The Oscar-winning actor starred in films like In the Heat of the Night and To Sir, With Love, and helped pave way for other Black actors in Hollywood. He died Jan. 6. Originally broadcast in 2000.
Actor Sidney Poitier. He is the leading African-American actor of his generation. He was the first, and so far, the only African American to win the Academy Award for Best Actor which he did in 1963 for his performance in “Lilies of the Field.” His other films include, “The Defiant Ones,” “A Patch of Blue,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” and “To Sir, With Love.” He’s written a new autobiography, “The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography” (Harper).
Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Shoot To Kill," the thriller that stars Sidney Poitier and Tom Berenger. The plot has Poitier, an urban FBI agent, forced into an alliance with an embittered trail guide played by Tom Berenger as they track a killer in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.