In , he was ranked among the " American Film Institute's Stars ". Poitier's family lived in the Bahamas , then still a Crown colony , but he was born in Miami, Florida , while they were visiting, which automatically granted him U. He joined the American Negro Theatre , landing his breakthrough film role as a high school student in the film Blackboard Jungle Poitier gained stardom for his leading roles in films such as The Defiant Ones for which he made history becoming the first African American to receive an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination.
In a poll the next year he was voted the US's top box-office star. He later starred in Shoot to Kill and Sneakers Poitier was granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in Sidney Poitier was born on February 20, , in Miami, Florida. His father also worked as a cab driver in Nassau. His birth in the United States entitled him to US citizenship.
Although there were few Poitiers of French ancestry in the Bahamas, [ 22 ] some believe that the Poitier ancestors had migrated from Haiti , [ 23 ] and were probably among the runaway slaves who established maroon communities throughout the Bahamas, including Cat Island. There had, however, been one Poitier of French ancestry on Cat Island, planter Charles Leonard Poitier, who had immigrated from Jamaica in the early s, possibly originally from Haiti. In , following the abolition of slavery , 86 slaves from his wife's estate kept the Poitier name.
Poitier lived with his family on Cat Island until he was ten, when they moved to Nassau. There he was exposed to the modern world, where he saw his first automobile and first experienced electricity, plumbing, refrigeration, and motion pictures. At age fifteen, in , he was sent to Miami to live with his brother's large family, but Poitier found it impossible to adjust to the racism in Jim Crow era Florida.
He was assigned to a Veteran's Administration hospital in Northport, New York , and was trained to work with psychiatric patients. Poitier became upset with how the hospital treated its patients and feigned mental illness to obtain a discharge. Poitier confessed to a psychiatrist that he was faking his condition, but the doctor was sympathetic and granted his discharge under Section VIII of Army regulation β in December After leaving the Army, he worked as a dishwasher until a successful audition landed him a role in an American Negro Theatre production, the same company he failed his first audition with.
