Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE
(icon or ˈ; born February 20, 1927) is a Bahamian

The Bahamas

The Bahamas , officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a nation consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets . It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola , northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States...

 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actor, film director, author, and diplomat.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor

Academy Award for Best Actor

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three well-received films To Sir, with Love

To Sir, with Love

To Sir, With Love is a 1967 British drama film starring Sidney Poitier that deals with social and racial issues in an inner city school. James Clavell both directed and wrote the film's screenplay, based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by E. R. Braithwaite.The film's title song...

; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton...

, making him the top box office star of that year.