(Source: togifs)
Reblogged from Blackadder.
May 17, 2013, 9:45am
The youngest of seven children, Poitier lifted himself from extreme poverty—his parents were tomato farmers who worked on Cat Island in the Bahamas, where they had no running water or electricity. At 15 and with no education, he went to live with his older brother in Miami, Florida, where he had an encounter with the Ku Klux Klan. A few months later, he arrived in New York with only $3, and then he answered an ad seeking actors for the American Negro Theatre. But when he flubbed his lines and spoke in a thick Caribbean accent, the director told him, “Stop wasting your time—get a job as a dishwasher!”
The rejection galvanized Poitier. After months of mimicking American newscasters in order to lose his accent and of working in exchange for acting lessons, Poitier returned to the same theater company and landed a role in Days of Our Youth . That began his ascent to becoming one of the most bankable actors of any race. In his 50 years in film, he has starred in and directed more than three dozen movies whose titles read like a time line for our memories: The Defiant Ones , 1958; A Raisin in the Sun , 1961; Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and To Sir, With Love , both in 1967. And when he won an Academy Award for his performance in the 1963 film Lilies of the Field , Poitier changed film history: He became the first and only black person to receive an Oscar for best actor.
However remarkable his achievements, Poitier will tell you that he doesn’t measure himself by these things—really. Especially during the Civil Rights movement when nonblacks often defined him solely in terms of race—and conversely, when some black people branded him an Uncle Tom who wasn’t enough of a race revolutionary—Poitier’s fight became not about race but about self—”In America,” he tells me, “it is difficult to be your own man.” But by focusing on the big picture—the breadth of who he is as a man, not confined by color—he has indeed embraced the fullness of his humanity.O Magazine | October 2000
(Source: squirtletracy)
Reblogged from Miss Miriam's Mirror.
May 17, 2013, 8:36am
Stevie Wonder performs “Alfie” at the Gershwin Prize for Hal David and Burt Bacharach
Genius, thanks honey
May 17, 2013, 8:22am
dick
What could have been our vice president. Frightening.
Reblogged from It only hurts when i laugh.
May 17, 2013, 8:09am
Pink Floyd | Goodbye Blue Sky
Played 29 time(s).
May 17, 2013, 7:43am
Blaze Starr in her Baltimore home, photographed by Diane Arbus, 1964.
(Source: ziegfeld-girl)
Reblogged from Miss Miriam's Mirror.
May 17, 2013, 6:36am
