> 00:55:32,457
in a Hollywood that had chosen

981
00:55:32,541 --> 00:55:36,879
to articulate us, Black people,

982
00:55:37,713 --> 00:55:41,842
as entirely different than we were.

983
00:55:42,384 --> 00:55:48,348
Because it is a long journey
to this moment,

984
00:55:49,391 --> 00:55:52,436
I am naturally indebted

985
00:55:52,519 --> 00:55:56,106
to countless numbers of people.

986
00:55:56,190 --> 00:55:58,734
He was the great Black hope for me.

987
00:55:58,817 --> 00:56:01,236
In that moment, he became
the great Black hope for me.

988
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:03,614
I remember distinctly feeling

989
00:56:04,615 --> 00:56:06,909
that if this could happen
to a colored man,

990
00:56:06,992 --> 00:56:10,120
I wonder what could happen to me.

991
00:56:10,204 --> 00:56:14,041
All I can say is a very special thank you.

992
00:56:44,655 --> 00:56:46,240
He made it for a lot of people,

993
00:56:46,323 --> 00:56:48,742
not just those of us that came after him,

994
00:56:48,825 --> 00:56:50,744
but Sidney's parents and grandparents

995
00:56:50,827 --> 00:56:53,121
and going all the way back to slavery.

996
00:56:53,205 --> 00:56:57,209
Imagine what they felt like
when "he made it."

997
00:57:04,383 --> 00:57:08,387
To be the first Black man, Bahamian man,

998
00:57:08,470 --> 00:57:10,305
to win Best Actor

999
00:57:10,389 --> 00:57:13,600
in a time where that was
virtually impossible,

1000
00:57:13,684 --> 00:57:16,353
you had to be a hundred times better
than everybody else.

1001
00:57:21,066 --> 00:57:23,318
It was extraordinary for the time,

1002
00:57:23,402 --> 00:57:26,572
not so much because I was
that good and I was that pure.

1003
00:57:26,655 --> 00:57:29,950
I was not that good or that pure.

1004
00:57:30,826 --> 00:57:34,329
But there was something in me
that I was carrying forth

1005
00:57:34,413 --> 00:57:36,373
that was in my mom,

1006
00:57:36,957 --> 00:57:42,129
what she did as a mother for my survival.

1007
00:57:44,464 --> 00:57:46,550
I was not expected to live, no.

1008
00:57:46,633 --> 00:57:48,635
I was not expected to live
when I was born.

1009
00:57:48,719 --> 00:57:52,639
I was born two months premature.

1010
00:57:53,140 --> 00:57:56,059
My father left the house
the following morning

1011
00:57:56,143 --> 00:57:58,896
when it was determined
by everyone present,

1012
00:57:58,979 --> 00:58:01,648
including the midwife,
that I would not survive.

1013
00:58:02,733 --> 00:58:08,155
He came back to the house with a shoebox.

1014
00:58:10,574 --> 00:58:11,658
And…

1015
00:58:14,411 --> 00:58:17,289
they were prepared to tuck me away.

1016
00:58:18,874 --> 00:58:21,043
Well, my mother wouldn't hear of it.

1017
00:58:21,126 --> 00:58:22,961
She said, "No, you can't do that."

1018
00:58:23,837 --> 00:58:25,130
And she left the house,

1019
00:58:25,214 --> 00:58:29,801
and she went everywhere she thought
she would find some support.

1020
00:58:29,885 --> 00:58:34,806
And she passed the home of a soothsayer.

1021
00:58:34,890 --> 00:58:38,268
My mother said,
"I have a child that was just born.

1022
00:58:38,352 --> 00:58:39,895
He was a very early birth,

1023
00:58:39,978 --> 00:58:43,106
and I want you to tell me about my son."

1024
00:58:44,358 --> 00:58:49,112
The soothsayer closed her eyes,
and her face began to twitch.

1025
00:58:49,196 --> 00:58:52,241
And her eyes were rolling
back and forth behind her lids.

1026
00:58:54,660 --> 00:58:58,205
And all at once,
the soothsayer's eyes flew open

1027
00:58:58,288 --> 00:59:00,999
and she said, "Don't worry about your son.

1028
00:59:04,336 --> 00:59:05,546
He will survive.

1029
00:59:06,380 --> 00:59:11,802
He will travel to
most of the corners of the earth.

1030
00:59:11,885 --> 00:59:13,470
He will be rich and famous."

1031
00:59:14,304 --> 00:59:17,099
That I would carry her name
all over the world.

1032
00:59:18,308 --> 00:59:21,812
And of all the things she said…

1033
00:59:23,939 --> 00:59:25,566
I have lived them.

1034
00:59:27,818 --> 00:59:32,155
NBC News presents
Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner.

1035
00:59:32,239 --> 00:59:35,075
A special report on
the three workers for civil rights

1036
00:59:35,158 --> 00:59:36,994
still missing in Mississippi.

1037
00:59:37,077 --> 00:59:40,372
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman,
and Michael Schwerner

1038
00:59:40,455 --> 00:59:43,000
went to Mississippi to
help register Negroes as voters.

1039
00:59:43,083 --> 00:59:45,335
I had just gotten into the movement then.

1040
00:59:46,295 --> 00:59:49,006
And I just got off a C truck.

1041
00:59:49,089 --> 00:59:51,758
I knew all of them except for Goodman.

1042
00:59:52,342 --> 00:59:53,802
And they were teachers.

1043
00:59:53,886 --> 00:59:57,097
They taught-- You know,
was teaching people what a vote is,

1044
00:59:57,181 --> 01:00:00,350
how it got to be a vote
because we didn't know.

1045
01:00:00,434 --> 01:00:04,104
For what I can see, they were
teaching the American Dream.

1046
01:00:04,188 --> 01:00:07,316
Vote, and the choice is yours.

1047
01:00:08,025 --> 01:00:09,902
Don't vote, and the choice is theirs.

1048
01:00:09,985 --> 01:00:13,280
Remember to vote, and the choice is yours.

1049
01:00:13,363 --> 01:00:16,200
One time there was a kind of
frightening thing happened to you,

1050
01:00:16,283 --> 01:00:17,326
when you were down south.

1051
01:00:17,409 --> 01:00:19,369
And I've heard vague details of it,
but could you--

1052
01:00:19,453 --> 01:00:21,330
I've never heard you
tell the story of that.

1053
01:00:21,413 --> 01:00:23,498
Sidney and I
have been friends for 26 years.

1054
01:00:24,583 --> 01:00:26,960
I don't think any single
experience has passed between us

1055
01:00:27,044 --> 01:00:30,422
which gave us a greater bond
than that moment.

1056
01:00:31,089 --> 01:00:34,009
My good friend,
Harry Belafonte, called to say,

1057
01:00:34,092 --> 01:00:36,929
"I want you to go with me to Mississippi.

1058
01:00:37,012 --> 01:00:40,265
We have to take some money
down to the Civil Rights Movement."

1059
01:00:40,349 --> 01:00:41,892
The group in that particular area

1060
01:00:41,975 --> 01:00:45,312
was desperately short of funds
and needed the relief.

1061
01:00:45,395 --> 01:00:49,024
We will treat anyone with great
respect here in Mississippi,

1062
01:00:49,107 --> 01:00:52,319
anyone who comes here,
as long as they do not ob--

1063
01:00:52,402 --> 01:00:53,946
disobey our laws.

1064
01:00:54,029 --> 01:00:57,824
Phone calls and threats was
coming in by the day, by the night.

1065
01:00:57,908 --> 01:01:02,621
They wanted to assassinate
Belafonte and Poitier.

1066
01:01:02,704 --> 01:01:03,705
The words they used,

1067
01:01:03,789 --> 01:01:06,333
"We gonna kill them niggers
that come to Greenwood."

1068
01:01:06,416 --> 01:01:08,418
I had assumed that--

1069
01:01:08,502 --> 01:01:10,546
with my association with Bobby Kennedy

1070
01:01:10,629 --> 01:01:12,965
that a phone call
to the Justice Department

1071
01:01:13,048 --> 01:01:16,093
telling them that I would be going
and my whereabouts--

1072
01:01:16,176 --> 01:01:18,345
We would be able
to get federal protection.

1073
01:01:18,428 --> 01:01:19,721
When we got there--

1074
01:01:19,805 --> 01:01:23,183
Absolutely no evidence of
federal marshals or protection.

1075
01:01:23,267 --> 01:01:25,435
We got into a car--
We were met by two cars,

1076
01:01:25,519 --> 01:01:29,022
one that we would ride in,
and the other that was a backup car.

1077
01:01:29,106 --> 01:01:31,108
Nobody wanted to drive the car.

1078
01:01:32,234 --> 01:01:33,777
I said I'd drive it.

1079
01:01:33,861 --> 01:01:38,407
And after the handshakes
and hellos and introductions,

1080
01:01:38,490 --> 01:01:41,368
the baggage went into my car.

1081
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:45,914
And Poitier and Belafonte

1082
01:01:45,998 --> 01:01:48,458
was in the lead car.

1083
01:01:49,042 --> 01:01:50,627
As we were getting into the car,

1084
01:01:50,711 --> 01:01:52,713
somebody said, "There they are."

1085
01:01:54,673 --> 01:01:57,968
Headlights went up. We saw
that they were Ku Klux Klaners.

1086
01:01:59,803 --> 01:02:01,346
We moved out.

1087
01:02:01,430 --> 01:02:03,307
And as the trucks tried to catch us,

1088
01:02:03,390 --> 01:02:07,644
the third car would move over
to block any attempt to pass.

1089
01:02:10,230 --> 01:02:12,357
They ran into the back of the car.

1090
01:02:12,441 --> 01:02:15,861
And my first thought,
"Do not let them pass."

1091
01:02:17,070 --> 01:02:20,616
And they constantly rammed
the car behind us

1092
01:02:20,699 --> 01:02:23,952
to move them or to throw them
off the highway to get to us.

1093
01:02:24,036 --> 01:02:25,829
Whatever happens, don't let 'em by.

1094
01:02:25,913 --> 01:02:28,957
If they shoot you from the rear,
that's the way I have to die.

1095
01:02:34,671 --> 01:02:37,966
We played bump-and-run
for a couple of miles.

1096
01:02:38,550 --> 01:02:41,386
They couldn't get by me.
They broke it off.

1097
01:02:42,638 --> 01:02:46,475
And a pile of students
got into the available automobiles

1098
01:02:46,558 --> 01:02:48,477
and all showed up on the highway

1099
01:02:48,560 --> 01:02:51,980
and brought us into Greenwood
with the money.

1100
01:02:52,064 --> 01:02:53,774
And we arrived safely.

1101
01:02:53,857 --> 01:02:55,859
It was like something out of the Bible.

1102
01:02:55,943 --> 01:02:57,986
People were up trees.

1103
01:02:58,862 --> 01:03:03,367
And for that whole block,
people were just jammed everywhere.

1104
01:03:04,284 --> 01:03:08,497
And it bring me to tears.

1105
01:03:09,665 --> 01:03:14,753
The people that was up the trees
and in the rafters,

1106
01:03:15,921 --> 01:03:17,381
that was magic.

1107
01:03:19,091 --> 01:03:20,968
And when they saw Poitier,

1108
01:03:21,051 --> 01:03:24,471
they just start singing that song
from Lilies of the Field,

1109
01:03:24,555 --> 01:03:25,639
"Amen."

1110
01:03:28,308 --> 01:03:30,352
It was something special.

1111
01:03:39,278 --> 01:03:43,866
And, you know, every year,
about March and April,

1112
01:03:44,491 --> 01:03:49,329
the newspapers start writing about
the long, hot summer ahead.

1113
01:03:53,625 --> 01:03:57,754
Looting, murder, and arson
have nothing to do with civil rights.

1114
01:04:04,303 --> 01:04:05,888
We're sick, and we're tired.

1115
01:04:05,971 --> 01:04:09,516
We're not gonna be pushed no further
by no white folks from no place.

1116
01:04:09,600 --> 01:04:10,601
And we mean it.

1117
01:04:10,684 --> 01:04:14,730
What I remember vividly is
when I was about ten years old,

1118
01:04:14,813 --> 01:04:17,983
it was 1967, and it was kind of
the summer of Sidney.

1119
01:04:18,066 --> 01:04:20,819
And my mother took me to see
To Sir, with Love,

1120
01:04:20,903 --> 01:04:23,363
In the Heat of the Night,
and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

1121
01:04:23,447 --> 01:04:25,657
We'd had Black stars in movies,

1122
01:04:25,741 --> 01:04:27,659
but Sidney's probably
the first Hollywood--

1123
01:04:27,743 --> 01:04:29,453
truly Hollywood Black movie star.

1124
01:04:29,536 --> 01:04:32,831
People come to the theater
to see Sidney Poitier movies.

1125
01:04:32,915 --> 01:04:33,999
That just hadn't happened.

1126
01:04:34,082 --> 01:04:36,919
And white people came to the theater
to see Sidney Poitier movies,

1127
01:04:37,002 --> 01:04:38,837
more importantly, at a time

1128
01:04:38,921 --> 01:04:40,756
when the Civil Rights Movement
is happening

1129
01:04:40,839 --> 01:04:42,758
and he becomes an exemplar of that.

1130
01:04:42,841 --> 01:04:47,638
Biggest box office draw,
Black man, 1967 to '68.

1131
01:04:47,721 --> 01:04:51,433
And the whole country
is spiraling around him.

1132
01:05:04,530 --> 01:05:06,031
On your feet, boy.

1133
01:05:09,701 --> 01:05:11,370
I mean now!

1134
01:05:11,453 --> 01:05:13,497
I just remember being impressed

1135
01:05:13,580 --> 01:05:16,959
by this dude's unassailable dignity.

1136
01:05:17,042 --> 01:05:19,086
The film is really
playing with your expectations.

1137
01:05:19,169 --> 01:05:20,629
He's just not gonna take it.

1138
01:05:20,712 --> 01:05:23,924
But you wonder how long
he's gonna take it…

1139
01:05:24,550 --> 01:05:25,676
before he explodes.

1140
01:05:26,426 --> 01:05:28,679
Well, you're pretty sure of yourself,
ain't you, Virgil?

1141
01:05:28,762 --> 01:05:30,430
"Virgil," that's a funny name
for a nigger boy

1142
01:05:30,514 --> 01:05:32,558
that comes from Philadelphia.
What do they call you up there?

1143
01:05:32,641 --> 01:05:35,602
They call me Mr. Tibbs.

1144
01:05:35,686 --> 01:05:37,813
"They call me Mr. Tibbs."

1145
01:05:37,896 --> 01:05:40,148
I loved it
'cause I talked back to the screen.

1146
01:05:40,232 --> 01:05:42,442
And the audience was mainly Black.

1147
01:05:42,526 --> 01:05:46,697
They burst out into applause
and they're just very alive.

1148
01:05:46,780 --> 01:05:49,366
The famous scene in the hothouse

1149
01:05:49,449 --> 01:05:51,660
when the white plantation owner slaps him,

1150
01:05:51,743 --> 01:05:53,787
and Sidney slaps him back--

1151
01:05:53,871 --> 01:05:57,499
In a theater in 1967,
the impact was profound.

1152
01:05:57,583 --> 01:06:00,169
Was Mr. Colbert ever in this greenhouse,

1153
01:06:00,252 --> 01:06:02,629
say last night about midnight?

1154
01:06:06,592 --> 01:06:08,302
You could hear a pin drop.

1155
01:06:08,385 --> 01:06:10,804
That's the loudest silence
I've ever seen in a theater.

1156
01:06:10,888 --> 01:06:12,556
You hear some… You know?

1157
01:06:12,639 --> 01:06:14,266
Then people
looked at each other and stuff.

1158
01:06:14,349 --> 01:06:17,895
Black folks went crazy 'cause
they never seen that before.

1159
01:06:21,607 --> 01:06:23,817
That had never happened
on the screen before.

1160
01:06:23,901 --> 01:06:25,485
He was just something else, man.

1161
01:06:25,569 --> 01:06:27,529
What are you gonna do about it?

1162
01:06:29,907 --> 01:06:31,158
I don't know.

1163
01:06:32,826 --> 01:06:34,244
You know what we all did?

1164
01:06:34,328 --> 01:06:35,454
"Yeah!"

1165
01:06:38,081 --> 01:06:41,126
In the original script,
I looked at him with great disdain

1166
01:06:41,210 --> 01:06:44,254
and, wrapped in my strong ideals,
walked out.

1167
01:06:44,755 --> 01:06:47,216
That could've happened
with another actor playing that part,

1168
01:06:47,299 --> 01:06:49,176
but it couldn't happen with me.

1169
01:06:49,259 --> 01:06:52,221
I could too easily remember
that Miami night

1170
01:06:52,304 --> 01:06:54,556
with a gun pointed at my forehead.

1171
01:06:54,640 --> 01:06:58,685
I told the director that the script
needed to be changed.

1172
01:06:59,311 --> 01:07:01,605
I bet you only Sidney would pull that off.

1173
01:07:01,688 --> 01:07:03,732
He was a star. Bar none.

1174
01:07:03,815 --> 01:07:06,151
I mean, no doubt about it by then.

1175
01:07:06,235 --> 01:07:08,946
He's running through life elbowing shit.

1176
01:07:09,029 --> 01:07:10,113
"Out of my way."

1177
01:07:11,949 --> 01:07:13,909
And it indeed did turn out to be

1178
01:07:13,992 --> 01:07:15,994
a highlight moment in that film.

1179
01:07:16,078 --> 01:07:18,205
But it also spoke of our time.

1180
01:07:18,288 --> 01:07:23,085
It spoke of the time in America
when, in films at least,

1181
01:07:23,168 --> 01:07:26,046
we could step up to certain realities.

1182
01:07:26,129 --> 01:07:27,172
It's like everybody says,

1183
01:07:27,256 --> 01:07:29,633
it's the slap that was heard
around the world. Unprecedented.

1184
01:07:29,716 --> 01:07:32,094
It kinda rockets him into the moment.

1185
01:07:32,177 --> 01:07:34,847
So you've got this
interesting kind of alignment

1186
01:07:34,930 --> 01:07:36,682
between Sidney in that moment

1187
01:07:36,765 --> 01:07:39,268
and then what's happening
on the front lines.

1188
01:07:51,947 --> 01:07:55,158
To see this Black man

1189
01:07:55,242 --> 01:07:59,580
be a teacher and a mentor
to these children…

1190
01:07:59,663 --> 01:08:03,625
You know, it was always a white guy,
generally, who was the hero,

1191
01:08:03,709 --> 01:08:08,463
and the Black people were, you know,
being saved or the troublemakers.

1192
01:08:08,547 --> 01:08:10,966
And this just, like,
flipped the narrative on its head.

1193
01:08:11,550 --> 01:08:12,634
Sit down.

1194
01:08:14,595 --> 01:08:17,555
To Sir, with Love,
that was my favorite, really,

1195
01:08:17,639 --> 01:08:22,269
because I watched Dad

1196
01:08:22,352 --> 01:08:25,147
react the way he does with us.

1197
01:08:25,229 --> 01:08:30,652
Not only did he teach his kids,
but he taught everybody.

1198
01:08:30,736 --> 01:08:32,613
I saw him.

1199
01:08:33,613 --> 01:08:35,908
Everyone saw the actor.

1200
01:08:35,991 --> 01:08:37,868
I saw the father.

1201
01:08:37,951 --> 01:08:41,830
We are all going to observe
certain courtesies in this classroom.

1202
01:08:42,497 --> 01:08:44,750
You will call me "Sir" or "Mr. Thackeray."

1203
01:08:44,832 --> 01:08:47,336
The young ladies will be addressed
as "Miss,"

1204
01:08:47,836 --> 01:08:49,587
the boys by their surnames.

1205
01:08:49,671 --> 01:08:52,174
I always say I've got angels
on my shoulders,

1206
01:08:52,256 --> 01:08:54,510
because I am extremely lucky.

1207
01:08:54,593 --> 01:08:56,345
I was an artist. I was a musician.

1208
01:08:56,428 --> 01:08:58,680
I was a singer.
I had never done any acting.

1209
01:08:58,764 --> 01:08:59,765
Yeah.

1210
01:08:59,848 --> 01:09:01,558
My manager was very smart.

1211
01:09:01,642 --> 01:09:03,560
When they asked me to be in the movie,

1212
01:09:03,644 --> 01:09:06,188
she said, "Yes.
And she must sing the title song."

1213
01:09:24,413 --> 01:09:25,457
I mean…

1214
01:09:39,513 --> 01:09:42,640
For me to be connected
to that message,

1215
01:09:42,724 --> 01:09:46,603
that was a very powerful message.

1216
01:09:46,687 --> 01:09:49,398
It was all about the love.

1217
01:09:49,481 --> 01:09:50,899
It was about Black Lives Matter.

1218
01:09:50,983 --> 01:09:54,194
He is as important as all
you little white kids at the school.

1219
01:09:54,278 --> 01:09:58,866
He is more important, in fact,
in the life of that school

1220
01:09:58,949 --> 01:10:01,994
than anybody that they would ever
come across in their whole lives.

1221
01:10:02,661 --> 01:10:05,372
I had had a lot of hit records,

1222
01:10:05,455 --> 01:10:08,417
and I have had hit records after that too.

1223
01:10:08,500 --> 01:10:10,252
But that stands alone

1224
01:10:11,128 --> 01:10:13,213
because it wasn't just about a song.

1225
01:10:13,881 --> 01:10:19,136
It was about Sidney Poitier
and the message that that film had.

1226
01:10:21,388 --> 01:10:23,307
Speech!

1227
01:10:23,974 --> 01:10:25,267
It's important to say

1228
01:10:25,350 --> 01:10:27,144
these movies
were not made for Black people.

1229
01:10:27,227 --> 01:10:28,478
Like, they were made

1230
01:10:28,562 --> 01:10:31,899
with him being very conscious
of the story he was telling

1231
01:10:31,982 --> 01:10:34,568
with an awareness of what was
happening with the movement,

1232
01:10:34,651 --> 01:10:36,612
with Dr. King's movement in particular.

1233
01:10:36,695 --> 01:10:40,741
But he's kind of a forerunner
in terms of mass media,

1234
01:10:40,824 --> 01:10:43,327
of kinda proving that
Black people were human.

1235
01:10:43,994 --> 01:10:47,456
Any time you can humanize Blackness,

1236
01:10:47,539 --> 01:10:49,666
humanize and normalize it

1237
01:10:49,750 --> 01:10:55,088
for a world that didn't think
we were even all human,

1238
01:10:55,172 --> 01:10:56,882
it helps the cause,

1239
01:10:56,965 --> 01:10:59,676
because that's what it's all about,

1240
01:10:59,760 --> 01:11:03,180
is allowing people
to see the humanity of us.

1241
01:11:03,847 --> 01:11:06,934
John Wade Prentice.

1242
01:11:07,017 --> 01:11:08,977
Isn't that a lovely name?

1243
01:11:09,061 --> 01:11:10,604
John Wade--

1244
01:11:12,314 --> 01:11:14,399
Joanna Prentice I'll be.

1245
01:11:20,197 --> 01:11:21,406
This is John.

1246
01:11:23,700 --> 01:11:26,411
I'm so pleased to meet you.

1247
01:11:27,454 --> 01:11:29,581
I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Drayton.

1248
01:11:33,085 --> 01:11:35,254
Mrs. Drayton, I'm medically qualified,

1249
01:11:35,337 --> 01:11:37,130
so I hope you wouldn't think it
presumptuous

1250
01:11:37,214 --> 01:11:40,175
if I say you ought to sit down
before you fall down, I mean.

1251
01:11:40,259 --> 01:11:42,594
He thinks you're gonna faint
because he's a Negro.

1252
01:11:43,178 --> 01:11:47,474
I was 22 years old,
and Sidney was just sweet,

1253
01:11:47,558 --> 01:11:50,352
and I was very naive.

1254
01:11:50,435 --> 01:11:54,606
So, when that scene was shot,
the kiss scene,

1255
01:11:54,690 --> 01:11:58,485
I didn't think there was
any big deal about it.

1256
01:11:58,569 --> 01:12:00,988
The camera said,
"Okay. We're ready to go."

1257
01:12:01,071 --> 01:12:05,200
And then I looked around
out there in the studio,

1258
01:12:05,284 --> 01:12:09,496
and I saw all these very grim faces.

1259
01:12:11,206 --> 01:12:12,833
I didn't know what was happening.

1260
01:12:12,916 --> 01:12:15,294
And it wasn't until afterward

1261
01:12:15,377 --> 01:12:18,755
when I went to have my makeup taken off,

1262
01:12:18,839 --> 01:12:20,549
I asked the makeup woman.

1263
01:12:20,632 --> 01:12:23,051
I said, "What was going on in that room?"

1264
01:12:23,802 --> 01:12:27,431
And she just said, "You're so naive.

1265
01:12:27,514 --> 01:12:28,974
You don't know?"

1266
01:12:29,057 --> 01:12:31,852
And I said, "No, I don't know.
What was going on?"

1267
01:12:31,935 --> 01:12:33,395
An awful lot of people are gonna think

1268
01:12:33,478 --> 01:12:34,730
we're a very shocking pair.

1269
01:12:34,813 --> 01:12:36,023
Isn't that right, Mrs. Drayton?

1270
01:12:36,607 --> 01:12:38,317
I know what you mean.

1271
01:12:38,901 --> 01:12:40,360
I think it's all too easy

1272
01:12:40,444 --> 01:12:44,531
for anyone not a participant
in the cultural clashes of that era

1273
01:12:44,615 --> 01:12:49,578
to unfairly dismiss films such as
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,

1274
01:12:49,661 --> 01:12:52,956
forgetting just how revolutionary
they were

1275
01:12:53,040 --> 01:12:55,042
in the context of their times.

1276
01:12:55,125 --> 01:12:57,461
Now, this affair here,
it all happened too fast.

1277
01:12:57,544 --> 01:12:58,629
You said so yourself.

1278
01:12:58,712 --> 01:13:01,173
Have you thought what
people would say about you?

1279
01:13:01,256 --> 01:13:03,759
Why, in 16 or 17 states,
you'd be breaking the law.

1280
01:13:03,842 --> 01:13:04,843
You'd be criminals.

1281
01:13:04,927 --> 01:13:07,012
That scene in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

1282
01:13:07,095 --> 01:13:10,015
where he says, "You think of yourself
as a colored man

1283
01:13:10,098 --> 01:13:11,725
and I think of myself as a man."

1284
01:13:11,808 --> 01:13:13,685
That defined Sidney Poitier.

1285
01:13:14,269 --> 01:13:15,479
You're my father.

1286
01:13:17,105 --> 01:13:19,525
I'm your son. I love you.

1287
01:13:20,651 --> 01:13:23,529
I always have, and I always will.

1288
01:13:25,697 --> 01:13:28,909
But you think of yourself
as a colored man.

1289
01:13:30,244 --> 01:13:33,372
I think of myself as a man.

1290
01:13:35,290 --> 01:13:37,334
That wasn't even an acting line for him

1291
01:13:37,417 --> 01:13:40,128
'cause that is who he is.

1292
01:13:40,212 --> 01:13:41,880
He thought of himself as a man.

1293
01:13:48,470 --> 01:13:50,764
Those three movies
all were financially successful.

1294
01:13:50,848 --> 01:13:53,308
He wore a white shirt
and a tie in all three.

1295
01:13:53,392 --> 01:13:54,977
That's when he becomes Sir Sidney.

1296
01:13:55,060 --> 01:13:58,105
He already had made a mark
with Lilies of the Field in '63.

1297
01:13:58,188 --> 01:14:00,649
But suddenly he's not only honorable,

1298
01:14:00,732 --> 01:14:02,192
he's commercially viable.

1299
01:14:02,276 --> 01:14:03,694
And that just was unprecedented

1300
01:14:03,777 --> 01:14:06,113
at that point in history
of American cinema.

1301
01:14:06,196 --> 01:14:09,867
I asked him, "Do you have a film
you're going to do after this?"

1302
01:14:10,617 --> 01:14:12,119
And he said, "No."

1303
01:14:12,202 --> 01:14:15,789
He said, "I probably-- This will be
the last film I'll ever make."

1304
01:14:16,373 --> 01:14:18,125
And I said, "Why?"

1305
01:14:18,208 --> 01:14:22,629
And he said, "Because the Black people,

1306
01:14:22,713 --> 01:14:26,675
my people, think that I'm an Uncle Tom."

1307
01:14:28,635 --> 01:14:31,597
Given the quickly changing
social currents,

1308
01:14:31,680 --> 01:14:35,684
there was more than a little
dissatisfaction rising up against me

1309
01:14:35,767 --> 01:14:37,769
in certain corners of the Black community.

1310
01:14:37,853 --> 01:14:39,980
A cultural wave that would crest

1311
01:14:40,063 --> 01:14:42,149
when The New York Times
published an article

1312
01:14:42,232 --> 01:14:45,360
titled, "Why Do White Folks
Love Sidney Poitier So?"

1313
01:14:51,783 --> 01:14:53,952
According to a certain taste,

1314
01:14:54,036 --> 01:14:58,165
I was an Uncle Tom, even a house Negro,

1315
01:14:58,248 --> 01:15:02,211
for playing roles that were
non-threatening to white audiences,

1316
01:15:02,294 --> 01:15:07,674
for playing the noble Negro
who fulfills white liberal fantasies.

1317
01:15:16,308 --> 01:15:21,980
I am artist, man, American, contemporary.

1318
01:15:22,773 --> 01:15:24,274
I am an awful lot of things,

1319
01:15:24,358 --> 01:15:25,734
so I wish you would…

1320
01:15:27,027 --> 01:15:29,571
pay me the respect due.

1321
01:15:30,572 --> 01:15:32,491
It's not easy being the first.

1322
01:15:32,574 --> 01:15:34,660
When you are an individual

1323
01:15:35,244 --> 01:15:39,915
that has to represent the entire race,

1324
01:15:40,415 --> 01:15:42,376
that's some Jackie Robinson shit.

1325
01:15:42,459 --> 01:15:45,963
You're taking the slings and arrows
for the entire race.

1326
01:15:46,046 --> 01:15:48,423
Sidney had to take
a lot of slings and arrows

1327
01:15:48,507 --> 01:15:51,176
that Denzel didn't have to take.

1328
01:15:51,260 --> 01:15:53,971
When you pray for rain,
you gotta deal with the mud too.

1329
01:15:55,305 --> 01:15:57,558
You know, he had big shoulders.

1330
01:15:57,641 --> 01:16:00,894
He was given big shoulders,
but he had to carry a lot of weight.

1331
01:16:00,978 --> 01:16:03,814
There's a lot of pressure to
do everything right.

1332
01:16:03,897 --> 01:16:05,315
It's hard to know how to judge it.

1333
01:16:05,399 --> 01:16:08,777
But Sidney always
had my two favorite things,

1334
01:16:08,861 --> 01:16:13,657
and that is humility with his creativity
and grace with his success.

1335
01:16:16,493 --> 01:16:18,036
Did you feel that pressure?

1336
01:16:18,120 --> 01:16:19,830
You can't help but feel it.

1337
01:16:20,497 --> 01:16:22,374
You know it's there all the time.

1338
01:16:22,958 --> 01:16:25,919
You know that there is
a community of people watching

1339
01:16:26,003 --> 01:16:30,799
to see if you carry a banner that
they feel is close to their hearts,

1340
01:16:30,883 --> 01:16:35,053
and to determine
whether you are representative

1341
01:16:35,137 --> 01:16:37,139
of their imagery of you,

1342
01:16:37,222 --> 01:16:40,058
whether you should be welcomed or not.

1343
01:16:40,767 --> 01:16:43,520
-Was it lonely?
-"Was it lonely?"

1344
01:16:44,271 --> 01:16:45,856
Of course it was lonely.

1345
01:16:46,815 --> 01:16:49,359
It was lonely, yeah.

1346
01:16:56,325 --> 01:16:58,619
Do they know about Martin Luther King?

1347
01:16:59,912 --> 01:17:00,913
We have--

1348
01:17:00,996 --> 01:17:03,540
Some very sad news for all of you.

1349
01:17:04,166 --> 01:17:08,212
And I think sad news
for all of our fellow citizens

1350
01:17:09,087 --> 01:17:12,216
and people who love peace
all over the world.

1351
01:17:13,008 --> 01:17:15,677
And that is that Martin Luther King

1352
01:17:15,761 --> 01:17:18,222
was shot and was killed tonight
in Memphis, Tennessee.

1353
01:17:21,475 --> 01:17:23,894
NBC interrupts
its regular program schedule

1354
01:17:23,977 --> 01:17:26,188
to bring you the following special report.

1355
01:17:28,607 --> 01:17:32,861
Martin Luther King Jr. was killed
tonight in Memphis, Tennessee,

1356
01:17:32,945 --> 01:17:36,532
shot in the face as he stood alone
on the balcony of his hotel room.

1357
01:17:36,615 --> 01:17:38,700
He died in a hospital an hour later.

1358
01:17:39,952 --> 01:17:43,247
I remember coming home
on the bus in Pleasantville.

1359
01:17:43,330 --> 01:17:45,123
My dad met the bus

1360
01:17:45,207 --> 01:17:47,668
at the end of the driveway at the mailbox.

1361
01:17:48,836 --> 01:17:50,629
And he got on the bus,

1362
01:17:50,712 --> 01:17:53,340
and he could barely stand up
because he's so tall.

1363
01:17:54,132 --> 01:17:56,635
And he looks at all the children.

1364
01:17:57,970 --> 01:18:01,598
And he said something universal to them,

1365
01:18:01,682 --> 01:18:04,184
something about, "A great man has been…

1366
01:18:06,353 --> 01:18:09,356
taken from us." And he put it that way.

1367
01:18:09,439 --> 01:18:12,484
"We should honor his great words

1368
01:18:12,568 --> 01:18:16,071
of treating everyone
with respect and dignity."

1369
01:18:16,822 --> 01:18:18,365
And the kids were, like, in awe.

1370
01:18:18,448 --> 01:18:20,242
They were just, like,
kinda looking up at him.

1371
01:18:20,325 --> 01:18:22,703
And then Daddy says,
"Okay, girls, let's go.

1372
01:18:22,786 --> 01:18:24,663
Let's go. Let's go home."

1373
01:18:24,746 --> 01:18:26,498
Ashes to ashes,

1374
01:18:27,541 --> 01:18:29,293
and dust to dust.

1375
01:18:29,877 --> 01:18:32,254
We thank God for giving us a leader

1376
01:18:32,337 --> 01:18:35,841
who was willing to die,
but not willing to kill.

1377
01:18:36,842 --> 01:18:40,095
It was '65 that Malcolm X was assassinated

1378
01:18:40,804 --> 01:18:41,930
in a mosque in Harlem.

1379
01:18:44,099 --> 01:18:47,644
It was '68 when Martin Luther King
was assassinated.

1380
01:18:48,979 --> 01:18:51,648
We have a more fragile democracy

1381
01:18:51,732 --> 01:18:54,818
in Judeo-Christian society than we think.

1382
01:18:55,903 --> 01:18:59,323
We're hanging together
by a few cultural threads.

1383
01:19:01,241 --> 01:19:04,661
And Sidney Poitier
is one of those cultural threads.

1384
01:19:08,498 --> 01:19:10,876
The assassination of
Martin Luther King, in a lot of ways,

1385
01:19:10,959 --> 01:19:14,296
initiates a new era
in Poitier's professional life

1386
01:19:14,379 --> 01:19:17,549
and also with significant
personal dimensions as well.

1387
01:19:17,633 --> 01:19:19,593
The personal dimension
is not just, you know,

1388
01:19:19,676 --> 01:19:21,803
being set adrift
like so many African Americans

1389
01:19:21,887 --> 01:19:24,056
by the assassination
of Martin Luther King,

1390
01:19:24,139 --> 01:19:27,643
but also a rift with his best friend,
Harry Belafonte.

1391
01:19:27,726 --> 01:19:30,521
Both of them, in the immediate
aftermath of King's assassination,

1392
01:19:30,604 --> 01:19:33,815
participate in the discussions
about how best to memorialize King.

1393
01:19:33,899 --> 01:19:37,861
Belafonte wants to hold a big rally
in Atlanta after King's funeral.

1394
01:19:37,945 --> 01:19:39,780
Poitier advises against it,

1395
01:19:39,863 --> 01:19:42,157
saying that it would
detract attention from King.

1396
01:19:42,241 --> 01:19:45,285
This leads to sort of a zapping,
a certain tension between the two,

1397
01:19:45,369 --> 01:19:47,412
and they stopped speaking
for quite some time.

1398
01:19:47,496 --> 01:19:49,248
Two very opinionated people.

1399
01:19:49,915 --> 01:19:53,460
I mean, can I say that again?
Two very opinionated people.

1400
01:19:53,544 --> 01:19:56,421
And they didn't hold back,
you know, how they felt.

1401
01:19:56,922 --> 01:20:01,051
Harry wanted to do something and
really allow his community, I guess,

1402
01:20:01,134 --> 01:20:05,264
to, you know, show their grieving
and mourning in celebration.

1403
01:20:05,347 --> 01:20:07,057
And, you know, Poitier, I think,

1404
01:20:07,140 --> 01:20:09,476
rightly thought it would be a distraction.

1405
01:20:13,397 --> 01:20:14,690
It's a kind of testament

1406
01:20:14,773 --> 01:20:18,235
to how much thinking
folks had to do on their feet

1407
01:20:18,318 --> 01:20:23,031
in the wake of just unforeseen,
brutal circumstances, you know?

1408
01:20:23,115 --> 01:20:25,242
I mean, just the, you know--
just the trauma.

1409
01:20:25,826 --> 01:20:31,123
You know, for Poitier and Belafonte,
there had to be a reset moment there.

1410
01:20:33,000 --> 01:20:35,085
So he is losing his best friend in this--

1411
01:20:35,169 --> 01:20:37,546
in the same era when
so much else seems adrift.

1412
01:20:37,629 --> 01:20:39,089
He's obtained a divorce from his wife.

1413
01:20:39,173 --> 01:20:41,258
He tries to pursue his relationship
with Diahann Carroll.

1414
01:20:41,842 --> 01:20:44,469
As I have mentioned,
a large part of my father's legacy

1415
01:20:44,553 --> 01:20:46,805
is the lessons he taught his sons.

1416
01:20:46,889 --> 01:20:52,227
That teaching weighed heavily on me
when my first wife and I separated.

1417
01:20:52,311 --> 01:20:57,274
That breakup was a long, painful,
scarring period for all concerned.

1418
01:20:58,066 --> 01:21:00,152
It was really not fun for my mom,

1419
01:21:00,235 --> 01:21:03,447
and I think I felt more of that
than anything…

1420
01:21:05,199 --> 01:21:07,659
'cause I didn't see
what my dad was going through,

1421
01:21:08,243 --> 01:21:09,703
but I saw what she was going through.

1422
01:21:09,786 --> 01:21:12,414
Friends decided
whose side they were going on,

1423
01:21:13,457 --> 01:21:17,336
so that was kind of, to me, painful.
Right?

1424
01:21:17,419 --> 01:21:19,129
'Cause my dad got the majority of 'em.

1425
01:21:19,213 --> 01:21:21,965
No more aunt--
No more "uncle" this or "aunt" that,

1426
01:21:22,049 --> 01:21:23,800
or godparents here or there.

1427
01:21:24,718 --> 01:21:26,136
That could bring tears to my eyes,

1428
01:21:26,220 --> 01:21:29,681
but, you know, people who supported her

1429
01:21:29,765 --> 01:21:31,141
I was grateful for.

1430
01:21:31,767 --> 01:21:34,686
Of course, too,
I was in love with another woman,

1431
01:21:34,770 --> 01:21:36,730
and the guilt of that was something

1432
01:21:36,813 --> 01:21:40,234
that 11 years of psychotherapy
couldn't cure.

1433
01:21:41,109 --> 01:21:43,654
"My wife doesn't understand me enough,"

1434
01:21:43,737 --> 01:21:45,697
I would say in cliché fashion.

1435
01:21:45,781 --> 01:21:50,202
And then I would say that
the other woman had her own agenda.

1436
01:21:50,702 --> 01:21:53,455
Each separation,
within a short period of time,

1437
01:21:53,539 --> 01:21:55,582
we were pursuing the relationship again.

1438
01:21:56,166 --> 01:21:58,836
And… I think we recognized,

1439
01:21:58,919 --> 01:22:01,171
long before the relationship was over,

1440
01:22:01,255 --> 01:22:03,423
that it was not a healthy relationship,

1441
01:22:03,507 --> 01:22:05,884
that it was not the kind of relationship

1442
01:22:05,968 --> 01:22:09,429
that could develop into even,
really, a good friendship.

1443
01:22:12,349 --> 01:22:16,270
It's interesting to see how quickly
pop culture can shift.

1444
01:22:16,353 --> 01:22:19,565
From '63,Lilies of the Field,
through '68 probably,

1445
01:22:19,648 --> 01:22:21,567
he's the guy, and he's setting the tone

1446
01:22:21,650 --> 01:22:23,443
for what a Black image looks like.

1447
01:22:23,527 --> 01:22:24,987
Two things are happening.

1448
01:22:25,070 --> 01:22:26,363
Black Power is happening.

1449
01:22:33,745 --> 01:22:36,623
We're talking about
"Say it loud, I'm Black and proud."

1450
01:22:36,707 --> 01:22:39,334
And we were feeling ourselves as a people.

1451
01:22:39,418 --> 01:22:42,129
Afros, Soul Train.

1452
01:22:44,381 --> 01:22:46,216
And you have blaxploitation.

1453
01:22:48,760 --> 01:22:50,721
Up yours! Get out of the way.

1454
01:22:55,559 --> 01:22:57,936
So now, the thing
that made him so revolutionary

1455
01:22:58,020 --> 01:22:59,313
in '67 and '68,

1456
01:23:01,231 --> 01:23:04,318
now he's passé because
now there's another generation

1457
01:23:04,401 --> 01:23:07,154
who are having sex
with white women on-screen,

1458
01:23:07,237 --> 01:23:09,781
who not just aren't slapping
white men but they're shooting 'em.

1459
01:23:11,700 --> 01:23:13,452
I mean, those Black exploitation films,

1460
01:23:13,535 --> 01:23:16,038
you know, it was all about
kicking whitey's ass.

1461
01:23:16,121 --> 01:23:18,540
You know, that's what it was about.

1462
01:23:19,041 --> 01:23:22,294
And it's unfortunate
that they were a Black audience

1463
01:23:22,377 --> 01:23:25,839
that felt that Sidney,
you know, was not hip.

1464
01:23:25,923 --> 01:23:27,007
And I don't agree with that,

1465
01:23:27,090 --> 01:23:29,092
but if you just look at
the Black audience,

1466
01:23:29,176 --> 01:23:33,597
they went to these Black
exploitation films in droves-- in droves.

1467
01:23:34,389 --> 01:23:37,809
Quincy Jones had a 42nd birthday
party for me at his house,

1468
01:23:38,393 --> 01:23:41,230
and Sidney Poitier was there.

1469
01:23:41,313 --> 01:23:44,483
And I remember going downstairs,
turning a corner,

1470
01:23:44,566 --> 01:23:46,610
and he was just standing there.

1471
01:23:46,693 --> 01:23:50,656
And I froze because here's my hero.

1472
01:23:51,156 --> 01:23:53,909
He just said, "How are you, my dear?

1473
01:23:53,992 --> 01:23:57,120
I have longed to meet you, my dear."

1474
01:23:59,915 --> 01:24:02,334
And I think-- Of course, I teared up.

1475
01:24:02,417 --> 01:24:03,919
And I was just like,

1476
01:24:04,002 --> 01:24:07,381
"You don't even understand
what this moment means to me."

1477
01:24:07,464 --> 01:24:11,009
And at the time, I was getting a lot
of flak from the Black community

1478
01:24:11,718 --> 01:24:15,097
for not being Black enough,
not doing enough Black shows.

1479
01:24:15,180 --> 01:24:19,268
And he sat me down in a corner
at that party, at my 42nd birthday,

1480
01:24:19,351 --> 01:24:20,561
and he said,

1481
01:24:21,645 --> 01:24:24,606
"It's difficult when you're carrying
other people's dreams,

1482
01:24:25,190 --> 01:24:28,986
and so you have to hold on
to the dream that's inside yourself.

1483
01:24:29,069 --> 01:24:31,363
And know that if you are true to that,

1484
01:24:32,197 --> 01:24:33,824
that's really all that matters."

1485
01:24:33,907 --> 01:24:37,703
And that was life changing for me
in that moment.

1486
01:24:38,287 --> 01:24:41,164
He was telling me about what
had happened to him, you know,

1487
01:24:41,248 --> 01:24:42,958
"Is Sidney Poitier Black enough?

1488
01:24:43,041 --> 01:24:45,586
Is he good enough? Is he really
representing what we want?"

1489
01:24:45,669 --> 01:24:48,380
and how that had made him feel inside,

1490
01:24:48,463 --> 01:24:50,591
that it took him down for a while.

1491
01:24:50,674 --> 01:24:54,928
He's just trying to make
the best decision, movie after movie,

1492
01:24:55,012 --> 01:25:00,434
based upon being
Reginald and Evelyn Poitier's son.

1493
01:25:01,059 --> 01:25:05,314
And then to be literally attacked that way

1494
01:25:05,397 --> 01:25:07,065
is an attack on your character,

1495
01:25:07,149 --> 01:25:09,443
on your being, on your value,

1496
01:25:09,526 --> 01:25:13,280
on your worth as a man and as a Black man.

1497
01:25:20,120 --> 01:25:23,498
When I prepared to start
shooting a film called The Lost Man,

1498
01:25:24,208 --> 01:25:27,294
nothing in my instincts led me to suspect

1499
01:25:27,377 --> 01:25:30,005
that the love of my life
was waiting in the wings.

1500
01:25:30,672 --> 01:25:34,259
My sister and I saw The Lost Man
for the first time

1501
01:25:34,343 --> 01:25:36,011
when we were in our 20s.

1502
01:25:36,970 --> 01:25:40,140
Nobody could get a copy of it
before then. Don't ask me why.

1503
01:25:40,766 --> 01:25:42,809
My mom, she was Canadian,

1504
01:25:42,893 --> 01:25:45,187
but she was living in Paris
and was doing French movies,

1505
01:25:45,270 --> 01:25:47,189
so they thought she was a French actress.

1506
01:25:50,359 --> 01:25:52,986
When she was first
approached by Universal Pictures,

1507
01:25:53,070 --> 01:25:57,533
her initial question was,
"Who else will be starring in it?"

1508
01:25:57,616 --> 01:25:59,743
And when she was told, "Sidney Poitier,"

1509
01:25:59,826 --> 01:26:01,828
her response was, "Who's that?"

1510
01:26:02,496 --> 01:26:04,414
They said, "But this is Sidney Poitier.

1511
01:26:04,498 --> 01:26:06,708
He's, like, the most famous actor ever."

1512
01:26:06,792 --> 01:26:10,420
And I said, "Well,
I've never seen a movie of his."

1513
01:26:10,504 --> 01:26:12,548
So, I happened to be in London,

1514
01:26:12,631 --> 01:26:15,384
and a movie was playing, A Patch of Blue.

1515
01:26:15,843 --> 01:26:18,011
I thought, "He's awfully cute.
He's really cute."

1516
01:26:18,095 --> 01:26:21,640
I happened to be on the cover
of Vogue in America at that time

1517
01:26:21,723 --> 01:26:24,685
and also in a movie that was playing
in one of the art houses.

1518
01:26:24,768 --> 01:26:28,605
And then I went to LA, and I met Sidney.

1519
01:26:28,689 --> 01:26:31,191
And he was very nice.

1520
01:26:31,275 --> 01:26:33,694
You know, we had lunch and that was it.

1521
01:26:33,777 --> 01:26:37,072
I was engaged to be married
to somebody else at the time,

1522
01:26:37,155 --> 01:26:38,156
but…

1523
01:26:42,202 --> 01:26:43,704
The way you bite your lips…

1524
01:26:46,415 --> 01:26:47,958
It didn't take us long

1525
01:26:48,041 --> 01:26:50,544
once we started working
on the movie together

1526
01:26:50,627 --> 01:26:54,339
to wonder if, perhaps,
forces greater than ourselves

1527
01:26:54,423 --> 01:26:55,924
had brought us together.

1528
01:26:56,008 --> 01:26:59,511
This time,
I was ready to live the love story

1529
01:26:59,595 --> 01:27:02,973
that I had seen in my parents' marriage

1530
01:27:03,056 --> 01:27:04,474
at the start of my life.

1531
01:27:05,601 --> 01:27:07,269
The idea that they did a movie together

1532
01:27:07,352 --> 01:27:09,730
was couched within the story
of how they met.

1533
01:27:09,813 --> 01:27:13,859
So, really, it was the story of
how they met is what I remember.

1534
01:27:14,401 --> 01:27:15,569
My parents didn't get married

1535
01:27:15,652 --> 01:27:17,821
until my sister and I were two and four.

1536
01:27:17,905 --> 01:27:21,033
My mom had taken us to the pediatrician.

1537
01:27:21,116 --> 01:27:22,951
They assumed she was the nanny.

1538
01:27:23,035 --> 01:27:27,206
She went home that day
and was like, "This is it."

1539
01:27:27,289 --> 01:27:29,958
"You're gonna marry me,
and you're gonna marry me this week.

1540
01:27:30,042 --> 01:27:32,503
And that's it."
And they got married that week.

1541
01:27:33,253 --> 01:27:34,671
It happened at our house.

1542
01:27:34,755 --> 01:27:36,256
We're in the middle of the ceremony

1543
01:27:36,340 --> 01:27:40,344
and little Sydney, who was two and a half,
comes up and tugs on Sidney's coat.

1544
01:27:40,427 --> 01:27:42,471
"Daddy, what are you doing?"

1545
01:27:43,013 --> 01:27:46,099
And somebody said, "Your daddy
is marrying your mommy, honey."

1546
01:27:46,975 --> 01:27:47,976
And she said, "Oh, okay."

1547
01:27:48,060 --> 01:27:50,312
And that was it. We got married.

1548
01:27:51,563 --> 01:27:54,483
Growing up,
a lot of the families around us

1549
01:27:54,566 --> 01:27:56,902
and a lot of our friends were biracial.

1550
01:27:56,985 --> 01:27:58,987
My parents had the foresight

1551
01:27:59,071 --> 01:28:01,823
to surround us with
other interracial families.

1552
01:28:01,907 --> 01:28:05,536
And so there was a little group of us
that knew each other very well,

1553
01:28:05,619 --> 01:28:09,331
and all of the kids played so that
we could feel like it was normal.

1554
01:28:09,414 --> 01:28:11,500
Quincy and Peggy. Kidada and Rashida.

1555
01:28:11,583 --> 01:28:13,836
Those were our main hangs.

1556
01:28:13,919 --> 01:28:16,880
Those were like our godsisters,
godparents, god families.

1557
01:28:16,964 --> 01:28:19,925
I think they did a good job
of protecting us

1558
01:28:20,008 --> 01:28:22,386
from the wider world's ideas about that.

1559
01:28:23,387 --> 01:28:25,973
My dad did not separate us.
They-- He did not, like--

1560
01:28:26,056 --> 01:28:28,851
"Okay, this is one family.
This is the other family."

1561
01:28:28,934 --> 01:28:30,978
It was like, "No, this is my family."

1562
01:28:31,562 --> 01:28:34,940
And he made sure that
we understood that we were all one.

1563
01:28:35,023 --> 01:28:37,943
As a father,
he measures up pretty damn well.

1564
01:28:38,026 --> 01:28:42,364
There are six of us,
and, you know, we're all--

1565
01:28:42,447 --> 01:28:43,907
We were all taken care of.

1566
01:28:43,991 --> 01:28:47,744
It also helped that he married
two very fantastic women.

1567
01:28:47,828 --> 01:28:49,788
And they're very, very much alike.

1568
01:28:49,872 --> 01:28:51,498
Joanna and my mother are very much alike

1569
01:28:51,582 --> 01:28:53,500
as far as being bighearted, you know?

1570
01:28:53,584 --> 01:28:56,879
Just bighearted and all about family.

1571
01:28:56,962 --> 01:28:58,672
His mother always told him,

1572
01:28:58,755 --> 01:29:01,842
"You take care of your children.
You take care of your family."

1573
01:29:02,176 --> 01:29:03,635
And to this day,

1574
01:29:04,428 --> 01:29:06,263
he has done just that.

1575
01:29:06,847 --> 01:29:11,185
He has instilled that
in all of us, to do that,

1576
01:29:11,268 --> 01:29:13,187
so we will protect each other.

1577
01:29:15,022 --> 01:29:17,858
In the early 1970s,
an opportunity arises for Poitier

1578
01:29:17,941 --> 01:29:20,068
that will change his life
in a number of ways.

1579
01:29:20,152 --> 01:29:22,738
He gets a call from Harry Belafonte,
who he hasn't spoken to

1580
01:29:22,821 --> 01:29:26,200
since the assassination
of Martin Luther King in 1968.

1581
01:29:26,283 --> 01:29:27,576
How'd you find me?

1582
01:29:28,160 --> 01:29:29,661
I asked your horse.

1583
01:29:30,370 --> 01:29:33,582
Harry Belafonte called Sidney
saying, "I got a project for you."

1584
01:29:33,665 --> 01:29:36,585
I don't even know if he needed to
say anything more than that.

1585
01:29:36,668 --> 01:29:38,587
The sixth sense just went off, and…

1586
01:29:38,670 --> 01:29:41,465
"Well, yeah. Okay, where?
When? I'm there."

1587
01:29:50,516 --> 01:29:53,060
First of all, it was
Sidney's first directorial job.

1588
01:29:53,143 --> 01:29:54,937
When we originally set out to do the film,

1589
01:29:55,020 --> 01:29:56,355
Sidney was not the director.

1590
01:29:56,438 --> 01:29:58,565
He acquired this responsibility

1591
01:29:58,649 --> 01:30:00,859
just about a week
after we started shooting.

1592
01:30:00,943 --> 01:30:02,653
What happened to the original director?

1593
01:30:09,326 --> 01:30:12,538
After the first week of shooting,
Harry said to me,

1594
01:30:12,621 --> 01:30:15,624
"You know, I think we're going to
have to bring another director on."

1595
01:30:15,707 --> 01:30:17,835
He didn't get the texture of the material.

1596
01:30:17,918 --> 01:30:19,169
The texture of the material

1597
01:30:19,920 --> 01:30:25,217
intertwined American Indian culture
with African American culture.

1598
01:30:25,968 --> 01:30:28,554
There was never a movie I made

1599
01:30:28,637 --> 01:30:34,184
during which I didn't
watch the director very closely.

1600
01:30:34,268 --> 01:30:38,856
After doing such for many years,

1601
01:30:38,939 --> 01:30:42,401
I had learned from what I saw.

1602
01:30:46,446 --> 01:30:51,159
I took the reins of the director,
and I directed for a week.

1603
01:30:51,243 --> 01:30:53,829
Columbia looked at
the week's work that I had done,

1604
01:30:54,580 --> 01:30:57,124
and they sent me a message.

1605
01:30:57,207 --> 01:31:00,127
They said, "We want you to
continue directing the movie,

1606
01:31:00,210 --> 01:31:03,088
and it's-- what we see is okay by us."

1607
01:31:03,172 --> 01:31:05,299
-Action.
-Blessings in his name.

1608
01:31:05,382 --> 01:31:07,050
I am the Reverend Willis Oaks Rutherford

1609
01:31:07,134 --> 01:31:09,928
of the High and Low Order
of the Holiness Persuasion Church.

1610
01:31:10,012 --> 01:31:11,805
Well, where are you from, Reverend?

1611
01:31:11,889 --> 01:31:13,724
Sunflower County, Mississippi mostly.

1612
01:31:13,807 --> 01:31:15,684
-Cut!
-Jesus Christ.

1613
01:31:15,767 --> 01:31:17,436
Thank you. Brilliant.

1614
01:31:17,519 --> 01:31:19,646
-Okay, pick up.
-Run it, please.

1615
01:31:19,730 --> 01:31:20,939
-You wanna go from the top?
-Yeah.

1616
01:31:21,023 --> 01:31:22,608
Okay, from the top.

1617
01:31:25,986 --> 01:31:28,655
That was a scene from
Buck and the Preacher,

1618
01:31:28,739 --> 01:31:31,617
which you should be seeing soon
at your local theaters.

1619
01:31:31,700 --> 01:31:33,368
How did you find it directing Harry?

1620
01:31:33,452 --> 01:31:36,246
Was he a star?
Did he have that star ego going?

1621
01:31:37,122 --> 01:31:38,790
I'm so glad you asked that question.

1622
01:31:40,250 --> 01:31:43,879
The chemistry between Sidney and
Harry in the film was really great.

1623
01:31:43,962 --> 01:31:46,173
You can see that they
really like each other,

1624
01:31:46,256 --> 01:31:47,883
that there's a warmth there.

1625
01:31:47,966 --> 01:31:50,844
It will come as a surprise
to a great number of people

1626
01:31:50,928 --> 01:31:53,680
that he was the most cooperative actor

1627
01:31:53,764 --> 01:31:54,973
I have ever worked with.

1628
01:31:55,557 --> 01:31:59,603
And before hopefully ten million people,

1629
01:31:59,686 --> 01:32:01,647
I wanna say thank you, old B.

1630
01:32:04,733 --> 01:32:07,152
As the most powerful actor--
Black actor in Hollywood,

1631
01:32:07,236 --> 01:32:10,072
and one of the most powerful actors
in Hollywood at that point,

1632
01:32:10,155 --> 01:32:11,949
him taking the reins was a great thing.

1633
01:32:12,032 --> 01:32:13,825
And then the kind of film he did,

1634
01:32:13,909 --> 01:32:16,453
because the film ends up dealing
with Blacks in the West,

1635
01:32:16,537 --> 01:32:17,538
which was a new topic

1636
01:32:17,621 --> 01:32:19,915
which pop culture
hadn't dealt with at all, really,

1637
01:32:19,998 --> 01:32:21,416
and only in dismissive ways.

1638
01:32:22,000 --> 01:32:24,962
We made it as
an entertainment with a statement.

1639
01:32:25,045 --> 01:32:27,339
We thought that Black people
played an important part

1640
01:32:27,422 --> 01:32:28,966
in the building of the West.

1641
01:32:29,466 --> 01:32:31,593
We want Black children to see that.

1642
01:32:31,677 --> 01:32:34,388
We can't forget about
what Sidney did as a filmmaker.

1643
01:32:35,055 --> 01:32:37,599
All the films he got
the opportunity-- films that would--

1644
01:32:37,683 --> 01:32:39,852
We wouldn't have had
that particular slant--

1645
01:32:39,935 --> 01:32:43,313
that story wouldn't have been told
that way if it wasn't for Sidney.

1646
01:32:43,897 --> 01:32:45,065
"I'm Buck."

1647
01:32:47,192 --> 01:32:48,527
I'm Buck.

1648
01:32:53,532 --> 01:32:56,159
We'll never again
see him become the towering actor

1649
01:32:56,243 --> 01:32:57,369
that he was in the 1960s.

1650
01:32:57,452 --> 01:32:59,830
He'll never again be
that same type of megastar.

1651
01:32:59,913 --> 01:33:02,291
On the other hand,
he comes to play a leadership role

1652
01:33:02,374 --> 01:33:04,376
in Black Hollywood in the 1970s

1653
01:33:04,459 --> 01:33:07,087
in ways that create
so many more opportunities

1654
01:33:07,171 --> 01:33:08,380
for those who come in his wake.

1655
01:33:08,964 --> 01:33:12,050
If there were equality of opportunity
in this business,

1656
01:33:12,134 --> 01:33:15,888
there'd be 15 Sidney Poitiers and ten
or 12 Belafontes, but there is not.

1657
01:33:15,971 --> 01:33:18,348
Or maybe the other way around.
Fifteen Belafontes and ten--

1658
01:33:18,432 --> 01:33:19,433
Watch it.

1659
01:33:23,437 --> 01:33:27,232
In 1969, we became business partners

1660
01:33:27,316 --> 01:33:28,734
along with Paul Newman.

1661
01:33:28,817 --> 01:33:31,278
It was a company called First Artists,

1662
01:33:31,987 --> 01:33:37,367
which was innovative because
the artists had creative control,

1663
01:33:37,451 --> 01:33:39,995
complete creative control
of the movies we made.

1664
01:33:40,078 --> 01:33:42,372
We got no money up front,

1665
01:33:42,456 --> 01:33:46,126
and we only made money
if the movie was a success.

1666
01:33:46,210 --> 01:33:47,503
I didn't care about the salary.

1667
01:33:47,586 --> 01:33:50,631
All I cared about
was the creative control.

1668
01:33:50,714 --> 01:33:53,800
I felt very honored being the only woman,

1669
01:33:54,426 --> 01:33:57,971
and I'm very proud of
my association with Sidney.

1670
01:33:58,055 --> 01:34:01,099
It was a hugely audacious move
to start a production company

1671
01:34:01,183 --> 01:34:02,935
being a Black man in Hollywood.

1672
01:34:04,269 --> 01:34:06,480
I think the feeling was,

1673
01:34:07,272 --> 01:34:09,441
he should just be happy with what he had.

1674
01:34:09,525 --> 01:34:12,486
"You're getting a lot of roles.
You're fine.

1675
01:34:12,569 --> 01:34:16,240
You don't need to then put yourself
in this position of power

1676
01:34:16,323 --> 01:34:18,951
where now you are creating the work."

1677
01:34:19,034 --> 01:34:23,705
It was just another proactive move
to sort of get his message out there.

1678
01:34:24,540 --> 01:34:26,458
What we all really wanted

1679
01:34:26,542 --> 01:34:31,338
was to be able to make movies
of our choice.

1680
01:34:31,421 --> 01:34:34,132
Make them ourselves, choose the material.

1681
01:34:34,216 --> 01:34:35,592
I made Uptown Saturday Night,

1682
01:34:35,676 --> 01:34:37,636
Let's Do It Again, A Piece of the Action.

1683
01:34:37,719 --> 01:34:39,471
They were all excellent films.

1684
01:34:39,555 --> 01:34:41,557
I thought it was the coolest damn thing.

1685
01:34:42,224 --> 01:34:43,934
Okay? I thought it was
the coolest damn thing

1686
01:34:44,017 --> 01:34:45,269
when Daddy became a director.

1687
01:34:45,352 --> 01:34:47,688
He had an understanding of the industry

1688
01:34:47,771 --> 01:34:50,816
and what needed to be done
and what could be done.

1689
01:34:50,899 --> 01:34:55,362
He was very much aware
that there weren't any at one point

1690
01:34:55,445 --> 01:34:59,032
and then a lot of African Americans
on set.

1691
01:34:59,116 --> 01:35:01,451
Anywhere. I mean, anywhere.

1692
01:35:02,035 --> 01:35:04,788
And he made his business to correct that.

1693
01:35:04,872 --> 01:35:06,123
We should underscore the fact

1694
01:35:06,206 --> 01:35:09,334
that you really put to work a lot
of Black people behind the scenes.

1695
01:35:09,418 --> 01:35:12,588
It's not just that we've got
an enormously talented Black cast--

1696
01:35:13,088 --> 01:35:15,674
Yeah. We have 1,300 Black people

1697
01:35:15,757 --> 01:35:17,968
working on the film.

1698
01:35:18,051 --> 01:35:20,721
Atmosphere people,
technicians and all that.

1699
01:35:20,804 --> 01:35:23,473
1,276 are my relatives.

1700
01:35:23,974 --> 01:35:24,975
Good for them.

1701
01:35:25,058 --> 01:35:26,852
Well, Sidney was a race man,

1702
01:35:26,935 --> 01:35:30,272
so, how could he be directing this film,

1703
01:35:30,981 --> 01:35:33,192
everybody in front of the camera's Black,

1704
01:35:33,275 --> 01:35:35,569
everybody behind the camera's white?
He's not gonna do that.

1705
01:35:35,652 --> 01:35:38,697
That's not even a question.
Sidney ain't doing that.

1706
01:35:38,780 --> 01:35:42,576
Sidney's gonna make sure that he's
gonna put Black people positioned

1707
01:35:42,659 --> 01:35:45,871
where they can have a career,
behind the camera.

1708
01:35:46,455 --> 01:35:48,332
You have longer careers behind the camera

1709
01:35:48,415 --> 01:35:49,708
than in front of the camera.

1710
01:35:49,791 --> 01:35:52,294
What's interesting
about Poitier as an actor now

1711
01:35:52,377 --> 01:35:54,463
is that he's passing the ball.

1712
01:35:54,546 --> 01:35:56,965
It's not always about him being the guy.

1713
01:35:57,049 --> 01:35:58,675
I look forward to working as a director.

1714
01:35:58,759 --> 01:36:00,719
I look forward to making decisions
in that area.

1715
01:36:00,802 --> 01:36:03,514
I look forward to dealing
with scripts and dealing with actors,

1716
01:36:03,597 --> 01:36:04,723
and cultivating a mood.

1717
01:36:04,806 --> 01:36:06,266
I look forward to painting a picture.

1718
01:36:07,017 --> 01:36:09,770
I don't have any such visions as an actor.

1719
01:36:09,853 --> 01:36:11,897
I think I've climbed
all the mountains I intended to

1720
01:36:11,980 --> 01:36:12,981
as an actor.

1721
01:36:16,318 --> 01:36:18,403
On 3rd Avenue in New York City,

1722
01:36:18,487 --> 01:36:19,613
I walked in one night.

1723
01:36:19,696 --> 01:36:22,824
The picture was playing.
It was called Let's Do It Again.

1724
01:36:23,408 --> 01:36:25,577
I walked in, and I stood in the back.

1725
01:36:25,661 --> 01:36:29,581
It was a packed house, so I stood
in the back watching the reaction.

1726
01:36:30,165 --> 01:36:31,792
There were Black women.

1727
01:36:31,875 --> 01:36:35,546
They are sitting there
laughing their heads off.

1728
01:36:35,629 --> 01:36:40,717
I mean, they were so overjoyed
with seeing these characters

1729
01:36:40,801 --> 01:36:44,179
because we drew characters
that they could embrace.

1730
01:36:44,263 --> 01:36:46,348
Well, with that response,

1731
01:36:46,431 --> 01:36:49,643
I decided I have to find
something else in that vein.

1732
01:36:50,310 --> 01:36:53,772
The comedies that I made,
we tried to design them

1733
01:36:53,856 --> 01:36:56,817
so that the people
who are going to sit there

1734
01:36:56,900 --> 01:36:59,778
are going to see themselves

1735
01:37:00,737 --> 01:37:02,197
in an embracing way.

1736
01:37:02,281 --> 01:37:05,534
So, Sidney Poitier is now
a comedy director.

1737
01:37:06,368 --> 01:37:08,912
I mean, you talk about
an unlikely turn of events.

1738
01:37:09,413 --> 01:37:13,333
He's a big comedy director,
and he does this movie

1739
01:37:13,834 --> 01:37:19,798
with the most volatile, charismatic
Black comedy talent, perhaps ever.

1740
01:37:19,882 --> 01:37:24,052
I hereby sentence you to serve 125 years

1741
01:37:24,136 --> 01:37:26,096
in the custody of the commissioner

1742
01:37:26,180 --> 01:37:28,515
-of the Department of Corrections.
-Wha--

1743
01:37:28,599 --> 01:37:31,894
When you look at-- When you
watch Poitier's films as a director,

1744
01:37:31,977 --> 01:37:34,062
he's not a great visual stylist.

1745
01:37:34,146 --> 01:37:37,065
But what he is, is a great
director of performance.

1746
01:37:37,149 --> 01:37:41,820
And he's able to leave a space where
Gene Wilder can be funny as hell,

1747
01:37:41,904 --> 01:37:43,280
Richard Pryor can be funny as hell.

1748
01:37:43,363 --> 01:37:44,364
We didn't-- I didn't.

1749
01:37:44,448 --> 01:37:46,700
-Our lawyer told us to come up--
-I know I didn't.

1750
01:37:46,783 --> 01:37:48,994
-I--
-No, he's joking.

1751
01:37:49,077 --> 01:37:50,996
-I told him--
-He means, we didn't do it.

1752
01:37:51,079 --> 01:37:53,624
-We didn't do it.
-Have you got the right case?

1753
01:37:54,208 --> 01:37:55,334
You'd never have guessed

1754
01:37:55,417 --> 01:37:57,753
his biggest success
as a director would be a comedy.

1755
01:37:57,836 --> 01:38:01,131
The guy who leads us
to Denzel and to Wesley,

1756
01:38:01,215 --> 01:38:03,717
he's also the guy who leads us
to Robert Townsend

1757
01:38:03,800 --> 01:38:05,302
and Keenen Ivory Wayans

1758
01:38:06,094 --> 01:38:09,056
because he's the first
big Hollywood comedy director.

1759
01:38:17,523 --> 01:38:18,815
-He's strange.
-Okay.

1760
01:38:19,399 --> 01:38:21,944
-Say hi to Daddy.
-Hi, Daddy.

1761
01:38:22,528 --> 01:38:24,071
Stay there, Anika.

1762
01:38:25,280 --> 01:38:26,907
I see you, Sydney.

1763
01:38:29,076 --> 01:38:30,452
-What do you see?
-You.

1764
01:38:31,578 --> 01:38:33,747
Well, that's where the money is…

1765
01:38:34,623 --> 01:38:35,999
as we say on the set.

1766
01:38:36,083 --> 01:38:39,211
Give me a smile. Okay.

1767
01:38:39,795 --> 01:38:40,796
Sydney P.?

1768
01:38:41,922 --> 01:38:44,091
One thing I really admire about him

1769
01:38:44,174 --> 01:38:45,884
is, you know, a lot of times

1770
01:38:45,968 --> 01:38:49,388
when an actor's career is
starting to wane,

1771
01:38:49,471 --> 01:38:53,183
they will grasp at whatever
is coming their way, you know,

1772
01:38:53,267 --> 01:38:56,186
because their drive is to stay relevant

1773
01:38:56,270 --> 01:38:58,522
and to keep working as an actor.

1774
01:38:58,605 --> 01:39:01,066
And my dad, he doesn't have any of that.

1775
01:39:02,150 --> 01:39:03,819
I chose to step away.

1776
01:39:03,902 --> 01:39:08,740
You know, in life one ought not
to wind up in one's last moments

1777
01:39:08,824 --> 01:39:10,576
and be faced with the fact

1778
01:39:10,659 --> 01:39:13,287
that maybe one has spent one's entire life

1779
01:39:13,954 --> 01:39:16,123
in a narrow corridor.

1780
01:39:16,707 --> 01:39:20,210
And my career had been wonderful
for a great number of years.

1781
01:39:20,961 --> 01:39:25,674
I don't say that it would've
continued at the pace it was going.

1782
01:39:26,633 --> 01:39:29,803
But if it had, it would've
robbed me of the chance

1783
01:39:29,887 --> 01:39:32,639
to be a fuller person, you know?

1784
01:39:32,723 --> 01:39:35,434
Success has a way of insulating us.

1785
01:39:36,935 --> 01:39:38,103
I didn't want to do that.

1786
01:39:38,187 --> 01:39:40,647
I wanted to know what
it would be like to direct a film,

1787
01:39:40,731 --> 01:39:42,733
so I directed five or six of them.

1788
01:39:42,816 --> 01:39:45,068
I wanted to know what it
would be like to produce a film,

1789
01:39:45,152 --> 01:39:46,445
and I produced a few.

1790
01:39:46,528 --> 01:39:48,488
I was born with a curiosity

1791
01:39:48,572 --> 01:39:50,616
that got me into an awful lot
of trouble when I was a kid,

1792
01:39:50,699 --> 01:39:52,534
but it certainly stood me in good stead

1793
01:39:52,618 --> 01:39:53,869
when I became an adult.

1794
01:39:56,246 --> 01:39:58,081
I hope, though, that that curiosity

1795
01:39:58,165 --> 01:39:59,583
stays with me all my life.

1796
01:40:00,751 --> 01:40:04,129
The recipient of
the 1992 Life Achievement Award,

1797
01:40:04,213 --> 01:40:05,589
Sidney Poitier.

1798
01:40:14,932 --> 01:40:17,976
I always think of Sidney
as this big-ass lighthouse

1799
01:40:18,936 --> 01:40:22,231
sitting on a promontory
somewhere in the dark.

1800
01:40:22,898 --> 01:40:23,899
Bright light.

1801
01:40:24,608 --> 01:40:29,321
I told him that all my formative years

1802
01:40:30,781 --> 01:40:34,451
I was focusing on that light
that he projected to me.

1803
01:40:36,161 --> 01:40:40,457
Had no other beacon as bright as that,

1804
01:40:40,541 --> 01:40:41,917
as sure as that,

1805
01:40:43,043 --> 01:40:46,505
that I believed in
as strongly as that one.

1806
01:40:47,130 --> 01:40:52,052
Forty-eight years ago, the winter of 1945,

1807
01:40:52,719 --> 01:40:56,181
Sidney Poitier walked into
a small theater in Harlem.

1808
01:40:56,265 --> 01:40:59,309
This was the American Negro Theatre.

1809
01:41:02,813 --> 01:41:05,524
Sidney broke the molds
in so many different ways.

1810
01:41:05,607 --> 01:41:08,735
Sidney brought his A game,
and so we could bring our A game.

1811
01:41:09,653 --> 01:41:11,780
I think he's truly a very fine man.

1812
01:41:11,864 --> 01:41:15,075
He's a great example of what manhood
should look like and feel like.

1813
01:41:15,158 --> 01:41:16,743
He'd done so much in his career.

1814
01:41:16,827 --> 01:41:18,245
He'd been through so much

1815
01:41:18,328 --> 01:41:20,622
to get to that place where he could say,

1816
01:41:20,706 --> 01:41:24,209
"Hey, I've done it all.
I've done everything I could do.

1817
01:41:24,293 --> 01:41:26,837
Now I just wanna look back
and think to myself,

1818
01:41:26,920 --> 01:41:30,090
'I did the right thing,
from a moral standpoint.'"

1819
01:41:30,174 --> 01:41:31,717
And he sure did.

1820
01:41:31,800 --> 01:41:34,261
We've been friends
for many, many years.

1821
01:41:34,344 --> 01:41:37,055
I've shared more with Sidney
than with any other man.

1822
01:41:37,639 --> 01:41:40,100
And I'm very, very proud
of what he has achieved

1823
01:41:40,184 --> 01:41:42,644
as an artist and a citizen.

1824
01:41:43,395 --> 01:41:47,316
And I'm very, very fortunate
to have you as my friend.

1825
01:41:47,399 --> 01:41:48,609
And I love you.

1826
01:41:54,948 --> 01:41:58,660
The Oscar goes to Denzel Washington.

1827
01:42:02,414 --> 01:42:05,584
And the Oscar goes
to Halle Berry in Monster's Ball.

1828
01:42:05,667 --> 01:42:07,586
Oh, my God.

1829
01:42:07,669 --> 01:42:09,588
For me, that night was so huge.

1830
01:42:09,671 --> 01:42:11,006
It was so monumental,

1831
01:42:11,089 --> 01:42:13,217
not just with my win,
but with Denzel winning

1832
01:42:13,300 --> 01:42:15,344
and Sidney having the honorary Oscar.

1833
01:42:15,427 --> 01:42:18,597
I knew that this moment
would inspire so many people.

1834
01:42:18,680 --> 01:42:21,099
From the bottom of my heart,
I thank you all.

1835
01:42:21,934 --> 01:42:24,436
Forty years I've been chasing Sidney,
they finally give it to me.

1836
01:42:24,520 --> 01:42:26,396
What they do?
They give it to him the same night.

1837
01:42:28,649 --> 01:42:30,108
I remember he stood up.

1838
01:42:31,026 --> 01:42:33,237
And we were sort of, from a distance,

1839
01:42:33,320 --> 01:42:36,281
I guess it was passing the baton,
I guess you'd say.

1840
01:42:36,365 --> 01:42:38,784
I'll always
be following in your footsteps.

1841
01:42:38,867 --> 01:42:41,328
There's nothing I would rather do, sir.

1842
01:42:41,411 --> 01:42:43,956
Nothing I would rather do. God bless you.

1843
01:42:44,540 --> 01:42:48,752
There's just nobody like him.
Never will be again.

1844
01:42:49,920 --> 01:42:53,257
It's been said that
Sidney Poitier does not make movies.

1845
01:42:53,340 --> 01:42:56,969
He makes milestones.
Milestones of America's progress.

1846
01:42:57,052 --> 01:42:59,471
Poitier once called his driving purpose

1847
01:42:59,555 --> 01:43:01,306
to make himself a better person.

1848
01:43:02,015 --> 01:43:05,769
He did, and he made us all
a little bit better along the way.

1849
01:43:11,692 --> 01:43:15,279
He's one of those people
that came to this earth

1850
01:43:16,780 --> 01:43:20,659
to move it, to change it, to shake it,

1851
01:43:21,243 --> 01:43:24,371
to give people what they need

1852
01:43:24,872 --> 01:43:29,710
so they can move forward and
create change in their own lives.

1853
01:43:29,793 --> 01:43:33,964
Sidney Poitier is
an extremely powerful force.

1854
01:43:34,464 --> 01:43:37,843
And the wonderful thing about energy,

1855
01:43:37,926 --> 01:43:41,555
as my grandfather taught me,
you can't kill energy.

1856
01:43:41,638 --> 01:43:43,974
Energy never stops.

1857
01:43:44,057 --> 01:43:48,061
Everything that Sidney
has created is always here,

1858
01:43:48,145 --> 01:43:51,023
and it will always continue to grow.

1859
01:43:51,607 --> 01:43:55,235
And… what a beautiful life.

1860
01:43:56,778 --> 01:43:59,156
Congratulations, Oprah, from all of us

1861
01:43:59,239 --> 01:44:01,450
for those past 20 years,

1862
01:44:02,117 --> 01:44:05,537
and for the light you've brought
that shines so gently

1863
01:44:05,621 --> 01:44:08,582
on those who need it most.

1864
01:44:11,835 --> 01:44:13,795
I'm a great part of his legacy,

1865
01:44:13,879 --> 01:44:16,757
and so is every other life
that he touched.

1866
01:44:16,840 --> 01:44:22,137
Every person who felt something
move or open in them

1867
01:44:22,221 --> 01:44:25,349
by watching him in To Sir, with Love,

1868
01:44:25,432 --> 01:44:28,393
or seeing him in
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,

1869
01:44:28,477 --> 01:44:32,022
or that moment of him
rolling out of the train

1870
01:44:32,606 --> 01:44:35,734
and continuing to stand with Tony Curtis,

1871
01:44:35,817 --> 01:44:36,818
and thinking,

1872
01:44:38,195 --> 01:44:39,655
"A Negro would do that?"

1873
01:44:42,616 --> 01:44:44,243
That's the summary of him.

1874
01:44:45,077 --> 01:44:47,079
It's every life that he's touched.

1875
01:44:47,829 --> 01:44:49,122
That's all I got.

1876
01:44:54,086 --> 01:44:57,965
I love him so much.
I just love him so much.

1877
01:44:58,465 --> 01:44:59,800
It's really true.

1878
01:44:59,883 --> 01:45:02,219
My life would not have been
the same without him.

1879
01:45:03,595 --> 01:45:05,055
I have come a long way.

1880
01:45:05,138 --> 01:45:07,808
I really have come a very, very long way.

1881
01:45:07,891 --> 01:45:09,476
And I'm proud of that.

1882
01:45:10,060 --> 01:45:13,647
I am here to be…

1883
01:45:15,190 --> 01:45:18,861
the best husband, the best grandfather,

1884
01:45:18,944 --> 01:45:21,780
the best father,
the best great-grandfather.

1885
01:45:21,864 --> 01:45:27,035
I try to extend to them all that
might be considered good in me.

1886
01:45:27,619 --> 01:45:30,414
I truly try

1887
01:45:30,497 --> 01:45:34,543
to be better tomorrow

1888
01:45:35,335 --> 01:45:36,753
than I was today.

1889
01:45:36,837 --> 01:45:38,255
A better human being.

1890
01:45:38,755 --> 01:45:42,134
Not a better actor,
but just a better human being.

1891
01:45:42,217 --> 01:45:47,222
And when I die,
I will not be afraid of having lived.