WEBVTT

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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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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,

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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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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.

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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?"

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

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He said, "Oh, yes."

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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.

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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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And I could eat.

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When I finished the first night's work,

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I went to the bus station.

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I went to sleep in the toilet.

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

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So I put a nickel in. And I got in.

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I put down the seat. I sat there,
put my feet up against the door,

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and I would sleep.

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Uncomfortably, needless to say.

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On one particular evening,

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I'm sitting right next to the kitchen,

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and I'm reading a paper.

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And one of the waiters looked over
and saw me sitting there.

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I said, "I'm trying to learn to read
better than I can read."

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And he said, "Would you like it
if I read with you?"

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Every night,

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that man, that Jewish waiter

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came over to where I would read the paper

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and sit there with me until I really
began learning to read.

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This was like the beginning
of a journey for me.

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If you stop struggling,
people are gonna walk past you.

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But if they see you working at it,

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somebody's gonna grab you by the hand

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and just give you that little lift up
that you need to keep going.

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It's always gonna happen.

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I was on 125th Street in Harlem,

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and I bought a newspaper
called the Amsterdam News--

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it was a Black newspaper--
because it had a want ad page.

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On the want ad page were places
that I had gotten jobs from.

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Dishwashing jobs, porter jobs,

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all kinds of other jobs that I could do.

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On the opposite page, it says,
"Actors wanted."

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And I said to myself,
"My God. They want actors?

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What would I be doing as an actor?"

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So I went to this address.
I knocked on the door.

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And after a while, a guy came.

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He was a mountainous guy. Huge.
Frederick O'Neal was the guy.

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I went in. I walked on the stage,
and I turned to page so-and-so.

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And he opened another script.
He was sitting in the audience.

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And he turned the page.
He says, "Now read the part of John."

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And I looked, and I saw "John,"
and I said, "Okay."

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"He said, 'Where are you going?'"

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And he-- He was quite upset and angry,

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and he tossed me out of there and stuff.

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He said, "Why don't you just stop
wasting people's time

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and go get yourself a job
as a dishwasher or something?"

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That's the moment I became an actor,
you see.

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I said, "I am going to become an actor.

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And when I do, I'm going to come back
and show that man."

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You had an accent problem

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when you first started to work
in New York, I've read.

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Can you show us
what your speech was originally like?

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A line like…

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"I'm going home."

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When I was a child,
we would say, "I gwine 'ome."

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I was told I had to get rid of it
if I wanted to be an actor.

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So I got rid of it myself.

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I bought a radio for $14.

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And I would look for a man
named Norman Brokenshire.

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Norman Brokenshire was a newsreader.

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And he had a magnificent voice.

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How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?
How do you do?

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This is Norman Brokenshire.

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I would listen to his--
And after a while, I would repeat.

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You know, I've been in front
of microphones for over 25 years,

00:16:46.969 --> 00:16:49.638
and I can tell you
this is a tense business.

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And I lost my accent almost completely.

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I went out, and I s-- bought books,

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and I learned
to struggle through lines and stuff.

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And I went back, and I took an audition.

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And I was accepted.

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So I used the theater, I used acting
and acting classes, as a therapy.

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I would go there
after working in the Garment District

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or any other of the 14,
18 places I did work.

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I would go to class at night,

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and I would sit and study and do scenes.

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At the time, when I was 17, 18 years old,

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acting offered me an area
where I could be an exhibitionist,

00:17:29.636 --> 00:17:32.181
where I could give vent
to some of my frustrations,

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where I could pour out
some of my confusion and other ills

00:17:37.644 --> 00:17:39.855
into a fictitious character.

00:17:39.938 --> 00:17:43.650
I felt this is something
that gives me a badge of distinction.

00:17:43.734 --> 00:17:45.778
I can be many things here,

00:17:45.861 --> 00:17:48.489
and the areas of life,
socially and otherwise,

00:17:48.572 --> 00:17:50.491
that were then restricted to me--

00:17:50.574 --> 00:17:54.995
I had ways of retaliating
in this kind of illusion.

00:17:56.830 --> 00:17:59.291
Tyrant, show thy face.

00:17:59.374 --> 00:18:00.709
What is thy name?

00:18:02.002 --> 00:18:05.464
I think one of the things
that's been lost is Black theater.

00:18:06.548 --> 00:18:08.092
My name's Macbeth.

00:18:08.175 --> 00:18:12.513
From probably after
the war all the way into the '80s,

00:18:12.596 --> 00:18:14.765
Black theater was the voice of Black art.

00:18:14.848 --> 00:18:17.309
American Negro Theatre was a precursor

00:18:17.392 --> 00:18:20.395
to the Negro Ensemble Company
and other great theater groups.

00:18:22.689 --> 00:18:26.026
And it was a place
where young talent could get on stage

00:18:26.610 --> 00:18:27.820
and get their chops up.

00:18:27.903 --> 00:18:29.488
Everybody came through Black theater.

00:18:29.571 --> 00:18:32.533
It wasn't probably till the '90s
when you could cast a Black actor

00:18:32.616 --> 00:18:34.785
who had not been
in the Black theater somewhere.

00:18:34.868 --> 00:18:37.496
I went down there for an audition.

00:18:37.579 --> 00:18:38.747
When I got there,

00:18:38.831 --> 00:18:43.460
I saw this rather surly Black man
across the room from me.

00:18:43.544 --> 00:18:46.588
And he didn't look too happy to see me.

00:18:46.672 --> 00:18:48.132
I looked at him, and I knew

00:18:48.215 --> 00:18:50.968
that I would have to be competing
with this guy

00:18:51.051 --> 00:18:52.845
for the rest of my days.

00:18:53.345 --> 00:18:57.599
I have decided that I must
hitch my wagon to Sidney's star…

00:18:58.684 --> 00:19:01.478
and be led to great celestial experiences.

00:19:01.979 --> 00:19:03.397
And I--

00:19:03.480 --> 00:19:05.149
You could cut it with a knife.

00:19:06.024 --> 00:19:09.069
My dad and Harry have
such a bromance. It's crazy.

00:19:09.153 --> 00:19:10.195
They've been together

00:19:10.279 --> 00:19:13.240
since these early years at
the American Negro Theatre company.

00:19:13.323 --> 00:19:17.119
And they were the best of friends,

00:19:17.911 --> 00:19:20.664
and then they had falling-outs,
periodic falling-outs, you know?

00:19:20.747 --> 00:19:23.709
They were like a married couple.
You know, like--

00:19:23.792 --> 00:19:27.087
They separate. They have a divorce.
They get married again.

00:19:27.171 --> 00:19:29.256
-We disagree on occasion.
-Yeah.

00:19:29.339 --> 00:19:32.509
And I don't mean that funny.
We do disagree on occasion,

00:19:32.593 --> 00:19:35.304
on various subjects.

00:19:35.387 --> 00:19:38.140
But we exchange
on these subjects, you see.

00:19:38.223 --> 00:19:41.685
I've learned a great deal
from this man in 26 years.

00:19:41.768 --> 00:19:44.605
I suspect he has learned
some things from me.

00:19:45.480 --> 00:19:48.817
We are artists.
I have an ego. He has an ego.

00:19:48.901 --> 00:19:49.943
Tell 'em, honey.

00:19:53.363 --> 00:19:54.364
So…

00:19:55.324 --> 00:19:58.702
I was 18 years old
coming out of Birdland,

00:19:58.785 --> 00:20:04.166
and I saw Sidney, Harry Belafonte
and Marlon Brando.

00:20:04.249 --> 00:20:08.086
Oh, man, come on. That was like history.
History.

00:20:08.712 --> 00:20:11.298
We were wild.
Everybody was wild back then.

00:20:11.381 --> 00:20:13.675
They used to love, and they used to fight.

00:20:14.301 --> 00:20:16.762
They got close. They stayed close.

00:20:17.596 --> 00:20:18.597
And worked close.

00:20:18.680 --> 00:20:20.807
And they kept playing that stink eye.

00:20:21.683 --> 00:20:23.477
And they still do.

00:20:23.560 --> 00:20:25.771
We were doing a play
called Days of Our Youth.

00:20:25.854 --> 00:20:27.481
And Sidney Poitier was my understudy.

00:20:27.564 --> 00:20:29.441
We worked for nothing, of course.

00:20:29.524 --> 00:20:30.609
And I had a job.

00:20:31.276 --> 00:20:33.445
And I was a janitor's assistant.

00:20:33.528 --> 00:20:35.280
They were having a performance one night.

00:20:35.364 --> 00:20:38.116
And Harry Belafonte was the lead.
He was supposed to go on.

00:20:38.200 --> 00:20:39.993
He was also a garbageman at the time.

00:20:40.077 --> 00:20:42.913
And he got called in on a shift
that he had to take.

00:20:42.996 --> 00:20:45.666
And so my dad, being the understudy,
took his place.

00:20:45.749 --> 00:20:48.418
And there happened to be
a Broadway producer

00:20:48.502 --> 00:20:50.337
in the audience that night

00:20:50.420 --> 00:20:52.673
casting, I believe, Lysistrata.

00:20:54.007 --> 00:20:56.218
And cast my dad.

00:20:56.301 --> 00:20:58.637
I think Harry was probably pretty
pissed about that one.

00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:02.307
20th Century Fox
had flown scouts to the East

00:21:02.391 --> 00:21:03.642
to hunt for an actor.

00:21:03.725 --> 00:21:05.018
They saw Sidney Poitier.

00:21:05.102 --> 00:21:06.603
They flew him to California,

00:21:06.687 --> 00:21:08.772
gave him his screen test,
and the rest is history.

00:21:08.855 --> 00:21:11.775
Every time he gets out a line
I remind him, to humble him,

00:21:11.858 --> 00:21:15.237
that his career was made on garbage.

00:21:15.320 --> 00:21:18.240
Now, that could make a man bitter
if he hadn't done reasonably well,

00:21:18.323 --> 00:21:19.241
as you have since.

00:21:19.324 --> 00:21:21.159
No, I've done reasonably well,
and I am bitter.

00:21:32.629 --> 00:21:33.797
-Hi, Lefty.
-Hey, Luth.

00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:36.425
What do you know?
I've been looking for you.

00:21:37.134 --> 00:21:38.885
The beginning of my career

00:21:38.969 --> 00:21:41.054
was with a man named Joe Mankiewicz.

00:21:41.138 --> 00:21:42.806
-Hello, Brooks.
-Good evening, Doctor.

00:21:42.889 --> 00:21:45.851
He wanted to make a movie
about Black people in America.

00:21:45.934 --> 00:21:51.815
And it was a very interesting movie.
The first of its kind.

00:21:51.898 --> 00:21:56.778
I played a young Black doctor
at a Los Angeles hospital.

00:21:56.862 --> 00:21:58.238
I'm Dr. Brooks.

00:21:58.322 --> 00:22:00.198
Yeah, they said you'd be up.

00:22:00.282 --> 00:22:03.035
It was really explosive stuff.

00:22:03.118 --> 00:22:04.870
I don't want him. I want a white doctor.

00:22:04.953 --> 00:22:06.955
We'll turn the lights out.
You won't know the difference.

00:22:07.039 --> 00:22:09.124
-Haven't I got any rights?
-No!

00:22:09.207 --> 00:22:10.959
There were people in the industry

00:22:11.043 --> 00:22:12.711
who didn't have the courage

00:22:12.794 --> 00:22:15.714
to make a film like that
about Black people.

00:22:15.797 --> 00:22:18.800
There was a habit pattern

00:22:18.884 --> 00:22:23.680
of utilizing Blacks
in the most disrespectful way.

00:22:23.764 --> 00:22:27.351
I know I can eat my mashed potatoes
without a knife and--

00:22:27.684 --> 00:22:29.019
-Stop this foolishness!
-I…

00:22:29.102 --> 00:22:30.812
We're talking about the '40s,

00:22:30.896 --> 00:22:33.523
when if you're gonna work
in the movies, you better be funny.

00:22:33.607 --> 00:22:34.941
Stepin Fetchit.

00:22:35.442 --> 00:22:36.651
Mantan Moreland.

00:22:36.735 --> 00:22:39.738
Oh, Mr. Bill, does I has to?
Can I stay up here with you?

00:22:39.821 --> 00:22:43.867
No. You understand that it might set
a bad example for the other servants.

00:22:43.950 --> 00:22:44.951
Well, certainly.

00:22:45.035 --> 00:22:47.829
Those were the stars--
Black stars of their time.

00:22:47.913 --> 00:22:50.082
If you ain't funny, you ain't working.

00:22:50.665 --> 00:22:54.378
Mantan Moreland,
Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel.

00:22:54.461 --> 00:22:58.131
I knew when I came on the scene
how painful it had to have been

00:22:58.215 --> 00:23:03.053
for them to say some of those words
and behave in some of those ways.

00:23:03.762 --> 00:23:05.722
Jeff, you're the laziest man I ever saw.

00:23:06.306 --> 00:23:10.060
Oh, Mr. Frank, I ain't lazy.
I is just relackatin'.

00:23:10.143 --> 00:23:14.731
Hollywood was
a really insensitive place

00:23:14.815 --> 00:23:16.483
when it came to Black people.

00:23:16.566 --> 00:23:17.859
Wait. Don't leave me here.

00:23:17.943 --> 00:23:20.404
Hattie McDaniel was nominated in 1939,

00:23:20.487 --> 00:23:22.364
and she won in 1939.

00:23:22.447 --> 00:23:25.867
I knew that she was not allowed
in the hotels and all of that.

00:23:26.118 --> 00:23:29.579
And I knew that,
of course, playing a maid,

00:23:30.372 --> 00:23:32.040
brilliantly as she did,

00:23:32.916 --> 00:23:37.587
was about all they really wanted
out of people like her.

00:23:37.671 --> 00:23:38.672
May I say thank you…

00:23:38.755 --> 00:23:43.343
I don't think Sidney ever played
a "subservient" part.

00:23:43.427 --> 00:23:45.512
Never bugged his eyes.

00:23:46.263 --> 00:23:47.556
Never ducked his head.

00:23:48.098 --> 00:23:50.267
Never said anything funny.

00:23:50.350 --> 00:23:52.727
You're watching a man in a world

00:23:52.811 --> 00:23:55.605
where he really doesn't have
a whole lot to say.

00:23:56.648 --> 00:23:59.234
And turns out, yes, he does.

00:24:00.277 --> 00:24:03.155
Every time anybody dies in a county
hospital, somebody yells murder.

00:24:03.238 --> 00:24:04.865
But it's not the same
when they yell it at me.

00:24:04.948 --> 00:24:06.283
It's got to be. You're a doctor.

00:24:06.366 --> 00:24:09.286
They're not yelling at the doctor.
They're yelling at the nigger.

00:24:09.870 --> 00:24:12.414
The movies changed
the day he hits the screen.

00:24:12.497 --> 00:24:13.498
You know what I mean?

00:24:13.582 --> 00:24:15.917
Like, never seen
a brother like this before.

00:24:16.001 --> 00:24:17.002
He-- Yeah. I mean,

00:24:17.085 --> 00:24:20.255
he carved out something
that was just without precedent.

00:24:20.797 --> 00:24:22.549
I had things driving me.

00:24:23.049 --> 00:24:25.760
I came from a very poor family.
Very, very poor family.

00:24:25.844 --> 00:24:28.680
And I came from a poor,
uneducated family in the Caribbean.

00:24:29.181 --> 00:24:33.643
And my poor, uneducated family
in the Caribbean looked on America

00:24:33.727 --> 00:24:36.062
as a place where there is gold
in the streets.

00:24:36.897 --> 00:24:40.484
And once you've gathered some of it,
you certainly should send some home.

00:24:41.276 --> 00:24:43.278
And because
I couldn't send gold back home,

00:24:43.361 --> 00:24:47.282
I developed a terrible,
neurotic attitude towards home.

00:24:47.365 --> 00:24:48.450
I cut home off.

00:24:48.533 --> 00:24:52.078
I didn't write because I couldn't
put anything in the envelope.

00:24:52.162 --> 00:24:55.499
He has this really deep love
and respect for his parents,

00:24:55.582 --> 00:24:58.210
and I think that's always, like,
weighed on him a little bit,

00:24:58.293 --> 00:24:59.961
that he spent eight years away.

00:25:01.296 --> 00:25:04.799
I saw my mother and father
for the first time in eight years.

00:25:04.883 --> 00:25:07.511
The family was able to gather
in a theater in Nassau

00:25:07.594 --> 00:25:10.722
to see the first picture I ever made,
No Way Out.

00:25:10.805 --> 00:25:12.224
Yes, it's very important.

00:25:12.307 --> 00:25:13.642
For my parents,

00:25:13.725 --> 00:25:16.645
it was the first time
they had ever seen a movie.

00:25:17.145 --> 00:25:20.398
It must have been something
like a fantasy for them. A dream.

00:25:20.482 --> 00:25:24.486
I'm not entirely sure how much
they grasped of the concept.

00:25:24.569 --> 00:25:27.113
They were absolutely enthralled.

00:25:27.197 --> 00:25:32.035
Letting go with "That's my kid!"
and all that kind of stuff.

00:25:32.619 --> 00:25:37.582
After that initial burst of success,
I was back in Harlem washing dishes.

00:25:37.666 --> 00:25:39.000
Despite the setback,

00:25:39.084 --> 00:25:41.711
I still had faith in myself
and faith in the future.

00:25:41.795 --> 00:25:45.215
Enough of each to marry
a beautiful young girl named Juanita,

00:25:45.465 --> 00:25:48.093
and try to get on with my life.

00:25:48.176 --> 00:25:51.346
Soon our first child was born,

00:25:51.429 --> 00:25:53.807
and then another was on the way.

00:25:54.516 --> 00:25:57.602
I think that my mother was
a total optimist,

00:25:57.686 --> 00:26:00.230
and my father was a bit of a pessimist.

00:26:01.022 --> 00:26:04.651
But her optimism overwhelmed him.

00:26:04.734 --> 00:26:08.196
And I think that
her being able to read people,

00:26:08.280 --> 00:26:09.823
he was fascinated by that.

00:26:09.906 --> 00:26:13.785
And the fact that she just--
she loved people unconditionally

00:26:13.868 --> 00:26:16.079
captivated his imagination.

00:26:17.622 --> 00:26:22.168
I was the only girl
and the only Black person

00:26:23.336 --> 00:26:25.880
in my class at Columbia University.

00:26:25.964 --> 00:26:28.550
I had two strikes against me, so…

00:26:29.301 --> 00:26:32.012
I had written an essay

00:26:32.095 --> 00:26:36.474
about the Black and white situation
in the United States.

00:26:36.558 --> 00:26:39.519
They said, "Well,
where did you get these ideas from?"

00:26:39.603 --> 00:26:42.105
I said, "From the people who lived it."

00:26:42.188 --> 00:26:46.359
When I met Sidney,
he had only been to the third grade.

00:26:46.443 --> 00:26:49.362
He was always out there to learn.

00:26:49.446 --> 00:26:51.323
He needed to know

00:26:51.406 --> 00:26:55.660
everything he could get his mind on.

00:26:56.703 --> 00:27:00.915
And I was trying to feed him all the time

00:27:00.999 --> 00:27:03.668
the things that I felt that he didn't know

00:27:03.752 --> 00:27:05.879
that it would help him if he knew.

00:27:05.962 --> 00:27:09.382
Then he could start feeling and reacting

00:27:09.466 --> 00:27:12.260
to the movies that he was offered.

00:27:12.344 --> 00:27:14.596
I said, "Everything is not about money."

00:27:15.347 --> 00:27:19.893
He got offered a role in a film.
I think it was by Marty Baum.

00:27:19.976 --> 00:27:23.188
And he turned it down.

00:27:23.271 --> 00:27:25.732
And Marty Baum was like,
"I'm sorry. I don't understand.

00:27:25.815 --> 00:27:29.903
Like, this is gonna pay you
more money than you make in a year."

00:27:30.487 --> 00:27:32.447
My second daughter was about to be born.

00:27:32.530 --> 00:27:33.657
My second child.

00:27:34.324 --> 00:27:35.617
And I didn't have the money.

00:27:37.661 --> 00:27:39.913
The part called for me as a janitor,

00:27:39.996 --> 00:27:42.332
which is--
nothing wrong with playing janitors.

00:27:42.415 --> 00:27:45.919
But in this particular script,
a murder took place.

00:27:46.419 --> 00:27:49.339
And the murderers, or the people
who knew about the mur--

00:27:49.422 --> 00:27:52.092
or who were associated with the murderers,

00:27:52.967 --> 00:27:56.179
felt that I, the janitor,
had witnessed it.

00:27:56.262 --> 00:28:00.433
In the narrative,
the janitor's daughter is murdered,

00:28:01.184 --> 00:28:06.690
and the janitor has no recourse
to speak about how he feels

00:28:06.773 --> 00:28:10.443
about his daughter's body
being thrown upon the lawn.

00:28:10.527 --> 00:28:11.986
They're not gonna change the script

00:28:12.070 --> 00:28:14.489
to give him some kind of reaction to that.

00:28:16.157 --> 00:28:17.325
And he said,

00:28:17.409 --> 00:28:21.037
"Reginald Poitier would never allow

00:28:21.121 --> 00:28:24.541
a child of his to be thrown upon the lawn

00:28:24.624 --> 00:28:26.668
and not have something to say about it."

00:28:26.751 --> 00:28:29.295
He wanted to make sure
that whatever he did in life,

00:28:29.713 --> 00:28:32.173
reflected well on his father.

00:28:32.674 --> 00:28:34.968
He said that when he looked up

00:28:35.051 --> 00:28:39.931
and saw his name on the screen
or on the marquee,

00:28:40.014 --> 00:28:42.517
it was not his name.
It was his father's name.

00:28:43.101 --> 00:28:44.894
I cannot play that

00:28:46.020 --> 00:28:51.025
if I'm the son of the man I believe I am.

00:28:51.860 --> 00:28:53.528
I could not play that

00:28:53.611 --> 00:28:59.117
if my mother is the mother
that I think she was.

00:28:59.200 --> 00:29:01.911
And so he turns it down.

00:29:02.620 --> 00:29:06.249
He turns it down and goes out
and takes a loan

00:29:06.332 --> 00:29:08.960
so that he can pay for his baby
in the hospital.

00:29:09.461 --> 00:29:12.547
He did what he had to do

00:29:13.047 --> 00:29:18.011
because not so much of
what people expected out of him

00:29:18.094 --> 00:29:20.889
but what he expected out of himself.

00:29:21.431 --> 00:29:25.935
My faithfulness to my values
belongs to my mom.

00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:33.777
And to my dad.

00:29:45.246 --> 00:29:48.541
First you duck, and then you cover.

00:29:50.877 --> 00:29:53.797
The Cold War
after World War II produced

00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:57.217
a kind of paranoia in America
about communism

00:29:57.300 --> 00:30:00.345
that impacted every aspect
of American life.

00:30:00.428 --> 00:30:05.308
The communist underground directed
its agents, in effect,

00:30:05.391 --> 00:30:07.519
to infiltrate Hollywood

00:30:07.602 --> 00:30:11.231
and to do everything possible
to poison the screen.

00:30:11.314 --> 00:30:13.650
They are enemies! They are not Americans.

00:30:13.733 --> 00:30:15.360
-They're homosexuals.
-That's right!

00:30:15.443 --> 00:30:16.861
-They're communists!
-They are!

00:30:16.945 --> 00:30:18.363
They're communists!

00:30:18.446 --> 00:30:21.199
Even if there were only one communist
in the State Department

00:30:21.282 --> 00:30:24.285
that would still be
one communist too many.

00:30:24.369 --> 00:30:27.455
I remember that period
'cause I was just getting to college

00:30:27.539 --> 00:30:28.706
at Howard University.

00:30:28.790 --> 00:30:31.543
I saw the McCarthy hearings

00:30:31.626 --> 00:30:34.796
on the first television set I'd seen,

00:30:34.879 --> 00:30:37.215
which was in the dormitory lounge.

00:30:37.298 --> 00:30:38.675
It was really scary.

00:30:38.758 --> 00:30:40.760
The requirement of a loyalty oath

00:30:40.844 --> 00:30:43.346
becomes increasingly widespread
in the government

00:30:43.429 --> 00:30:44.597
and throughout the nation.

00:30:45.181 --> 00:30:49.310
There were lists made of possible
communists or communist sympathizers.

00:30:49.394 --> 00:30:51.855
So many people didn't make it
through that, Paul Robeson being one.

00:30:51.938 --> 00:30:55.233
Have you come back from
Moscow still a convinced communist?

00:30:55.316 --> 00:30:57.819
I don't see how you can ask me that.
How do you know I'm a communist?

00:30:57.902 --> 00:30:59.320
-Nobody else knows.
-Are you?

00:30:59.404 --> 00:31:01.364
-So I resent the question.
-I beg your pardon.

00:31:01.447 --> 00:31:03.074
Will you rephrase it, please? Yes.

00:31:09.080 --> 00:31:11.165
Paul Robeson was as significant

00:31:11.249 --> 00:31:14.711
an African American cultural figure
in the 1930s as existed.

00:31:14.794 --> 00:31:17.505
He stood atop of
this world of Black entertainment

00:31:17.589 --> 00:31:19.507
that people like Sidney Poitier
and Harry Belafonte

00:31:19.591 --> 00:31:20.592
were becoming a part of.

00:31:20.675 --> 00:31:23.011
And they very much admired Paul Robeson.

00:31:25.013 --> 00:31:27.098
Well, he had America on his butt

00:31:27.181 --> 00:31:29.893
because he was supportive
of the proletariat.

00:31:29.976 --> 00:31:31.895
"Yeah, but they're communists." So?

00:31:33.104 --> 00:31:36.858
Robeson becomes
an interesting dual template

00:31:37.567 --> 00:31:40.403
for Poitier and Belafonte

00:31:40.486 --> 00:31:45.783
you know, as to which side of the line
are you going to fight on.

00:31:48.286 --> 00:31:50.830
Robeson was blackballed,
and not only was he blackballed,

00:31:50.914 --> 00:31:52.540
but when he could've gone
to Europe to work,

00:31:52.624 --> 00:31:54.417
the American government
took his passport away.

00:31:54.500 --> 00:31:58.630
We have seen that people
will so fight for their freedom

00:31:58.713 --> 00:32:02.050
that if it is not given to them,
they will take it.

00:32:02.133 --> 00:32:06.804
So for Sidney, he saw
how Paul Robeson was disrespected

00:32:06.888 --> 00:32:08.640
and the abuse he took.

00:32:09.223 --> 00:32:12.769
And when you see something like that…

00:32:14.312 --> 00:32:16.272
it's like a-- can be a road map.

00:32:16.856 --> 00:32:20.485
Yeah, well, just try and
pay attention, Santini.

00:32:20.568 --> 00:32:21.861
I pay attention.

00:32:26.199 --> 00:32:29.285
Hey, Miller. Come here.
I want to talk to you a minute, Miller.

00:32:29.369 --> 00:32:31.621
What film was it, Blackboard Jungle?

00:32:31.704 --> 00:32:33.164
You were asked to sign a loyalty oath.

00:32:33.247 --> 00:32:34.999
-Several times.
-Why was that?

00:32:35.333 --> 00:32:38.920
Well, I think mainly
because I knew Paul Robeson,

00:32:39.003 --> 00:32:42.423
and my admiration was not
a well-kept secret.

00:32:42.507 --> 00:32:45.760
That seemed to have been enough
to make me suspect.

00:32:46.386 --> 00:32:48.096
Now, don't be modest with me, Miller.

00:32:48.179 --> 00:32:49.514
You know you're a little brighter,

00:32:49.597 --> 00:32:51.349
a little smarter
than the rest of those guys.

00:32:51.432 --> 00:32:52.642
-Me?
-Yeah.

00:32:53.226 --> 00:32:54.936
And every class needs a leader.

00:32:55.019 --> 00:32:57.271
Poitier appeared
on the pages of Counterattack,

00:32:57.355 --> 00:33:00.274
which was this
conservative watchdog publication

00:33:00.358 --> 00:33:03.695
that looked to investigate
the various leftist associations

00:33:03.778 --> 00:33:05.488
of various figures
in American public life.

00:33:05.571 --> 00:33:08.992
Clearly someone had been keeping tabs
on Poitier throughout the 1950s.

00:33:09.575 --> 00:33:12.036
At that time,
there was the politics of filmmaking

00:33:12.120 --> 00:33:14.330
that required that, if you wanted to work,

00:33:14.414 --> 00:33:17.458
you had to be on very good terms

00:33:17.542 --> 00:33:21.421
with whatever forces
were putting people on blacklists.

00:33:21.504 --> 00:33:22.505
You said no.

00:33:23.840 --> 00:33:24.966
Let's go, bright boy.

00:33:25.591 --> 00:33:27.552
Hey, wait. He means me.

00:33:28.052 --> 00:33:30.763
You're gonna jeopardize
your career and everything.

00:33:30.847 --> 00:33:34.350
Yeah, well, there are some
things that you have to say no to.

00:33:34.434 --> 00:33:38.146
My integrity was more important
than to play politics.

00:33:38.896 --> 00:33:41.774
It's brave. I mean,
when everything was on the line--

00:33:42.066 --> 00:33:43.901
He could've easily been blackballed.

00:33:43.985 --> 00:33:48.239
I could only imagine in those days
what it was like to speak out.

00:33:50.658 --> 00:33:52.243
Of all my father's teachings,

00:33:52.326 --> 00:33:56.789
the most enduring was the one
about the true measure of a man.

00:33:57.290 --> 00:34:01.085
That true measure was how well
he provided for his children.

00:34:01.169 --> 00:34:05.214
And it stuck with me
as if it were etched in my brain.

00:34:05.882 --> 00:34:07.925
I didn't know where I was going next,

00:34:08.009 --> 00:34:11.220
but I knew that failure wasn't an option.

00:34:12.388 --> 00:34:14.974
That's when I got the call
from Richard Brooks

00:34:15.058 --> 00:34:17.602
to make Something of Value in Kenya.

00:34:17.685 --> 00:34:20.813
And from there, my career really took off.

00:34:20.897 --> 00:34:24.358
Did I say to myself,
"This country is waking up

00:34:24.442 --> 00:34:28.279
and beginning to recognize
that certain changes are inevitable"?

00:34:28.905 --> 00:34:30.406
No, I did not.

00:34:30.490 --> 00:34:34.535
The moment
a Negro child walks into the school,

00:34:34.619 --> 00:34:38.372
every decent,
self-respecting, loving parent

00:34:38.456 --> 00:34:41.876
should take his white child
out of that broken school.

00:34:43.044 --> 00:34:45.922
This was still 1950 America,

00:34:46.172 --> 00:34:47.673
an America in which

00:34:47.757 --> 00:34:50.968
a career like this
had never even been dreamed of.

00:34:51.052 --> 00:34:55.098
It had never happened before
in the history of the movie business.

00:34:55.181 --> 00:34:57.350
A Black leading man.

00:35:02.730 --> 00:35:05.566
You heard what the man said, nigger.
Now shut up.

00:35:09.695 --> 00:35:12.365
You call me nigger again, Joker,
and I'm gonna kill you.

00:35:12.990 --> 00:35:14.200
Make your move.

00:35:15.451 --> 00:35:16.869
Look out!

00:35:25.169 --> 00:35:28.506
I've always
thought there was a great connection

00:35:28.589 --> 00:35:31.092
to Jews and Blacks.

00:35:31.175 --> 00:35:35.680
When I saw The Defiant Ones,
Tony Curtis, the Jew,

00:35:35.763 --> 00:35:39.225
and Sidney Poitier, who was Black--

00:35:39.308 --> 00:35:43.229
And it just had this chemistry
about, almost, people in chains.

00:35:43.312 --> 00:35:45.815
We know about that in our DNA.

00:35:46.774 --> 00:35:49.902
The Defiant Ones.
That was the first one I ever saw.

00:35:49.986 --> 00:35:51.904
And, man, it was impactful.

00:35:51.988 --> 00:35:55.449
To this day, I still remember
him saying to Tony Curtis,

00:35:55.533 --> 00:35:57.827
"I got a needle sticking in me.
Don't call me 'boy.'"

00:35:57.910 --> 00:36:00.746
Yeah. And I got a needle
sticking in me right now.

00:36:00.830 --> 00:36:02.498
Look, Joker, don't call me "boy."

00:36:03.082 --> 00:36:05.168
It was the first time I had really seen

00:36:05.251 --> 00:36:09.797
a Black man assert his power
and command respect

00:36:10.298 --> 00:36:11.716
from a white man on film.

00:36:11.799 --> 00:36:15.678
That moment in the film
where Sidney makes the decision…

00:36:19.557 --> 00:36:22.059
to sacrifice his possible freedom…

00:36:22.143 --> 00:36:23.394
Come on!

00:36:23.477 --> 00:36:26.439
I can't make it!

00:36:26.522 --> 00:36:28.232
…to save his white friend…

00:36:33.905 --> 00:36:37.950
is something that Black people
still don't like and still don't believe.

00:36:38.451 --> 00:36:39.785
It's a magic Negro moment,

00:36:39.869 --> 00:36:42.538
which was basically
a trope that happened--

00:36:42.622 --> 00:36:45.583
The Defiant Ones is
one of the most prime examples

00:36:45.666 --> 00:36:49.462
of a Black character sacrificing
their well-being

00:36:49.545 --> 00:36:50.880
or risking something

00:36:50.963 --> 00:36:52.506
or going out of their way

00:36:52.590 --> 00:36:55.635
to help a white character
in a moment of distress.

00:36:55.718 --> 00:37:01.390
And that was a huge trope
in Hollywood storytelling for years.

00:37:01.891 --> 00:37:04.310
And it was a way, to them,

00:37:04.393 --> 00:37:07.146
of showing the humanity
and the empathy of Black people

00:37:07.230 --> 00:37:08.898
even in the face of their struggles.

00:37:10.024 --> 00:37:13.611
But to Black people, it seemed like,
"Yo, these people are punks."

00:37:13.694 --> 00:37:16.614
I questioned it just a little bit.

00:37:17.281 --> 00:37:19.825
"What would I have done?" You know?

00:37:22.203 --> 00:37:23.704
Probably would've jumped off too.

00:37:25.122 --> 00:37:27.416
We've been through all of this
chained together.

00:37:29.168 --> 00:37:31.045
I'm not gonna let you go by yourself.

00:37:32.004 --> 00:37:34.006
James Baldwin was on the program.

00:37:34.090 --> 00:37:37.260
And he says, "Defiant Ones?
Middle-class whites loved it,

00:37:37.343 --> 00:37:38.928
but in Uptown, in the Black community,

00:37:39.011 --> 00:37:41.222
they hollered,
'Get back on that train, you fool!'"

00:37:41.847 --> 00:37:43.224
What's your reaction to that?

00:37:43.307 --> 00:37:44.892
I have no reaction to that.

00:37:44.976 --> 00:37:47.561
Listen, the picture then was
a revolutionary film.

00:37:47.645 --> 00:37:49.021
-It was.
-You know?

00:37:49.105 --> 00:37:51.941
It stands today as a revolutionary film.

00:37:52.733 --> 00:37:54.402
We're doing all right, Joker.

00:37:54.485 --> 00:37:55.486
Yeah.

00:37:57.280 --> 00:37:58.906
Defiant Ones was the movie

00:37:58.990 --> 00:38:01.826
that would help to define
Sidney Poitier as we know him, right,

00:38:01.909 --> 00:38:03.828
as this incredibly powerful actor.

00:38:03.911 --> 00:38:07.290
Alongside Tony Curtis, their names
appeared above the name of the film,

00:38:07.373 --> 00:38:10.626
which was the symbol of becoming
a genuine Hollywood leading man.

00:38:11.085 --> 00:38:14.964
My dad and Tony Curtis
were both nominated for Oscars.

00:38:15.047 --> 00:38:18.134
It was the first time a Black person
had been nominated for an Oscar

00:38:18.217 --> 00:38:19.468
since Hattie McDaniel.

00:38:19.552 --> 00:38:21.887
The fact that my dad came home
with this plaque

00:38:21.971 --> 00:38:25.558
that said he was nominated,
that he could put up on the wall,

00:38:25.641 --> 00:38:26.934
was a big deal for him.

00:38:28.019 --> 00:38:29.979
The amount of media attention,

00:38:30.062 --> 00:38:32.648
the profiles, magazine covers…

00:38:32.732 --> 00:38:35.693
He's on the cover of Ebony magazine.
He's clearly emerged as a star.

00:38:38.738 --> 00:38:41.365
He was beautiful in many ways.

00:38:41.449 --> 00:38:43.617
First of all, what smile is like that?

00:38:43.701 --> 00:38:46.537
Maybe only Brando's. Come on.

00:38:50.833 --> 00:38:53.461
I mean, part of Sidney's beauty

00:38:53.544 --> 00:38:56.964
is he's like a walking Yoruba mask.

00:38:57.048 --> 00:38:59.091
You know what I mean? Like Benin bronze.

00:38:59.675 --> 00:39:00.885
He's so sculptural.

00:39:00.968 --> 00:39:03.804
He was, like, this gorgeous creature.

00:39:03.888 --> 00:39:07.475
I wanted to marry Sidney Poitier.
You know what I mean?

00:39:07.558 --> 00:39:12.897
He was definitely my idea
of what a perfect Black man would be.

00:39:12.980 --> 00:39:14.523
Sidney had conviction.

00:39:15.024 --> 00:39:19.987
And he understood what imagery
is about, the power of imagery.

00:39:20.654 --> 00:39:22.782
I have seen people cry.

00:39:22.865 --> 00:39:24.700
I have seen women swoon.

00:39:24.784 --> 00:39:26.869
I've seen their husbands swoon.

00:39:26.952 --> 00:39:31.415
I've seen everybody
sort of melt in his presence.

00:39:31.999 --> 00:39:35.795
He was so elegant, so statuesque.

00:39:35.878 --> 00:39:39.757
He was, like, "wow."
Movie stars should be "wow."

00:39:43.844 --> 00:39:47.390
I did Raisin in the Sun in 1959.
So I got to know Sidney pretty well.

00:39:47.473 --> 00:39:49.725
We got to know one another very well.

00:39:53.938 --> 00:39:55.856
Every Black person had read
Raisin in the Sun

00:39:55.940 --> 00:39:58.234
because that was
one of those plays you read

00:39:58.317 --> 00:40:00.528
when they started letting us read
Black stuff at school.

00:40:08.577 --> 00:40:12.289
Sidney had bought me
a mink coat or something.

00:40:12.790 --> 00:40:15.084
And I said,
"I don't need a mink coat.

00:40:15.167 --> 00:40:16.627
I just want to…"

00:40:17.169 --> 00:40:20.005
So I took it back to the store,
and I got the money

00:40:20.089 --> 00:40:23.217
and invested it in Raisin in the Sun.

00:40:23.300 --> 00:40:25.469
And I was the largest investor

00:40:25.553 --> 00:40:28.597
in the play that he was doing on Broadway.

00:40:29.223 --> 00:40:30.808
I had done Broadway before.

00:40:30.891 --> 00:40:32.768
Didn't know
whether it was gonna be good or bad.

00:40:32.852 --> 00:40:33.686
It felt good.

00:40:33.769 --> 00:40:36.355
The first act intermission,
when the curtain went down,

00:40:36.439 --> 00:40:37.606
you could hear a pin drop.

00:40:38.190 --> 00:40:40.067
We thought it was a failure.

00:40:40.151 --> 00:40:42.361
By the time we got to
the second intermission,

00:40:42.903 --> 00:40:47.408
that audience was so involved with us
that by the time the play was over,

00:40:48.075 --> 00:40:49.326
there was a--

00:40:49.410 --> 00:40:53.122
A breath of fresh air,
a scream, a "Bravo!"

00:40:53.205 --> 00:40:54.290
It was amazing.

00:40:55.040 --> 00:40:57.751
I knew for certain
that I was meant to be an actor

00:40:57.835 --> 00:41:00.713
when the curtain came down
on opening night in New York.

00:41:00.796 --> 00:41:03.132
After all the doubts that had accumulated

00:41:03.215 --> 00:41:04.925
since that serendipitous meeting

00:41:05.009 --> 00:41:08.179
between myself and that gentleman
at the American Negro Theatre,

00:41:08.262 --> 00:41:10.389
when he threw me out and slammed the door,

00:41:10.973 --> 00:41:13.100
that night I knew for certain

00:41:13.184 --> 00:41:17.563
that I had just been formally
introduced to my true calling.

00:41:17.646 --> 00:41:18.814
I was an actor.

00:41:20.691 --> 00:41:22.359
I got me some plans, man.

00:41:22.443 --> 00:41:26.071
I got me some plans
that'll turn this city upside down.

00:41:26.155 --> 00:41:27.156
You know what I mean?

00:41:27.239 --> 00:41:29.742
There's the film made the next year

00:41:29.825 --> 00:41:31.577
that brings the play
to a much wider audience.

00:41:31.660 --> 00:41:34.038
It is arguably Poitier's
most electric performance.

00:41:34.121 --> 00:41:37.917
And it's no accident that it is
a role written by an African American

00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:40.002
in the tumult
of the early Civil Rights Movement,

00:41:40.085 --> 00:41:41.420
unlike so many of his roles,

00:41:41.504 --> 00:41:44.381
which are written by white,
male, liberal screenwriters.

00:41:44.465 --> 00:41:46.258
Lorraine Hansberry is able to tap into

00:41:46.342 --> 00:41:48.677
a certain authenticity
of the Black experience

00:41:48.761 --> 00:41:50.804
that none of those other
Hollywood screenwriters could.

00:41:50.888 --> 00:41:54.767
-I know you are a busy little boy.
-Walter, please.

00:41:56.185 --> 00:42:00.022
I know ain't nothing in the world
as busy as you colored college boys

00:42:00.105 --> 00:42:02.274
with your fraternity pins
and your white shoes.

00:42:02.358 --> 00:42:03.192
Oh, Wally.

00:42:03.275 --> 00:42:05.903
I see you all the time with
your books tucked under your arm,

00:42:05.986 --> 00:42:08.113
going to your classes.

00:42:08.739 --> 00:42:11.450
What are you learning down there?
What are they filling your head with?

00:42:11.534 --> 00:42:15.746
The kind of ceiling on the possibilities
that-- that Black people had,

00:42:15.829 --> 00:42:19.208
and especially sort of aggressive
young Black men had at that time--

00:42:19.291 --> 00:42:21.710
It's right there. And you--
He really embodies that.

00:42:21.794 --> 00:42:25.506
So, there's not a huge difference
from Sidney in Raisin in the Sun

00:42:25.589 --> 00:42:28.968
to see, you know,
the kids in Boyz n the Hood.

00:42:29.051 --> 00:42:31.804
You know, man, you are
all wacked up with bitterness.

00:42:33.597 --> 00:42:35.349
How about you? Ain't you bitter, man?

00:42:35.849 --> 00:42:39.353
Don't you see no stars gleaming that
you can't reach out and grab, huh?

00:42:40.396 --> 00:42:41.397
I'm talking--

00:42:44.108 --> 00:42:45.109
Bitter?

00:42:46.026 --> 00:42:49.363
I'm a volcano. I'm a giant,
and I'm surrounded by ants.

00:42:49.446 --> 00:42:52.283
Ants who don't even know
what I'm talking about. How's that?

00:42:52.366 --> 00:42:55.703
It's an art of making a moment
and knowing what you're gonna do

00:42:55.786 --> 00:42:57.454
and knowing where the camera's going to be

00:42:57.538 --> 00:42:58.706
and learning all those moves.

00:42:58.789 --> 00:43:00.457
He had it all figured out.

00:43:00.541 --> 00:43:03.460
Very difficult not to copy that man.

00:43:07.923 --> 00:43:09.758
The first time I would've met Sidney,

00:43:09.842 --> 00:43:11.135
I would've been quite young,

00:43:11.218 --> 00:43:14.096
because he and my aunt Diahann
were together.

00:43:14.179 --> 00:43:15.431
So I would have been five.

00:43:15.931 --> 00:43:19.059
I really learned about that relationship

00:43:19.768 --> 00:43:24.148
when I read Sidney's book
when I was much older,

00:43:24.773 --> 00:43:29.528
because Aunt Diahann didn't really
talk about that at that point.

00:43:30.029 --> 00:43:34.241
As I got older, there were
conversations that were had,

00:43:35.034 --> 00:43:36.535
where it was appropriate now.

00:43:37.286 --> 00:43:40.080
I was surprised 'cause
I didn't know it was like that.

00:43:40.623 --> 00:43:42.916
There were a lot of feelings involved.

00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:45.002
It's a very sexy movie.

00:43:45.085 --> 00:43:47.379
The black and white is gorgeous.

00:43:47.463 --> 00:43:49.548
Paris, the city, is gorgeous.

00:43:49.632 --> 00:43:53.052
You're in these caves--
in these jazz caves, you know?

00:43:53.135 --> 00:43:54.303
You've got Paul Newman.

00:43:55.471 --> 00:43:57.181
And you've got my aunt Diahann,

00:43:57.264 --> 00:44:02.019
who is the most stunning woman
you've ever seen in that film.

00:44:02.102 --> 00:44:04.688
He and Diahann Carroll are
one of the most beautiful couples

00:44:04.772 --> 00:44:06.023
in cinema history.

00:44:06.106 --> 00:44:07.316
They have these trench coats,

00:44:07.399 --> 00:44:09.401
and they're walking at night
through Paris.

00:44:09.485 --> 00:44:12.780
And they're bantering about
the Civil Rights Movement and love.

00:44:12.863 --> 00:44:15.699
You stick around Paris for a while
and stretch a bit.

00:44:15.783 --> 00:44:18.160
Sit down for lunch somewhere
without getting clubbed for it.

00:44:18.243 --> 00:44:20.287
And you'll wake up one day,
look across the ocean,

00:44:20.371 --> 00:44:21.747
and you'll say, "Who needs it?"

00:44:22.247 --> 00:44:26.251
As Poitier is becoming
this symbol to the entire country,

00:44:26.335 --> 00:44:28.712
he's also undergoing this personal crisis.

00:44:28.796 --> 00:44:29.797
On the one hand,

00:44:29.880 --> 00:44:32.424
he feels an intense connection
and a love with Diahann Carroll

00:44:32.508 --> 00:44:34.426
that he feels is missing
from his marriage.

00:44:34.510 --> 00:44:35.969
On the other hand, he's a father.

00:44:36.053 --> 00:44:38.639
And he has the lessons
of Reginald Poitier, his father,

00:44:38.722 --> 00:44:41.225
that say the measure of a man is
how you provide for your family.

00:44:41.308 --> 00:44:44.645
Is he abandoning those values
by engaging in this affair?

00:44:45.354 --> 00:44:47.106
I can't let you go.

00:44:48.315 --> 00:44:49.692
Then come with me.

00:44:50.859 --> 00:44:53.112
By the end of the filming of Paris Blues,

00:44:53.195 --> 00:44:53.946
they were still both in flux.

00:44:54.154 --> 00:44:56.573
He was busy. He said he had to go.

00:44:56.657 --> 00:45:00.244
He couldn't stay out at the house

00:45:00.327 --> 00:45:03.997
because he needed to get an apartment
so he could write.

00:45:04.081 --> 00:45:06.417
He was writing now and so forth.

00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:09.336
And, of course, it turned out

00:45:09.420 --> 00:45:12.089
it was something else

00:45:12.172 --> 00:45:15.384
and not what he said.

00:45:22.349 --> 00:45:24.560
Freedom Now Movement, hear me.

00:45:25.853 --> 00:45:29.189
We are requesting all citizens
to move into Washington.

00:45:29.273 --> 00:45:31.859
To go by plane, car, bus.

00:45:31.942 --> 00:45:33.527
Any way that you can get there.

00:45:42.661 --> 00:45:46.206
Negroes want the same things
that white citizens possess.

00:45:46.290 --> 00:45:47.624
All of their rights.

00:45:47.708 --> 00:45:50.335
Freedom!

00:46:03.682 --> 00:46:06.727
The whole purpose of
this march is to demonstrate support

00:46:06.810 --> 00:46:09.605
for President Kennedy's Civil Rights Bill.

00:46:09.688 --> 00:46:12.566
We were really a Southern Black movement

00:46:12.649 --> 00:46:14.943
until 1963 in August.

00:46:15.027 --> 00:46:19.364
It was not only Dr. King
relating the dreams

00:46:19.448 --> 00:46:21.575
of African Americans in the South,

00:46:21.658 --> 00:46:26.455
but it was the presence
of the stars of Hollywood.

00:46:42.930 --> 00:46:47.351
Harry and Sidney Poitier made this
a global event.

00:46:47.434 --> 00:46:49.603
And that was before
Martin Luther King said a word.

00:46:51.605 --> 00:46:54.399
Dr. King did not know Marlon Brando.

00:46:55.609 --> 00:46:57.694
He did not know Paul Newman.

00:46:58.821 --> 00:47:03.116
Hollywood stars who marched
with Dr. King movements.

00:47:03.200 --> 00:47:07.371
And it was Sidney and Harry.
That's the connection.

00:47:07.454 --> 00:47:09.248
I noticed today, all day long,

00:47:09.331 --> 00:47:11.667
in all of the speeches,
on all of the placards,

00:47:11.750 --> 00:47:15.212
I saw the word or heard the word
"now, now, now," repeatedly.

00:47:15.295 --> 00:47:16.296
-Insistently.
-Now!

00:47:16.380 --> 00:47:20.509
The urgency that was evident today
has been bubbling in me, personally,

00:47:20.592 --> 00:47:21.802
for most of these years.

00:47:21.885 --> 00:47:24.346
At least, most of the years
I came into adulthood.

00:47:24.429 --> 00:47:26.390
I became interested
in the Civil Rights struggle

00:47:26.473 --> 00:47:28.225
out of a necessity to survive.

00:47:28.308 --> 00:47:32.813
And I think my interest started
many years ago,

00:47:32.896 --> 00:47:36.650
never as intensely, however,
as it exists today.

00:47:36.733 --> 00:47:38.318
Gentlemen, I think that it's about time…

00:47:38.402 --> 00:47:41.113
In terms of Sidney's activism,
I was not only impressed,

00:47:41.196 --> 00:47:42.614
but I was inspired by it,

00:47:42.698 --> 00:47:46.285
'cause I thought, "Well,
I can do that too. In my own way.

00:47:46.368 --> 00:47:49.246
I'll have to find my own way,
but I can do that, you know?

00:47:49.329 --> 00:47:51.540
I have a voice. I can use it."

00:47:51.623 --> 00:47:53.458
He was up against tremendous odds.

00:47:53.542 --> 00:47:55.669
You knew he was gonna get
accused by people saying,

00:47:55.752 --> 00:47:56.795
"Who are you to speak out?"

00:47:56.879 --> 00:47:58.338
Just not fair.

00:47:58.422 --> 00:48:00.674
He had a voice.
He had every right to use it.

00:48:00.757 --> 00:48:02.676
He had earned that voice.

00:48:02.759 --> 00:48:05.512
And just being an actor doesn't mean
you can't speak out.

00:48:06.013 --> 00:48:10.517
Through the eyes of
the average American, unfortunately,

00:48:11.393 --> 00:48:14.354
it was impossible for them to see me.

00:48:15.063 --> 00:48:18.066
Sometimes I would be pissed about it,

00:48:18.150 --> 00:48:21.778
meaning that I would be unable to change

00:48:22.279 --> 00:48:24.990
the way Black people were used, treated.

00:48:25.574 --> 00:48:28.035
Hollywood was not ready,
at that point,

00:48:28.118 --> 00:48:30.996
for even more than one Black star.

00:48:31.079 --> 00:48:33.582
There's one Black star.
Now, there's other Black actors.

00:48:34.166 --> 00:48:37.669
But for the most part,
it was a very conservative industry

00:48:37.753 --> 00:48:39.713
that had to be dragged into the present,

00:48:39.796 --> 00:48:41.256
and it took them a long time.

00:48:41.757 --> 00:48:44.217
Nobody's grooming, necessarily,

00:48:44.301 --> 00:48:46.511
the next Sidney Poitier,
you know what I mean?

00:48:46.595 --> 00:48:48.722
Sidney's like a-- He's like a complex.

00:48:48.805 --> 00:48:51.808
There's a Sidney Poitier complex.
It's like a matrix.

00:48:51.892 --> 00:48:53.518
And in the way that racism works,

00:48:53.602 --> 00:48:55.604
it's like it really is, like,
a Highlander thing.

00:48:55.687 --> 00:48:56.980
We got Sidney.

00:48:57.064 --> 00:48:59.775
Like, what do we need other Negroes for?

00:48:59.858 --> 00:49:05.030
He was a race soldier who's leading
the army for everybody else

00:49:05.781 --> 00:49:10.661
but who really, fully got
that he was not defined by his color.

00:49:11.328 --> 00:49:17.042
And he wasn't saying it
as resistance or as explanation.

00:49:17.125 --> 00:49:18.919
It just was a fact.

00:49:19.002 --> 00:49:22.130
There's so much about us and around us

00:49:22.214 --> 00:49:26.426
that has been instrumental
in some of the turns I have made,

00:49:26.510 --> 00:49:28.428
some of the choices I have made.

00:49:28.512 --> 00:49:30.347
And some of those choices were not

00:49:30.430 --> 00:49:35.102
just me looking at the scoreboard
of life and saying,

00:49:35.185 --> 00:49:38.146
"This is what I should do.
This is what I intend to do."

00:49:38.230 --> 00:49:42.567
No. You live according

00:49:42.651 --> 00:49:45.445
to the values that drives you.

00:50:00.127 --> 00:50:02.629
Lilies of the Field is
this low-budget production,

00:50:02.713 --> 00:50:05.132
sort of this modest story
about a Black handyman

00:50:05.215 --> 00:50:08.176
who arrives in the American Southwest
at a nunnery, or a group of nuns,

00:50:08.260 --> 00:50:09.928
and he helps to build them a church.

00:50:10.012 --> 00:50:13.932
God is good.
He has sent me a big, strong man.

00:50:14.016 --> 00:50:16.393
He didn't say anything to me
about sending me anyplace.

00:50:16.476 --> 00:50:17.602
I was just passing by.

00:50:17.686 --> 00:50:20.439
'63, I was six years old.

00:50:20.522 --> 00:50:24.359
I'm like, "Sidney, leave.
Why you messing around with them?"

00:50:25.569 --> 00:50:27.779
"Get in your car." And I was--

00:50:27.863 --> 00:50:30.157
I mean, this is what I thought
at six years old.

00:50:30.240 --> 00:50:36.246
He said, "They can't pay me enough.
They are not offering anything."

00:50:36.329 --> 00:50:38.331
I said, "Sidney, you know what you can do?

00:50:38.415 --> 00:50:41.793
Do the movie not for a salary,

00:50:41.877 --> 00:50:45.839
but do the film as part of ownership."

00:50:45.922 --> 00:50:49.468
He said, "I never thought of that."
I said, "Think and know it."

00:50:49.551 --> 00:50:51.636
The role is
first offered to Harry Belafonte.

00:50:51.720 --> 00:50:52.804
He turns it down. He says,

00:50:52.888 --> 00:50:55.724
"This man doesn't have
any connection to a larger world."

00:50:55.807 --> 00:50:58.185
Terrible movie. Terrible.

00:50:58.268 --> 00:51:00.228
The most awful movie I'd ever read.

00:51:00.312 --> 00:51:03.190
And I turned it down with a great flair.

00:51:03.774 --> 00:51:05.692
And Sidney Poitier took the part.

00:51:06.777 --> 00:51:08.779
He was wonderful in that picture.

00:51:08.862 --> 00:51:11.198
Harry was singing too.
He had another career.

00:51:11.281 --> 00:51:12.866
Harry was doing all right.

00:51:12.949 --> 00:51:14.868
Harry could afford to turn stuff down.

00:51:14.951 --> 00:51:18.246
You could turn stuff down when--
you know, when the house is paid for.

00:51:18.330 --> 00:51:22.626
Not knocking Harry,
but Harry was, you know, Day-O'ing.

00:51:24.211 --> 00:51:25.253
Okay?

00:51:27.631 --> 00:51:29.216
When we were doing Hello, Dolly!

00:51:29.633 --> 00:51:31.218
And they would do…

00:51:34.471 --> 00:51:37.224
So she asked Sidney up when he came.

00:51:37.307 --> 00:51:39.851
And she said, "Come on, Sidney.
Let's do it."

00:51:39.935 --> 00:51:42.896
And he said, "I can't sing!"

00:51:43.396 --> 00:51:44.648
Okay. Now here we go.

00:51:47.567 --> 00:51:49.694
She said, "What are you talking about?

00:51:49.778 --> 00:51:51.947
I saw you hollering
in Lilies of the Field."

00:51:52.030 --> 00:51:53.740
He said, "That was somebody else!"

00:52:00.956 --> 00:52:02.040
Now, come on.

00:52:04.751 --> 00:52:07.796
This tiny, low-budget
film builds an audience over time.

00:52:07.879 --> 00:52:10.298
It plugs into a certain mood
in the country.

00:52:10.382 --> 00:52:11.383
And then in particular

00:52:11.466 --> 00:52:14.344
there's an appreciation
for Poitier's character, Homer Smith,

00:52:14.427 --> 00:52:15.679
and for Poitier's performance.

00:52:15.762 --> 00:52:18.974
This very sweet, endearing style
that he brings to the movie.

00:52:19.057 --> 00:52:21.101
And it just captures the right mood.

00:52:21.184 --> 00:52:22.811
I think the kind of part it was,

00:52:22.894 --> 00:52:27.732
I think it was a lovable, wonderful,
uplifting character,

00:52:27.816 --> 00:52:30.652
the reflection of whom is to be found

00:52:30.735 --> 00:52:33.113
in the better part of all human beings.

00:52:38.034 --> 00:52:39.411
Hollywood's big night.

00:52:39.494 --> 00:52:41.663
For the 36th time,
the world's amusement capital

00:52:41.746 --> 00:52:44.541
recognizes the year's
top artists and achievements

00:52:44.624 --> 00:52:47.335
with the bestowal of the coveted Oscars.

00:52:47.419 --> 00:52:50.380
I was just
a ten-year-old kid in Milwaukee.

00:52:50.463 --> 00:52:52.716
I'm watching this thing
called the Academy Awards,

00:52:52.799 --> 00:52:57.721
and you're seeing people pulling up
in limousines and the whole thing.

00:52:58.305 --> 00:53:01.766
And any time a Black person
was on television,

00:53:01.850 --> 00:53:04.311
I remember literally
getting on the phone going,

00:53:04.394 --> 00:53:06.438
"Colored people on, colored people.
Colored people on!

00:53:06.521 --> 00:53:07.814
Colored people. Turn on now."

00:53:07.898 --> 00:53:09.608
And I'd end up missing whatever it was.

00:53:10.275 --> 00:53:12.444
The nominees for
the best performance by an actor

00:53:12.527 --> 00:53:14.654
are Albert Finney in Tom Jones,

00:53:15.780 --> 00:53:17.782
Richard Harris in This Sporting Life,

00:53:18.909 --> 00:53:20.660
Rex Harrison in Cleopatra,

00:53:22.621 --> 00:53:24.164
Paul Newman in Hud,

00:53:24.998 --> 00:53:27.167
Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field.

00:53:29.169 --> 00:53:31.630
The winner is Sidney Poitier
in Lilies of the Field.

00:53:33.006 --> 00:53:34.424
When my name was called,

00:53:34.507 --> 00:53:36.718
I jumped up saying,

00:53:36.801 --> 00:53:41.097
"I won!"

00:53:41.181 --> 00:53:43.099
Well, I couldn't help that.

00:53:43.683 --> 00:53:46.519
It was an expression of self,

00:53:46.603 --> 00:53:48.897
but it was also an expression

00:53:48.980 --> 00:53:51.274
that belonged to an awful lot of people.

00:53:51.358 --> 00:53:53.026
Can you imagine?

00:53:53.109 --> 00:53:55.779
This was before we had a Civil Rights Act.

00:53:55.862 --> 00:53:57.822
Can you imagine the shock in that room?

00:53:57.906 --> 00:54:02.244
Can you imagine just the sheer joy, magic,

00:54:02.244 --> 00:54:04.913
and something utterly divine
happening in that moment

00:54:04.996 --> 00:54:09.876
that surpassed everything else
that was happening in the culture.

00:54:09.960 --> 00:54:13.046
Mr. Poitier is the first
Negro to win such a high award,

00:54:13.129 --> 00:54:15.757
and the announcement is
received warmly by the audience.

00:54:21.596 --> 00:54:24.182
It was a turning point,

00:54:24.266 --> 00:54:25.850
truly a turning point

00:54:25.934 --> 00:54:29.396
in a Hollywood that had chosen

00:54:29.479 --> 00:54:33.817
to articulate us, Black people,

00:54:34.651 --> 00:54:38.780
as entirely different than we were.

00:54:39.322 --> 00:54:45.287
Because it is a long journey
to this moment,

00:54:46.329 --> 00:54:49.374
I am naturally indebted

00:54:49.457 --> 00:54:53.044
to countless numbers of people.

00:54:53.128 --> 00:54:55.672
He was the great Black hope for me.

00:54:55.755 --> 00:54:58.174
In that moment, he became
the great Black hope for me.

00:54:58.258 --> 00:55:00.552
I remember distinctly feeling

00:55:01.553 --> 00:55:03.847
that if this could happen
to a colored man,

00:55:03.930 --> 00:55:07.058
I wonder what could happen to me.

00:55:07.142 --> 00:55:10.979
All I can say is a very special thank you.

00:55:14.441 --> 00:55:15.900
but Sidney's parents and grandparents

00:55:15.984 --> 00:55:18.278
and going all the way back to slavery.

00:55:18.361 --> 00:55:22.365
Imagine what they felt like
when "he made it."

00:55:29.539 --> 00:55:33.543
To be the first Black man, Bahamian man,

00:55:33.626 --> 00:55:35.462
to win Best Actor

00:55:35.545 --> 00:55:38.757
in a time where that was
virtually impossible,

00:55:38.840 --> 00:55:41.509
you had to be a hundred times better
than everybody else.

00:55:46.222 --> 00:55:48.475
It was extraordinary for the time,

00:55:48.558 --> 00:55:51.728
not so much because I was
that good and I was that pure.

00:55:51.811 --> 00:55:55.106
I was not that good or that pure.

00:55:55.982 --> 00:55:59.486
But there was something in me
that I was carrying forth

00:55:59.569 --> 00:56:01.529
that was in my mom,

00:56:02.113 --> 00:56:07.285
what she did as a mother for my survival.

00:56:09.621 --> 00:56:11.706
I was not expected to live, no.

00:56:11.790 --> 00:56:13.792
I was not expected to live
when I was born.

00:56:13.875 --> 00:56:17.796
I was born two months premature.

00:56:18.296 --> 00:56:21.216
My father left the house
the following morning

00:56:21.299 --> 00:56:24.052
when it was determined
by everyone present,

00:56:24.135 --> 00:56:26.805
including the midwife,
that I would not survive.

00:56:27.889 --> 00:56:33.311
He came back to the house with a shoebox.

00:56:35.730 --> 00:56:36.815
And…

00:56:39.567 --> 00:56:42.445
they were prepared to tuck me away.

00:56:44.030 --> 00:56:46.199
Well, my mother wouldn't hear of it.

00:56:46.282 --> 00:56:48.118
She said, "No, you can't do that."

00:56:48.993 --> 00:56:50.286
And she left the house,

00:56:50.370 --> 00:56:54.958
and she went everywhere she thought
she would find some support.

00:56:55.041 --> 00:56:59.963
And she passed the home of a soothsayer.

00:57:00.046 --> 00:57:03.425
My mother said,
"I have a child that was just born.

00:57:03.508 --> 00:57:05.051
He was a very early birth,

00:57:05.135 --> 00:57:08.263
and I want you to tell me about my son."

00:57:09.514 --> 00:57:14.269
The soothsayer closed her eyes,
and her face began to twitch.

00:57:14.352 --> 00:57:17.397
And her eyes were rolling
back and forth behind her lids.

00:57:19.816 --> 00:57:23.361
And all at once,
the soothsayer's eyes flew open

00:57:23.445 --> 00:57:26.156
and she said, "Don't worry about your son.

00:57:29.492 --> 00:57:30.702
He will survive.

00:57:31.536 --> 00:57:36.958
He will travel to
most of the corners of the earth.

00:57:37.041 --> 00:57:38.626
He will be rich and famous."

00:57:39.461 --> 00:57:42.255
That I would carry her name
all over the world.

00:57:43.465 --> 00:57:46.968
And of all the things she said…

00:57:49.095 --> 00:57:50.722
I have lived them.

00:57:52.974 --> 00:57:57.312
NBC News presents
Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner.

00:57:57.395 --> 00:58:00.231
A special report on
the three workers for civil rights

00:58:00.315 --> 00:58:02.150
still missing in Mississippi.

00:58:02.233 --> 00:58:05.528
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman,
and Michael Schwerner

00:58:05.612 --> 00:58:08.156
went to Mississippi to
help register Negroes as voters.

00:58:08.239 --> 00:58:10.492
I had just gotten into the movement then.

00:58:11.451 --> 00:58:14.162
And I just got off a C truck.

00:58:14.245 --> 00:58:16.915
I knew all of them except for Goodman.

00:58:17.499 --> 00:58:18.958
And they were teachers.

00:58:19.042 --> 00:58:22.253
They taught-- You know,
was teaching people what a vote is,

00:58:22.337 --> 00:58:25.507
how it got to be a vote
because we didn't know.

00:58:25.590 --> 00:58:29.260
For what I can see, they were
teaching the American Dream.

00:58:29.344 --> 00:58:32.472
Vote, and the choice is yours.

00:58:33.181 --> 00:58:35.058
Don't vote, and the choice is theirs.

00:58:35.141 --> 00:58:38.436
Remember to vote, and the choice is yours.

00:58:38.520 --> 00:58:41.356
One time there was a kind of
frightening thing happened to you,

00:58:41.439 --> 00:58:42.482
when you were down south.

00:58:42.565 --> 00:58:44.526
And I've heard vague details of it,
but could you--

00:58:44.609 --> 00:58:46.486
I've never heard you
tell the story of that.

00:58:46.569 --> 00:58:48.655
Sidney and I
have been friends for 26 years.

00:58:49.739 --> 00:58:52.116
I don't think any single
experience has passed between us

00:58:52.200 --> 00:58:55.578
which gave us a greater bond
than that moment.

00:58:56.246 --> 00:58:59.165
My good friend,
Harry Belafonte, called to say,

00:58:59.249 --> 00:59:02.085
"I want you to go with me to Mississippi.

00:59:02.168 --> 00:59:05.421
We have to take some money
down to the Civil Rights Movement."

00:59:05.505 --> 00:59:07.048
The group in that particular area

00:59:07.131 --> 00:59:10.468
was desperately short of funds
and needed the relief.

00:59:10.552 --> 00:59:14.180
We will treat anyone with great
respect here in Mississippi,

00:59:14.264 --> 00:59:17.475
anyone who comes here,
as long as they do not ob--

00:59:17.559 --> 00:59:19.102
disobey our laws.

00:59:19.185 --> 00:59:22.981
Phone calls and threats was
coming in by the day, by the night.

00:59:23.064 --> 00:59:27.777
They wanted to assassinate
Belafonte and Poitier.

00:59:27.860 --> 00:59:28.861
The words they used,

00:59:28.945 --> 00:59:31.489
"We gonna kill them niggers
that come to Greenwood."

00:59:31.573 --> 00:59:33.575
I had assumed that--

00:59:33.658 --> 00:59:35.702
with my association with Bobby Kennedy

00:59:35.785 --> 00:59:38.121
that a phone call
to the Justice Department

00:59:38.204 --> 00:59:41.249
telling them that I would be going
and my whereabouts--

00:59:41.332 --> 00:59:43.501
We would be able
to get federal protection.

00:59:43.585 --> 00:59:44.877
When we got there--

00:59:44.961 --> 00:59:48.339
Absolutely no evidence of
federal marshals or protection.

00:59:48.423 --> 00:59:50.592
We got into a car--
We were met by two cars,

00:59:50.675 --> 00:59:54.178
one that we would ride in,
and the other that was a backup car.

00:59:54.262 --> 00:59:56.264
Nobody wanted to drive the car.

00:59:57.390 --> 00:59:58.933
I said I'd drive it.

00:59:59.017 --> 01:00:03.563
And after the handshakes
and hellos and introductions,

01:00:03.646 --> 01:00:06.524
the baggage went into my car.

01:00:07.317 --> 01:00:11.070
And Poitier and Belafonte

01:00:11.154 --> 01:00:13.615
was in the lead car.

01:00:14.198 --> 01:00:15.783
As we were getting into the car,

01:00:15.867 --> 01:00:17.869
somebody said, "There they are."

01:00:19.829 --> 01:00:23.124
Headlights went up. We saw
that they were Ku Klux Klaners.

01:00:24.959 --> 01:00:26.502
We moved out.

01:00:26.586 --> 01:00:28.463
And as the trucks tried to catch us,

01:00:28.546 --> 01:00:32.800
the third car would move over
to block any attempt to pass.

01:00:35.386 --> 01:00:37.513
They ran into the back of the car.

01:00:37.597 --> 01:00:41.017
And my first thought,
"Do not let them pass."

01:00:42.226 --> 01:00:45.772
And they constantly rammed
the car behind us

01:00:45.855 --> 01:00:49.108
to move them or to throw them
off the highway to get to us.

01:00:49.192 --> 01:00:50.985
Whatever happens, don't let 'em by.

01:00:51.069 --> 01:00:54.113
If they shoot you from the rear,
that's the way I have to die.

01:00:59.827 --> 01:01:03.122
We played bump-and-run
for a couple of miles.

01:01:03.706 --> 01:01:06.542
They couldn't get by me.
They broke it off.

01:01:07.794 --> 01:01:11.631
And a pile of students
got into the available automobiles

01:01:11.714 --> 01:01:13.633
and all showed up on the highway

01:01:13.716 --> 01:01:17.136
and brought us into Greenwood
with the money.

01:01:17.220 --> 01:01:18.930
And we arrived safely.

01:01:19.013 --> 01:01:21.015
It was like something out of the Bible.

01:01:21.099 --> 01:01:23.142
People were up trees.

01:01:24.018 --> 01:01:28.523
And for that whole block,
people were just jammed everywhere.

01:01:29.440 --> 01:01:33.653
And it bring me to tears.

01:01:34.821 --> 01:01:39.909
The people that was up the trees
and in the rafters,

01:01:41.077 --> 01:01:42.537
that was magic.

01:01:44.247 --> 01:01:46.124
And when they saw Poitier,

01:01:46.207 --> 01:01:49.627
they just start singing that song
from Lilies of the Field,

01:01:49.711 --> 01:01:50.795
"Amen."

01:01:53.464 --> 01:01:55.508
It was something special.

01:02:04.434 --> 01:02:09.021
And, you know, every year,
about March and April,

01:02:09.647 --> 01:02:14.485
the newspapers start writing about
the long, hot summer ahead.

01:02:18.781 --> 01:02:22.910
Looting, murder, and arson
have nothing to do with civil rights.

01:02:29.459 --> 01:02:31.043
We're sick, and we're tired.

01:02:31.127 --> 01:02:34.672
We're not gonna be pushed no further
by no white folks from no place.

01:02:34.756 --> 01:02:35.757
And we mean it.

01:02:35.840 --> 01:02:39.886
What I remember vividly is
when I was about ten years old,

01:02:39.969 --> 01:02:43.139
it was 1967, and it was kind of
the summer of Sidney.

01:02:43.222 --> 01:02:45.975
And my mother took me to see
To Sir, with Love,

01:02:46.058 --> 01:02:48.519
In the Heat of the Night,
and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

01:02:48.603 --> 01:02:50.813
We'd had Black stars in movies,

01:02:50.897 --> 01:02:52.815
but Sidney's probably
the first Hollywood--

01:02:52.899 --> 01:02:54.609
truly Hollywood Black movie star.

01:02:54.692 --> 01:02:57.987
People come to the theater
to see Sidney Poitier movies.

01:02:58.070 --> 01:02:59.155
That just hadn't happened.

01:02:59.238 --> 01:03:02.074
And white people came to the theater
to see Sidney Poitier movies,

01:03:02.158 --> 01:03:03.993
more importantly, at a time

01:03:04.076 --> 01:03:05.912
when the Civil Rights Movement
is happening

01:03:05.995 --> 01:03:07.914
and he becomes an exemplar of that.

01:03:07.997 --> 01:03:12.794
Biggest box office draw,
Black man, 1967 to '68.

01:03:12.877 --> 01:03:16.589
And the whole country
is spiraling around him.

01:03:29.685 --> 01:03:31.187
On your feet, boy.

01:03:34.857 --> 01:03:36.526
I mean now!

01:03:36.609 --> 01:03:38.653
I just remember being impressed

01:03:38.736 --> 01:03:42.114
by this dude's unassailable dignity.

01:03:42.198 --> 01:03:44.242
The film is really
playing with your expectations.

01:03:44.325 --> 01:03:45.785
He's just not gonna take it.

01:03:45.868 --> 01:03:49.080
But you wonder how long
he's gonna take it…

01:03:49.705 --> 01:03:50.832
before he explodes.

01:03:51.582 --> 01:03:53.835
Well, you're pretty sure of yourself,
ain't you, Virgil?

01:03:53.918 --> 01:03:55.586
"Virgil," that's a funny name
for a nigger boy

01:03:55.670 --> 01:03:57.713
that comes from Philadelphia.
What do they call you up there?

01:03:57.797 --> 01:04:00.758
They call me Mr. Tibbs.

01:04:00.842 --> 01:04:02.969
"They call me Mr. Tibbs."

01:04:03.052 --> 01:04:05.304
I loved it
'cause I talked back to the screen.

01:04:05.388 --> 01:04:07.598
And the audience was mainly Black.

01:04:07.682 --> 01:04:11.853
They burst out into applause
and they're just very alive.

01:04:11.936 --> 01:04:14.522
The famous scene in the hothouse

01:04:14.605 --> 01:04:16.816
when the white plantation owner slaps him,

01:04:16.899 --> 01:04:18.943
and Sidney slaps him back--

01:04:19.026 --> 01:04:22.655
In a theater in 1967,
the impact was profound.

01:04:22.738 --> 01:04:25.324
Was Mr. Colbert ever in this greenhouse,

01:04:25.408 --> 01:04:27.785
say last night about midnight?

01:04:31.747 --> 01:04:33.457
You could hear a pin drop.

01:04:33.541 --> 01:04:35.960
That's the loudest silence
I've ever seen in a theater.

01:04:36.043 --> 01:04:37.712
You hear some… You know?

01:04:37.795 --> 01:04:39.422
Then people
looked at each other and stuff.

01:04:39.505 --> 01:04:43.050
Black folks went crazy 'cause
they never seen that before.

01:04:46.762 --> 01:04:48.973
That had never happened
on the screen before.

01:04:49.056 --> 01:04:50.641
He was just something else, man.

01:04:50.725 --> 01:04:52.685
What are you gonna do about it?

01:04:55.062 --> 01:04:56.314
I don't know.

01:04:57.982 --> 01:04:59.400
You know what we all did?

01:04:59.483 --> 01:05:00.610
"Yeah!"

01:05:03.237 --> 01:05:06.282
In the original script,
I looked at him with great disdain

01:05:06.365 --> 01:05:09.410
and, wrapped in my strong ideals,
walked out.

01:05:09.911 --> 01:05:12.371
That could've happened
with another actor playing that part,

01:05:12.455 --> 01:05:14.332
but it couldn't happen with me.

01:05:14.415 --> 01:05:17.376
I could too easily remember
that Miami night

01:05:17.460 --> 01:05:19.712
with a gun pointed at my forehead.

01:05:19.795 --> 01:05:23.841
I told the director that the script
needed to be changed.

01:05:24.467 --> 01:05:26.761
I bet you only Sidney would pull that off.

01:05:26.844 --> 01:05:28.888
He was a star. Bar none.

01:05:28.971 --> 01:05:31.307
I mean, no doubt about it by then.

01:05:31.390 --> 01:05:34.101
He's running through life elbowing shit.

01:05:34.185 --> 01:05:35.269
"Out of my way."

01:05:37.104 --> 01:05:39.065
And it indeed did turn out to be

01:05:39.148 --> 01:05:41.150
a highlight moment in that film.

01:05:41.233 --> 01:05:43.361
But it also spoke of our time.

01:05:43.444 --> 01:05:48.240
It spoke of the time in America
when, in films at least,

01:05:48.324 --> 01:05:51.202
we could step up to certain realities.

01:05:51.285 --> 01:05:52.328
It's like everybody says,

01:05:52.411 --> 01:05:54.789
it's the slap that was heard
around the world. Unprecedented.

01:05:54.872 --> 01:05:57.249
It kinda rockets him into the moment.

01:05:57.333 --> 01:06:00.002
So you've got this
interesting kind of alignment

01:06:00.086 --> 01:06:01.837
between Sidney in that moment

01:06:01.921 --> 01:06:04.423
and then what's happening
on the front lines.

01:06:13.557 --> 01:06:16.769
To see this Black man

01:06:16.852 --> 01:06:21.190
be a teacher and a mentor
to these children…

01:06:21.273 --> 01:06:25.236
You know, it was always a white guy,
generally, who was the hero,

01:06:25.319 --> 01:06:30.074
and the Black people were, you know,
being saved or the troublemakers.

01:06:30.157 --> 01:06:32.576
And this just, like,
flipped the narrative on its head.

01:06:33.160 --> 01:06:34.245
Sit down.

01:06:36.205 --> 01:06:39.166
To Sir, with Love,
that was my favorite, really,

01:06:39.250 --> 01:06:43.879
because I watched Dad

01:06:43.963 --> 01:06:46.757
react the way he does with us.

01:06:46.841 --> 01:06:52.263
Not only did he teach his kids,
but he taught everybody.

01:06:52.346 --> 01:06:54.223
I saw him.

01:06:55.224 --> 01:06:57.518
Everyone saw the actor.

01:06:57.601 --> 01:06:59.478
I saw the father.

01:06:59.562 --> 01:07:03.441
We are all going to observe
certain courtesies in this classroom.

01:07:04.108 --> 01:07:06.360
You will call me "Sir" or "Mr. Thackeray."

01:07:06.444 --> 01:07:08.946
The young ladies will be addressed
as "Miss,"

01:07:09.447 --> 01:07:11.198
the boys by their surnames.

01:07:11.282 --> 01:07:13.784
I always say I've got angels
on my shoulders,

01:07:13.868 --> 01:07:16.078
because I am extremely lucky.

01:07:34.346 --> 01:07:35.389
I mean…

01:07:36.348 --> 01:07:37.975
because it wasn't just about a song.

01:07:38.642 --> 01:07:43.898
It was about Sidney Poitier
and the message that that film had.

01:07:46.150 --> 01:07:48.069
Speech!

01:07:48.736 --> 01:07:50.029
It's important to say

01:07:50.112 --> 01:07:51.906
these movies
were not made for Black people.

01:07:51.989 --> 01:07:53.240
Like, they were made

01:07:53.324 --> 01:07:56.660
with him being very conscious
of the story he was telling

01:07:56.744 --> 01:07:59.330
with an awareness of what was
happening with the movement,

01:07:59.413 --> 01:08:01.373
with Dr. King's movement in particular.

01:08:01.457 --> 01:08:05.503
But he's kind of a forerunner
in terms of mass media,

01:08:05.586 --> 01:08:08.089
of kinda proving that
Black people were human.

01:08:08.756 --> 01:08:12.218
Any time you can humanize Blackness,

01:08:12.301 --> 01:08:14.428
humanize and normalize it

01:08:14.512 --> 01:08:19.850
for a world that didn't think
we were even all human,

01:08:19.934 --> 01:08:21.644
it helps the cause,

01:08:21.727 --> 01:08:24.438
because that's what it's all about,

01:08:24.522 --> 01:08:27.942
is allowing people
to see the humanity of us.

01:08:28.609 --> 01:08:31.695
John Wade Prentice.

01:08:31.779 --> 01:08:33.739
Isn't that a lovely name?

01:08:33.823 --> 01:08:35.366
John Wade--

01:08:37.076 --> 01:08:39.161
Joanna Prentice I'll be.

01:08:44.959 --> 01:08:46.168
This is John.

01:08:48.462 --> 01:08:51.173
I'm so pleased to meet you.

01:08:52.216 --> 01:08:54.343
I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Drayton.

01:08:57.847 --> 01:09:00.015
Mrs. Drayton, I'm medically qualified,

01:09:00.099 --> 01:09:01.892
so I hope you wouldn't think it
presumptuous

01:09:01.976 --> 01:09:04.937
if I say you ought to sit down
before you fall down, I mean.

01:09:05.020 --> 01:09:07.356
He thinks you're gonna faint
because he's a Negro.

01:09:07.940 --> 01:09:12.236
I was 22 years old,
and Sidney was just sweet,

01:09:12.319 --> 01:09:15.072
and I was very naive.

01:09:15.197 --> 01:09:17.575
And it wasn't until afterward

01:09:17.658 --> 01:09:21.036
when I went to have my makeup taken off,

01:09:21.120 --> 01:09:22.830
I asked the makeup woman.

01:09:22.913 --> 01:09:25.291
I said, "What was going on in that room?"

01:09:25.332 --> 01:09:26.792
An awful lot of people are gonna think

01:09:26.876 --> 01:09:28.127
we're a very shocking pair.

01:09:28.210 --> 01:09:29.420
Isn't that right, Mrs. Drayton?

01:09:30.004 --> 01:09:31.714
I know what you mean.

01:09:32.298 --> 01:09:33.757
I think it's all too easy

01:09:33.841 --> 01:09:37.928
for anyone not a participant
in the cultural clashes of that era

01:09:38.012 --> 01:09:42.975
to unfairly dismiss films such as
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,

01:09:43.058 --> 01:09:46.353
forgetting just how revolutionary
they were

01:09:46.437 --> 01:09:48.439
in the context of their times.

01:09:48.522 --> 01:09:50.858
Now, this affair here,
it all happened too fast.

01:09:50.941 --> 01:09:52.026
You said so yourself.

01:09:52.109 --> 01:09:54.570
Have you thought what
people would say about you?

01:09:54.653 --> 01:09:57.156
Why, in 16 or 17 states,
you'd be breaking the law.

01:09:57.239 --> 01:09:58.240
You'd be criminals.

01:09:58.324 --> 01:10:00.409
That scene in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

01:10:00.492 --> 01:10:03.412
where he says, "You think of yourself
as a colored man

01:10:03.495 --> 01:10:05.122
and I think of myself as a man."

01:10:05.206 --> 01:10:07.082
That defined Sidney Poitier.

01:10:07.666 --> 01:10:08.876
You're my father.

01:10:10.502 --> 01:10:12.922
I'm your son. I love you.

01:10:14.048 --> 01:10:16.926
I always have, and I always will.

01:10:19.094 --> 01:10:22.306
But you think of yourself
as a colored man.

01:10:23.641 --> 01:10:26.769
I think of myself as a man.

01:10:28.687 --> 01:10:30.731
That wasn't even an acting line for him

01:10:30.814 --> 01:10:33.525
'cause that is who he is.

01:10:33.609 --> 01:10:35.277
He thought of himself as a man.

01:10:41.867 --> 01:10:44.161
Those three movies
all were financially successful.

01:10:44.245 --> 01:10:46.705
He wore a white shirt
and a tie in all three.

01:10:46.789 --> 01:10:48.374
That's when he becomes Sir Sidney.

01:10:48.457 --> 01:10:51.502
He already had made a mark
with Lilies of the Field in '63.

01:10:51.585 --> 01:10:54.046
But suddenly he's not only honorable,

01:10:54.129 --> 01:10:55.589
he's commercially viable.

01:10:55.673 --> 01:10:57.091
And that just was unprecedented

01:10:57.174 --> 01:10:59.510
at that point in history
of American cinema.

01:10:59.593 --> 01:11:03.264
I asked him, "Do you have a film
you're going to do after this?"

01:11:04.014 --> 01:11:05.516
And he said, "No."

01:11:05.599 --> 01:11:09.186
He said, "I probably-- This will be
the last film I'll ever make."

01:11:09.770 --> 01:11:11.522
And I said, "Why?"

01:11:11.605 --> 01:11:16.026
And he said, "Because the Black people,

01:11:16.110 --> 01:11:20.072
my people, think that I'm an Uncle Tom."

01:11:20.823 --> 01:11:22.491
A cultural wave that would crest

01:11:22.574 --> 01:11:24.660
when The New York Times
published an article

01:11:24.743 --> 01:11:27.871
titled, "Why Do White Folks
Love Sidney Poitier So?"

01:11:34.295 --> 01:11:36.463
According to a certain taste,

01:11:36.547 --> 01:11:40.676
I was an Uncle Tom, even a house Negro,

01:11:40.759 --> 01:11:44.722
for playing roles that were
non-threatening to white audiences,

01:11:44.805 --> 01:11:50.185
for playing the noble Negro
who fulfills white liberal fantasies.

01:11:58.819 --> 01:12:04.491
I am artist, man, American, contemporary.

01:12:05.284 --> 01:12:06.785
I am an awful lot of things,

01:12:06.869 --> 01:12:08.245
so I wish you would…

01:12:09.538 --> 01:12:12.082
pay me the respect due.

01:12:13.083 --> 01:12:15.002
It's not easy being the first.

01:12:15.085 --> 01:12:17.171
When you are an individual

01:12:17.755 --> 01:12:22.426
that has to represent the entire race,

01:12:22.926 --> 01:12:24.887
that's some Jackie Robinson shit.

01:12:24.970 --> 01:12:28.474
You're taking the slings and arrows
for the entire race.

01:12:28.557 --> 01:12:30.934
Sidney had to take
a lot of slings and arrows

01:12:31.018 --> 01:12:33.687
that Denzel didn't have to take.

01:12:33.771 --> 01:12:36.482
When you pray for rain,
you gotta deal with the mud too.

01:12:37.816 --> 01:12:40.069
You know, he had big shoulders.

01:12:40.152 --> 01:12:43.405
He was given big shoulders,
but he had to carry a lot of weight.

01:12:43.489 --> 01:12:46.325
There's a lot of pressure to
do everything right.

01:12:46.408 --> 01:12:47.826
It's hard to know how to judge it.

01:12:47.910 --> 01:12:51.288
But Sidney always
had my two favorite things,

01:12:51.372 --> 01:12:56.168
and that is humility with his creativity
and grace with his success.

01:12:59.004 --> 01:13:00.547
Did you feel that pressure?

01:13:00.631 --> 01:13:02.341
You can't help but feel it.

01:13:03.008 --> 01:13:04.885
You know it's there all the time.

01:13:05.469 --> 01:13:08.430
You know that there is
a community of people watching

01:13:08.514 --> 01:13:13.310
to see if you carry a banner that
they feel is close to their hearts,

01:13:13.394 --> 01:13:17.564
and to determine
whether you are representative

01:13:17.648 --> 01:13:19.650
of their imagery of you,

01:13:19.733 --> 01:13:22.569
whether you should be welcomed or not.

01:13:23.278 --> 01:13:26.031
-Was it lonely?
-"Was it lonely?"

01:13:26.782 --> 01:13:28.367
Of course it was lonely.

01:13:29.326 --> 01:13:31.870
It was lonely, yeah.

01:13:38.836 --> 01:13:41.130
Do they know about Martin Luther King?

01:13:42.423 --> 01:13:43.424
We have--

01:13:43.507 --> 01:13:46.051
Some very sad news for all of you.

01:13:46.677 --> 01:13:50.722
And I think sad news
for all of our fellow citizens

01:13:51.598 --> 01:13:54.726
and people who love peace
all over the world.

01:13:55.519 --> 01:13:58.188
And that is that Martin Luther King

01:13:58.272 --> 01:14:00.732
was shot and was killed tonight
in Memphis, Tennessee.

01:14:03.986 --> 01:14:06.405
NBC interrupts
its regular program schedule

01:14:06.488 --> 01:14:08.699
to bring you the following special report.

01:14:11.118 --> 01:14:15.372
Martin Luther King Jr. was killed
tonight in Memphis, Tennessee,

01:14:15.456 --> 01:14:19.042
shot in the face as he stood alone
on the balcony of his hotel room.

01:14:19.126 --> 01:14:21.211
He died in a hospital an hour later.

01:14:22.463 --> 01:14:25.757
I remember coming home
on the bus in Pleasantville.

01:14:25.841 --> 01:14:27.634
My dad met the bus

01:14:27.718 --> 01:14:30.179
at the end of the driveway at the mailbox.

01:14:31.346 --> 01:14:33.140
And he got on the bus,

01:14:33.223 --> 01:14:35.851
and he could barely stand up
because he's so tall.

01:14:36.643 --> 01:14:39.146
And he looks at all the children.

01:14:40.481 --> 01:14:44.109
And he said something universal to them,

01:14:44.193 --> 01:14:46.695
something about, "A great man has been…

01:14:48.864 --> 01:14:51.867
taken from us." And he put it that way.

01:14:51.950 --> 01:14:54.995
"We should honor his great words

01:14:55.078 --> 01:14:58.582
of treating everyone
with respect and dignity."

01:14:59.333 --> 01:15:00.876
And the kids were, like, in awe.

01:15:00.959 --> 01:15:02.753
They were just, like,
kinda looking up at him.

01:15:02.836 --> 01:15:05.214
And then Daddy says,
"Okay, girls, let's go.

01:15:05.297 --> 01:15:07.174
Let's go. Let's go home."

01:15:07.257 --> 01:15:09.009
Ashes to ashes,

01:15:10.052 --> 01:15:11.803
and dust to dust.

01:15:12.387 --> 01:15:14.765
We thank God for giving us a leader

01:15:14.848 --> 01:15:18.352
who was willing to die,
but not willing to kill.

01:15:19.353 --> 01:15:22.606
It was '65 that Malcolm X was assassinated

01:15:23.315 --> 01:15:24.441
in a mosque in Harlem.

01:15:26.610 --> 01:15:30.155
It was '68 when Martin Luther King
was assassinated.

01:15:31.490 --> 01:15:34.159
We have a more fragile democracy

01:15:34.243 --> 01:15:37.329
in Judeo-Christian society than we think.

01:15:38.413 --> 01:15:41.833
We're hanging together
by a few cultural threads.

01:15:43.752 --> 01:15:47.172
And Sidney Poitier
is one of those cultural threads.

01:15:51.009 --> 01:15:53.387
The assassination of
Martin Luther King, in a lot of ways,

01:15:53.470 --> 01:15:56.807
initiates a new era
in Poitier's professional life

01:15:56.890 --> 01:16:00.060
and also with significant
personal dimensions as well.

01:16:00.143 --> 01:16:02.104
The personal dimension
is not just, you know,

01:16:02.187 --> 01:16:04.314
being set adrift
like so many African Americans

01:16:04.398 --> 01:16:06.567
by the assassination
of Martin Luther King,

01:16:06.650 --> 01:16:10.153
but also a rift with his best friend,
Harry Belafonte.

01:16:10.237 --> 01:16:13.031
Both of them, in the immediate
aftermath of King's assassination,

01:16:13.115 --> 01:16:16.326
participate in the discussions
about how best to memorialize King.

01:16:16.410 --> 01:16:20.372
Belafonte wants to hold a big rally
in Atlanta after King's funeral.

01:16:20.455 --> 01:16:22.291
Poitier advises against it,

01:16:22.374 --> 01:16:24.668
saying that it would
detract attention from King.

01:16:24.751 --> 01:16:27.796
This leads to sort of a zapping,
a certain tension between the two,

01:16:27.879 --> 01:16:29.923
and they stopped speaking
for quite some time.

01:16:30.007 --> 01:16:31.758
Two very opinionated people.

01:16:32.426 --> 01:16:35.971
I mean, can I say that again?
Two very opinionated people.

01:16:36.054 --> 01:16:38.932
And they didn't hold back,
you know, how they felt.

01:16:39.433 --> 01:16:43.562
Harry wanted to do something and
really allow his community, I guess,

01:16:43.645 --> 01:16:47.774
to, you know, show their grieving
and mourning in celebration.

01:16:47.858 --> 01:16:49.568
And, you know, Poitier, I think,

01:16:49.651 --> 01:16:51.987
rightly thought it would be a distraction.

01:16:55.907 --> 01:16:57.200
It's a kind of testament

01:16:57.284 --> 01:17:00.746
to how much thinking
folks had to do on their feet

01:17:00.829 --> 01:17:05.542
in the wake of just unforeseen,
brutal circumstances, you know?

01:17:05.626 --> 01:17:07.753
I mean, just the, you know--
just the trauma.

01:17:08.337 --> 01:17:13.634
You know, for Poitier and Belafonte,
there had to be a reset moment there.

01:17:15.510 --> 01:17:17.596
So he is losing his best friend in this--

01:17:17.679 --> 01:17:20.057
in the same era when
so much else seems adrift.

01:17:20.140 --> 01:17:21.600
He's obtained a divorce from his wife.

01:17:21.683 --> 01:17:23.769
He tries to pursue his relationship
with Diahann Carroll.

01:17:24.353 --> 01:17:26.980
As I have mentioned,
a large part of my father's legacy

01:17:27.064 --> 01:17:29.316
is the lessons he taught his sons.

01:17:29.399 --> 01:17:34.738
That teaching weighed heavily on me
when my first wife and I separated.

01:17:34.821 --> 01:17:39.785
That breakup was a long, painful,
scarring period for all concerned.

01:17:40.577 --> 01:17:42.663
It was really not fun for my mom,

01:17:42.746 --> 01:17:45.957
and I think I felt more of that
than anything…

01:17:47.709 --> 01:17:50.170
'cause I didn't see
what my dad was going through,

01:17:50.754 --> 01:17:52.214
but I saw what she was going through.

01:17:52.297 --> 01:17:54.925
Friends decided
whose side they were going on,

01:17:55.967 --> 01:17:59.846
so that was kind of, to me, painful.
Right?

01:17:59.930 --> 01:18:01.640
'Cause my dad got the majority of 'em.

01:18:01.723 --> 01:18:04.476
No more aunt--
No more "uncle" this or "aunt" that,

01:18:04.559 --> 01:18:06.311
or godparents here or there.

01:18:07.229 --> 01:18:08.647
That could bring tears to my eyes,

01:18:08.730 --> 01:18:12.192
but, you know, people who supported her

01:18:12.275 --> 01:18:13.652
I was grateful for.

01:18:14.277 --> 01:18:17.197
Of course, too,
I was in love with another woman,

01:18:17.280 --> 01:18:19.241
and the guilt of that was something

01:18:19.324 --> 01:18:22.744
that 11 years of psychotherapy
couldn't cure.

01:18:23.620 --> 01:18:26.164
"My wife doesn't understand me enough,"

01:18:26.248 --> 01:18:28.208
I would say in cliché fashion.

01:18:28.291 --> 01:18:32.713
And then I would say that
the other woman had her own agenda.

01:18:33.213 --> 01:18:35.966
Each separation,
within a short period of time,

01:18:36.049 --> 01:18:38.093
we were pursuing the relationship again.

01:18:38.677 --> 01:18:41.346
And… I think we recognized,

01:18:41.430 --> 01:18:43.682
long before the relationship was over,

01:18:43.765 --> 01:18:45.934
that it was not a healthy relationship,

01:18:46.017 --> 01:18:48.395
that it was not the kind of relationship

01:18:48.478 --> 01:18:51.940
that could develop into even,
really, a good friendship.

01:18:54.860 --> 01:18:58.780
It's interesting to see how quickly
pop culture can shift.

01:18:58.864 --> 01:19:02.075
From '63,Lilies of the Field,
through '68 probably,

01:19:02.159 --> 01:19:04.077
he's the guy, and he's setting the tone

01:19:04.161 --> 01:19:05.954
for what a Black image looks like.

01:19:06.037 --> 01:19:07.497
Two things are happening.

01:19:07.581 --> 01:19:08.874
Black Power is happening.

01:19:16.256 --> 01:19:19.134
We're talking about
"Say it loud, I'm Black and proud."

01:19:19.217 --> 01:19:21.803
And we were feeling ourselves as a people.

01:19:21.887 --> 01:19:23.263
And you have blaxploitation.

01:19:25.807 --> 01:19:27.768
Up yours! Get out of the way.

01:19:31.772 --> 01:19:34.149
So now, the thing
that made him so revolutionary

01:19:34.232 --> 01:19:35.525
in '67 and '68,

01:19:37.444 --> 01:19:40.489
now he's passé because
now there's another generation

01:19:42.449 --> 01:19:44.201
I mean, those Black exploitation films,

01:19:44.284 --> 01:19:46.787
you know, it was all about
kicking whitey's ass.

01:19:46.870 --> 01:19:49.289
You know, that's what it was about.

01:19:49.790 --> 01:19:53.043
And it's unfortunate
that they were a Black audience

01:19:53.126 --> 01:19:56.588
that felt that Sidney,
you know, was not hip.

01:19:56.671 --> 01:19:57.756
And I don't agree with that,

01:19:57.839 --> 01:19:59.841
but if you just look at
the Black audience,

01:19:59.925 --> 01:20:04.346
they went to these Black
exploitation films in droves-- in droves.

01:20:05.138 --> 01:20:08.558
Quincy Jones had a 42nd birthday
party for me at his house,

01:20:09.142 --> 01:20:11.978
and Sidney Poitier was there.

01:20:12.062 --> 01:20:15.232
And I remember going downstairs,
turning a corner,

01:20:15.315 --> 01:20:17.359
and he was just standing there.

01:20:17.442 --> 01:20:21.404
And I froze because here's my hero.

01:20:21.905 --> 01:20:24.658
He just said, "How are you, my dear?

01:20:24.741 --> 01:20:27.869
I have longed to meet you, my dear."

01:20:30.664 --> 01:20:33.083
And I think-- Of course, I teared up.

01:20:33.166 --> 01:20:34.668
And I was just like,

01:20:34.751 --> 01:20:38.129
"You don't even understand
what this moment means to me."

01:20:38.213 --> 01:20:41.758
And at the time, I was getting a lot
of flak from the Black community

01:20:42.467 --> 01:20:45.846
for not being Black enough,
not doing enough Black shows.

01:20:45.929 --> 01:20:50.016
And he sat me down in a corner
at that party, at my 42nd birthday,

01:20:50.100 --> 01:20:51.309
and he said,

01:20:52.394 --> 01:20:55.355
"It's difficult when you're carrying
other people's dreams,

01:20:55.939 --> 01:20:59.734
and so you have to hold on
to the dream that's inside yourself.

01:20:59.818 --> 01:21:02.112
And know that if you are true to that,

01:21:02.946 --> 01:21:04.573
that's really all that matters."

01:21:04.656 --> 01:21:08.451
And that was life changing for me
in that moment.

01:21:09.035 --> 01:21:11.913
He was telling me about what
had happened to him, you know,

01:21:11.997 --> 01:21:13.707
"Is Sidney Poitier Black enough?

01:21:13.790 --> 01:21:16.334
Is he good enough? Is he really
representing what we want?"

01:21:16.418 --> 01:21:19.129
and how that had made him feel inside,

01:21:19.212 --> 01:21:21.339
that it took him down for a while.

01:21:21.423 --> 01:21:25.677
He's just trying to make
the best decision, movie after movie,

01:21:25.760 --> 01:21:31.182
based upon being
Reginald and Evelyn Poitier's son.

01:21:31.808 --> 01:21:36.062
And then to be literally attacked that way

01:21:36.146 --> 01:21:37.814
is an attack on your character,

01:21:37.898 --> 01:21:40.191
on your being, on your value,

01:21:40.275 --> 01:21:44.029
on your worth as a man and as a Black man.

01:21:50.869 --> 01:21:54.247
When I prepared to start
shooting a film called The Lost Man,

01:21:54.956 --> 01:21:58.043
nothing in my instincts led me to suspect

01:21:58.126 --> 01:22:00.754
that the love of my life
was waiting in the wings.

01:22:01.421 --> 01:22:05.008
My sister and I saw The Lost Man
for the first time

01:22:05.091 --> 01:22:06.760
when we were in our 20s.

01:22:07.719 --> 01:22:10.889
Nobody could get a copy of it
before then. Don't ask me why.

01:22:11.514 --> 01:22:13.558
My mom, she was Canadian,

01:22:13.642 --> 01:22:15.936
but she was living in Paris
and was doing French movies,

01:22:16.019 --> 01:22:17.938
so they thought she was a French actress.

01:22:21.107 --> 01:22:23.735
When she was first
approached by Universal Pictures,

01:22:23.818 --> 01:22:28.281
her initial question was,
"Who else will be starring in it?"

01:22:28.365 --> 01:22:30.492
And when she was told, "Sidney Poitier,"

01:22:30.575 --> 01:22:32.577
her response was, "Who's that?"

01:22:33.244 --> 01:22:35.163
They said, "But this is Sidney Poitier.

01:22:35.246 --> 01:22:37.457
He's, like, the most famous actor ever."

01:22:37.540 --> 01:22:41.169
And I said, "Well,
I've never seen a movie of his."

01:22:41.252 --> 01:22:43.296
So, I happened to be in London,

01:22:43.380 --> 01:22:46.132
and a movie was playing, A Patch of Blue.

01:22:46.591 --> 01:22:48.760
I thought, "He's awfully cute.
He's really cute."

01:22:48.843 --> 01:22:52.389
I happened to be on the cover
of Vogue in America at that time

01:22:52.472 --> 01:22:55.433
and also in a movie that was playing
in one of the art houses.

01:22:55.517 --> 01:22:59.354
And then I went to LA, and I met Sidney.

01:22:59.437 --> 01:23:01.940
And he was very nice.

01:23:02.023 --> 01:23:04.442
You know, we had lunch and that was it.

01:23:04.526 --> 01:23:07.821
I was engaged to be married
to somebody else at the time,

01:23:07.904 --> 01:23:08.905
but…

01:23:09.948 --> 01:23:11.616
The idea that they did a movie together

01:23:11.700 --> 01:23:14.077
was couched within the story
of how they met.

01:23:14.160 --> 01:23:18.206
So, really, it was the story of
how they met is what I remember.

01:23:18.748 --> 01:23:19.916
My parents didn't get married

01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:22.168
until my sister and I were two and four.

01:23:22.252 --> 01:23:25.380
My mom had taken us to the pediatrician.

01:23:25.463 --> 01:23:27.298
They assumed she was the nanny.

01:23:27.382 --> 01:23:31.553
She went home that day
and was like, "This is it."

01:23:31.636 --> 01:23:34.305
"You're gonna marry me,
and you're gonna marry me this week.

01:23:34.389 --> 01:23:36.850
And that's it."
And they got married that week.

01:23:37.600 --> 01:23:39.019
It happened at our house.

01:23:39.102 --> 01:23:40.603
We're in the middle of the ceremony

01:23:40.687 --> 01:23:44.691
and little Sydney, who was two and a half,
comes up and tugs on Sidney's coat.

01:23:44.774 --> 01:23:46.818
"Daddy, what are you doing?"

01:23:47.360 --> 01:23:50.447
And somebody said, "Your daddy
is marrying your mommy, honey."

01:23:51.322 --> 01:23:52.323
And she said, "Oh, okay."

01:23:52.407 --> 01:23:54.659
And that was it. We got married.

01:23:55.910 --> 01:23:58.830
Growing up,
a lot of the families around us

01:23:58.913 --> 01:24:01.249
and a lot of our friends were biracial.

01:24:01.332 --> 01:24:03.334
My parents had the foresight

01:24:03.418 --> 01:24:06.171
to surround us with
other interracial families.

01:24:06.254 --> 01:24:09.883
And so there was a little group of us
that knew each other very well,

01:24:09.966 --> 01:24:13.678
and all of the kids played so that
we could feel like it was normal.

01:24:13.762 --> 01:24:15.847
Quincy and Peggy. Kidada and Rashida.

01:24:15.930 --> 01:24:18.183
Those were our main hangs.

01:24:18.266 --> 01:24:21.227
Those were like our godsisters,
godparents, god families.

01:24:21.311 --> 01:24:24.272
I think they did a good job
of protecting us

01:24:24.355 --> 01:24:26.733
from the wider world's ideas about that.

01:24:27.734 --> 01:24:30.320
My dad did not separate us.
They-- He did not, like--

01:24:30.403 --> 01:24:33.198
"Okay, this is one family.
This is the other family."

01:24:33.281 --> 01:24:35.325
It was like, "No, this is my family."

01:24:35.909 --> 01:24:39.287
And he made sure that
we understood that we were all one.

01:24:39.370 --> 01:24:42.290
As a father,
he measures up pretty damn well.

01:24:42.373 --> 01:24:46.711
There are six of us,
and, you know, we're all--

01:24:46.795 --> 01:24:48.254
We were all taken care of.

01:24:48.338 --> 01:24:52.092
It also helped that he married
two very fantastic women.

01:24:52.175 --> 01:24:54.135
And they're very, very much alike.

01:24:54.219 --> 01:24:55.845
Joanna and my mother are very much alike

01:24:55.929 --> 01:24:57.847
as far as being bighearted, you know?

01:24:57.931 --> 01:25:01.226
Just bighearted and all about family.

01:25:01.309 --> 01:25:03.019
His mother always told him,

01:25:03.103 --> 01:25:06.189
"You take care of your children.
You take care of your family."

01:25:06.523 --> 01:25:07.982
And to this day,

01:25:08.775 --> 01:25:11.611
In the early 1970s,
an opportunity arises for Poitier

01:25:11.694 --> 01:25:13.822
that will change his life
in a number of ways.

01:25:13.905 --> 01:25:16.491
He gets a call from Harry Belafonte,
who he hasn't spoken to

01:25:16.574 --> 01:25:19.953
since the assassination
of Martin Luther King in 1968.

01:25:20.036 --> 01:25:21.329
How'd you find me?

01:25:21.913 --> 01:25:23.414
I asked your horse.

01:25:24.124 --> 01:25:27.335
Harry Belafonte called Sidney
saying, "I got a project for you."

01:25:27.418 --> 01:25:30.338
I don't even know if he needed to
say anything more than that.

01:25:30.421 --> 01:25:32.340
The sixth sense just went off, and…

01:25:32.423 --> 01:25:35.218
"Well, yeah. Okay, where?
When? I'm there."

01:25:44.269 --> 01:25:46.813
First of all, it was
Sidney's first directorial job.

01:25:46.896 --> 01:25:48.690
When we originally set out to do the film,

01:25:48.773 --> 01:25:50.108
Sidney was not the director.

01:25:50.191 --> 01:25:52.318
He acquired this responsibility

01:25:52.402 --> 01:25:54.612
just about a week
after we started shooting.

01:25:54.696 --> 01:25:56.406
What happened to the original director?

01:26:03.079 --> 01:26:06.291
After the first week of shooting,
Harry said to me,

01:26:06.374 --> 01:26:09.377
"You know, I think we're going to
have to bring another director on."

01:26:09.460 --> 01:26:11.588
He didn't get the texture of the material.

01:26:11.671 --> 01:26:12.922
The texture of the material

01:26:13.673 --> 01:26:18.970
intertwined American Indian culture
with African American culture.

01:26:19.721 --> 01:26:22.307
There was never a movie I made

01:26:22.390 --> 01:26:27.937
during which I didn't
watch the director very closely.

01:26:28.021 --> 01:26:32.609
After doing such for many years,

01:26:32.692 --> 01:26:36.154
I had learned from what I saw.

01:26:40.200 --> 01:26:44.913
I took the reins of the director,
and I directed for a week.

01:26:44.996 --> 01:26:47.582
Columbia looked at
the week's work that I had done,

01:26:48.333 --> 01:26:50.877
and they sent me a message.

01:26:50.960 --> 01:26:53.880
They said, "We want you to
continue directing the movie,

01:26:53.963 --> 01:26:56.841
and it's-- what we see is okay by us."

01:26:56.925 --> 01:26:59.052
-Action.
-Blessings in his name.

01:26:59.135 --> 01:27:00.803
I am the Reverend Willis Oaks Rutherford

01:27:00.887 --> 01:27:03.681
of the High and Low Order
of the Holiness Persuasion Church.

01:27:03.765 --> 01:27:05.558
Well, where are you from, Reverend?

01:27:05.642 --> 01:27:07.477
Sunflower County, Mississippi mostly.

01:27:07.560 --> 01:27:09.437
-Cut!
-Jesus Christ.

01:27:09.520 --> 01:27:11.189
Thank you. Brilliant.

01:27:11.272 --> 01:27:13.399
-Okay, pick up.
-Run it, please.

01:27:13.483 --> 01:27:14.692
-You wanna go from the top?
-Yeah.

01:27:14.776 --> 01:27:16.361
Okay, from the top.

01:27:19.739 --> 01:27:22.408
That was a scene from
Buck and the Preacher,

01:27:22.492 --> 01:27:25.370
which you should be seeing soon
at your local theaters.

01:27:25.453 --> 01:27:27.121
How did you find it directing Harry?

01:27:27.205 --> 01:27:29.999
Was he a star?
Did he have that star ego going?

01:27:30.875 --> 01:27:32.543
I'm so glad you asked that question.

01:27:34.003 --> 01:27:37.632
The chemistry between Sidney and
Harry in the film was really great.

01:27:37.715 --> 01:27:39.926
You can see that they
really like each other,

01:27:40.009 --> 01:27:41.636
that there's a warmth there.

01:27:41.719 --> 01:27:44.597
It will come as a surprise
to a great number of people

01:27:44.681 --> 01:27:47.433
that he was the most cooperative actor

01:27:47.517 --> 01:27:48.726
I have ever worked with.

01:27:49.310 --> 01:27:53.356
And before hopefully ten million people,

01:27:53.439 --> 01:27:55.400
I wanna say thank you, old B.

01:27:58.486 --> 01:28:00.905
As the most powerful actor--
Black actor in Hollywood,

01:28:00.989 --> 01:28:03.825
and one of the most powerful actors
in Hollywood at that point,

01:28:03.908 --> 01:28:05.702
him taking the reins was a great thing.

01:28:05.785 --> 01:28:07.578
And then the kind of film he did,

01:28:07.662 --> 01:28:10.206
because the film ends up dealing
with Blacks in the West,

01:28:10.290 --> 01:28:11.291
which was a new topic

01:28:11.374 --> 01:28:13.668
which pop culture
hadn't dealt with at all, really,

01:28:13.751 --> 01:28:15.169
and only in dismissive ways.

01:28:15.753 --> 01:28:18.715
We made it as
an entertainment with a statement.

01:28:18.798 --> 01:28:21.092
We thought that Black people
played an important part

01:28:21.175 --> 01:28:22.719
in the building of the West.

01:28:23.219 --> 01:28:25.346
We want Black children to see that.

01:28:25.430 --> 01:28:28.141
We can't forget about
what Sidney did as a filmmaker.

01:28:28.808 --> 01:28:31.352
All the films he got
the opportunity-- films that would--

01:28:31.436 --> 01:28:33.604
We wouldn't have had
that particular slant--

01:28:33.688 --> 01:28:37.066
that story wouldn't have been told
that way if it wasn't for Sidney.

01:28:37.650 --> 01:28:38.818
"I'm Buck."

01:28:40.945 --> 01:28:42.280
I'm Buck.

01:28:47.285 --> 01:28:49.912
We'll never again
see him become the towering actor

01:28:49.996 --> 01:28:51.122
that he was in the 1960s.

01:28:51.205 --> 01:28:53.583
He'll never again be
that same type of megastar.

01:28:53.666 --> 01:28:56.044
On the other hand,
he comes to play a leadership role

01:28:56.127 --> 01:28:58.129
in Black Hollywood in the 1970s

01:28:58.212 --> 01:29:00.840
in ways that create
so many more opportunities

01:29:00.923 --> 01:29:02.133
for those who come in his wake.

01:29:02.717 --> 01:29:05.803
If there were equality of opportunity
in this business,

01:29:05.887 --> 01:29:09.640
there'd be 15 Sidney Poitiers and ten
or 12 Belafontes, but there is not.

01:29:09.724 --> 01:29:12.101
Or maybe the other way around.
Fifteen Belafontes and ten--

01:29:12.185 --> 01:29:13.186
Watch it.

01:29:17.190 --> 01:29:20.985
In 1969, we became business partners

01:29:21.069 --> 01:29:22.487
along with Paul Newman.

01:29:22.570 --> 01:29:25.031
It was a company called First Artists,

01:29:25.740 --> 01:29:31.120
which was innovative because
the artists had creative control,

01:29:31.204 --> 01:29:33.748
complete creative control
of the movies we made.

01:29:33.831 --> 01:29:36.125
We got no money up front,

01:29:36.209 --> 01:29:39.879
and we only made money
if the movie was a success.

01:29:39.962 --> 01:29:41.255
I didn't care about the salary.

01:29:41.339 --> 01:29:44.384
All I cared about
was the creative control.

01:29:44.467 --> 01:29:47.553
I felt very honored being the only woman,

01:29:48.179 --> 01:29:51.724
and I'm very proud of
my association with Sidney.

01:29:51.808 --> 01:29:54.852
It was a hugely audacious move
to start a production company

01:29:54.936 --> 01:29:56.687
being a Black man in Hollywood.

01:29:58.022 --> 01:30:00.233
I think the feeling was,

01:30:01.025 --> 01:30:03.194
he should just be happy with what he had.

01:30:03.277 --> 01:30:06.239
"You're getting a lot of roles.
You're fine.

01:30:06.322 --> 01:30:09.992
You don't need to then put yourself
in this position of power

01:30:10.076 --> 01:30:12.703
where now you are creating the work."

01:30:12.787 --> 01:30:17.458
It was just another proactive move
to sort of get his message out there.

01:30:18.292 --> 01:30:20.211
What we all really wanted

01:30:20.294 --> 01:30:25.091
was to be able to make movies
of our choice.

01:30:25.174 --> 01:30:27.885
Make them ourselves, choose the material.

01:30:27.969 --> 01:30:29.345
I made Uptown Saturday Night,

01:30:29.429 --> 01:30:31.389
Let's Do It Again, A Piece of the Action.

01:30:31.472 --> 01:30:33.224
They were all excellent films.

01:30:33.307 --> 01:30:35.309
I thought it was the coolest damn thing.

01:30:35.977 --> 01:30:37.687
Okay? I thought it was
the coolest damn thing

01:30:37.770 --> 01:30:39.021
when Daddy became a director.

01:30:39.105 --> 01:30:41.441
He had an understanding of the industry

01:30:41.524 --> 01:30:44.569
and what needed to be done
and what could be done.

01:30:44.652 --> 01:30:49.115
He was very much aware
that there weren't any at one point

01:30:49.198 --> 01:30:52.785
and then a lot of African Americans
on set.

01:30:52.869 --> 01:30:55.204
Anywhere. I mean, anywhere.

01:30:55.788 --> 01:30:58.541
And he made his business to correct that.

01:30:58.624 --> 01:30:59.876
We should underscore the fact

01:30:59.959 --> 01:31:03.087
that you really put to work a lot
of Black people behind the scenes.

01:31:03.171 --> 01:31:06.340
It's not just that we've got
an enormously talented Black cast--

01:31:06.841 --> 01:31:09.427
Yeah. We have 1,300 Black people

01:31:09.510 --> 01:31:11.721
working on the film.

01:31:11.804 --> 01:31:14.474
Atmosphere people,
technicians and all that.

01:31:14.557 --> 01:31:17.226
1,276 are my relatives.

01:31:17.727 --> 01:31:18.728
Good for them.

01:31:18.811 --> 01:31:20.605
Well, Sidney was a race man,

01:31:20.688 --> 01:31:24.025
so, how could he be directing this film,

01:31:24.734 --> 01:31:26.944
everybody in front of the camera's Black,

01:31:27.028 --> 01:31:29.322
everybody behind the camera's white?
He's not gonna do that.

01:31:29.405 --> 01:31:32.450
That's not even a question.
Sidney ain't doing that.

01:31:32.533 --> 01:31:36.329
Sidney's gonna make sure that he's
gonna put Black people positioned

01:31:36.412 --> 01:31:39.624
where they can have a career,
behind the camera.

01:31:40.208 --> 01:31:42.084
You have longer careers behind the camera

01:31:42.168 --> 01:31:43.461
than in front of the camera.

01:31:43.544 --> 01:31:46.047
What's interesting
about Poitier as an actor now

01:31:46.130 --> 01:31:48.216
is that he's passing the ball.

01:31:48.299 --> 01:31:50.718
It's not always about him being the guy.

01:31:50.801 --> 01:31:52.428
I look forward to working as a director.

01:31:52.512 --> 01:31:54.472
I look forward to making decisions
in that area.

01:31:54.555 --> 01:31:57.266
I look forward to dealing
with scripts and dealing with actors,

01:31:57.350 --> 01:31:58.476
and cultivating a mood.

01:31:58.559 --> 01:32:00.019
I look forward to painting a picture.

01:32:00.770 --> 01:32:03.523
I don't have any such visions as an actor.

01:32:03.606 --> 01:32:05.650
I think I've climbed
all the mountains I intended to

01:32:05.733 --> 01:32:06.734
as an actor.

01:32:10.071 --> 01:32:12.156
On 3rd Avenue in New York City,

01:32:12.240 --> 01:32:13.366
I walked in one night.

01:32:13.449 --> 01:32:16.577
The picture was playing.
It was called Let's Do It Again.

01:32:17.161 --> 01:32:19.330
I walked in, and I stood in the back.

01:32:19.413 --> 01:32:23.334
It was a packed house, so I stood
in the back watching the reaction.

01:32:23.918 --> 01:32:25.545
There were Black women.

01:32:25.628 --> 01:32:29.298
They are sitting there
laughing their heads off.

01:32:29.382 --> 01:32:34.470
I mean, they were so overjoyed
with seeing these characters

01:32:34.554 --> 01:32:37.932
because we drew characters
that they could embrace.

01:32:38.015 --> 01:32:40.101
Well, with that response,

01:32:40.184 --> 01:32:43.396
I decided I have to find
something else in that vein.

01:32:44.063 --> 01:32:47.525
The comedies that I made,
we tried to design them

01:32:47.608 --> 01:32:50.570
so that the people
who are going to sit there

01:32:50.653 --> 01:32:53.531
are going to see themselves

01:32:54.490 --> 01:32:55.950
in an embracing way.

01:32:56.033 --> 01:32:59.287
So, Sidney Poitier is now
a comedy director.

01:33:00.121 --> 01:33:02.665
I mean, you talk about
an unlikely turn of events.

01:33:03.165 --> 01:33:07.086
He's a big comedy director,
and he does this movie

01:33:07.587 --> 01:33:13.551
with the most volatile, charismatic
Black comedy talent, perhaps ever.

01:33:13.634 --> 01:33:17.805
I hereby sentence you to serve 125 years

01:33:17.888 --> 01:33:19.849
in the custody of the commissioner

01:33:19.932 --> 01:33:22.268
-of the Department of Corrections.
-Wha--

01:33:22.351 --> 01:33:25.646
When you look at-- When you
watch Poitier's films as a director,

01:33:25.730 --> 01:33:27.815
he's not a great visual stylist.

01:33:27.898 --> 01:33:30.818
But what he is, is a great
director of performance.

01:33:30.901 --> 01:33:35.573
And he's able to leave a space where
Gene Wilder can be funny as hell,

01:33:35.656 --> 01:33:37.033
Richard Pryor can be funny as hell.

01:33:37.116 --> 01:33:38.117
We didn't-- I didn't.

01:33:38.200 --> 01:33:40.453
-Our lawyer told us to come up--
-I know I didn't.

01:33:40.536 --> 01:33:42.747
-I--
-No, he's joking.

01:33:42.830 --> 01:33:44.749
-I told him--
-He means, we didn't do it.

01:33:44.832 --> 01:33:47.376
-We didn't do it.
-Have you got the right case?

01:33:47.960 --> 01:33:49.086
You'd never have guessed

01:33:49.170 --> 01:33:51.505
his biggest success
as a director would be a comedy.

01:33:51.589 --> 01:33:54.884
The guy who leads us
to Denzel and to Wesley,

01:33:54.967 --> 01:33:57.470
he's also the guy who leads us
to Robert Townsend

01:33:57.553 --> 01:33:59.055
and Keenen Ivory Wayans

01:33:59.847 --> 01:34:02.808
because he's the first
big Hollywood comedy director.

01:34:11.275 --> 01:34:12.568
-He's strange.
-Okay.

01:34:13.152 --> 01:34:15.696
-Say hi to Daddy.
-Hi, Daddy.

01:34:16.280 --> 01:34:17.823
Stay there, Anika.

01:34:19.033 --> 01:34:20.660
I see you, Sydney.

01:34:22.828 --> 01:34:24.205
-What do you see?
-You.

01:34:25.331 --> 01:34:27.500
Well, that's where the money is…

01:34:28.376 --> 01:34:29.752
as we say on the set.

01:34:29.835 --> 01:34:32.963
Give me a smile. Okay.

01:34:33.547 --> 01:34:34.548
Sydney P.?

01:34:35.675 --> 01:34:37.843
One thing I really admire about him

01:34:37.927 --> 01:34:39.637
is, you know, a lot of times

01:34:39.720 --> 01:34:43.140
when an actor's career is
starting to wane,

01:34:43.224 --> 01:34:46.936
they will grasp at whatever
is coming their way, you know,

01:34:47.019 --> 01:34:49.939
because their drive is to stay relevant

01:34:50.022 --> 01:34:52.274
and to keep working as an actor.

01:34:52.358 --> 01:34:54.819
And my dad, he doesn't have any of that.

01:34:55.903 --> 01:34:57.571
I chose to step away.

01:34:57.655 --> 01:35:02.493
You know, in life one ought not
to wind up in one's last moments

01:35:02.576 --> 01:35:04.328
and be faced with the fact

01:35:04.412 --> 01:35:07.039
that maybe one has spent one's entire life

01:35:07.707 --> 01:35:09.875
in a narrow corridor.

01:35:10.459 --> 01:35:13.963
And my career had been wonderful
for a great number of years.

01:35:14.714 --> 01:35:19.427
I don't say that it would've
continued at the pace it was going.

01:35:20.386 --> 01:35:23.556
But if it had, it would've
robbed me of the chance

01:35:23.639 --> 01:35:26.392
to be a fuller person, you know?

01:35:26.475 --> 01:35:29.186
Success has a way of insulating us.

01:35:30.688 --> 01:35:31.856
I didn't want to do that.

01:35:31.939 --> 01:35:34.400
I wanted to know what
it would be like to direct a film,

01:35:34.483 --> 01:35:36.485
so I directed five or six of them.

01:35:36.569 --> 01:35:38.821
I wanted to know what it
would be like to produce a film,

01:35:38.904 --> 01:35:40.197
and I produced a few.

01:35:40.281 --> 01:35:42.241
I was born with a curiosity

01:35:42.324 --> 01:35:44.368
that got me into an awful lot
of trouble when I was a kid,

01:35:44.452 --> 01:35:46.287
but it certainly stood me in good stead

01:35:46.370 --> 01:35:47.621
when I became an adult.

01:35:49.999 --> 01:35:51.834
I hope, though, that that curiosity

01:35:51.917 --> 01:35:53.335
stays with me all my life.

01:35:54.503 --> 01:35:57.882
The recipient of
the 1992 Life Achievement Award,

01:35:57.965 --> 01:35:59.341
Sidney Poitier.

01:36:02.178 --> 01:36:05.222
I always think of Sidney
as this big-ass lighthouse

01:36:06.182 --> 01:36:09.477
sitting on a promontory
somewhere in the dark.

01:36:10.144 --> 01:36:11.145
Bright light.

01:36:11.854 --> 01:36:16.567
I told him that all my formative years

01:36:18.027 --> 01:36:21.697
I was focusing on that light
that he projected to me.

01:36:23.407 --> 01:36:27.703
Had no other beacon as bright as that,

01:36:27.787 --> 01:36:29.163
as sure as that,

01:36:30.289 --> 01:36:33.751
that I believed in
as strongly as that one.

01:36:34.376 --> 01:36:39.298
Forty-eight years ago, the winter of 1945,

01:36:39.965 --> 01:36:43.427
Sidney Poitier walked into
a small theater in Harlem.

01:36:43.511 --> 01:36:46.555
This was the American Negro Theatre.

01:36:50.059 --> 01:36:52.770
Sidney broke the molds
in so many different ways.

01:36:52.853 --> 01:36:55.981
Sidney brought his A game,
and so we could bring our A game.

01:36:56.899 --> 01:36:59.026
I think he's truly a very fine man.

01:36:59.109 --> 01:37:02.321
He's a great example of what manhood
should look like and feel like.

01:37:02.404 --> 01:37:03.989
He'd done so much in his career.

01:37:04.073 --> 01:37:05.491
He'd been through so much

01:37:05.574 --> 01:37:07.868
to get to that place where he could say,

01:37:07.952 --> 01:37:11.455
"Hey, I've done it all.
I've done everything I could do.

01:37:11.539 --> 01:37:14.083
Now I just wanna look back
and think to myself,

01:37:14.166 --> 01:37:17.336
'I did the right thing,
from a moral standpoint.'"

01:37:17.419 --> 01:37:18.963
And he sure did.

01:37:19.046 --> 01:37:21.507
We've been friends
for many, many years.

01:37:21.590 --> 01:37:24.301
I've shared more with Sidney
than with any other man.

01:37:24.885 --> 01:37:27.346
And I'm very, very proud
of what he has achieved

01:37:27.429 --> 01:37:29.890
as an artist and a citizen.

01:37:30.641 --> 01:37:34.562
And I'm very, very fortunate
to have you as my friend.

01:37:34.645 --> 01:37:35.855
And I love you.

01:37:42.194 --> 01:37:44.697
The Oscar goes to Denzel Washington.

01:37:46.073 --> 01:37:47.533
And the Oscar goes
to Halle Berry in Monster's Ball.

01:37:47.575 --> 01:37:49.994
From the bottom of my heart,
I thank you all.

01:37:50.828 --> 01:37:53.330
Forty years I've been chasing Sidney,
they finally give it to me.

01:37:53.414 --> 01:37:55.291
What they do?
They give it to him the same night.

01:37:57.543 --> 01:37:59.003
I remember he stood up.

01:37:59.920 --> 01:38:02.131
And we were sort of, from a distance,

01:38:02.214 --> 01:38:05.175
I guess it was passing the baton,
I guess you'd say.

01:38:05.259 --> 01:38:07.678
I'll always
be following in your footsteps.

01:38:07.761 --> 01:38:10.222
There's nothing I would rather do, sir.

01:38:10.306 --> 01:38:11.515
Nothing I would rather do. God bless you.

01:38:11.515 --> 01:38:14.727
There's just nobody like him.
Never will be again.

01:38:15.895 --> 01:38:19.231
It's been said that
Sidney Poitier does not make movies.

01:38:19.315 --> 01:38:22.943
He makes milestones.
Milestones of America's progress.

01:38:23.027 --> 01:38:25.446
Poitier once called his driving purpose

01:38:25.529 --> 01:38:27.281
to make himself a better person.

01:38:27.990 --> 01:38:31.744
He did, and he made us all
a little bit better along the way.

01:38:37.666 --> 01:38:41.253
He's one of those people
that came to this earth

01:38:42.755 --> 01:38:46.634
to move it, to change it, to shake it,

01:38:47.217 --> 01:38:50.346
to give people what they need

01:38:50.846 --> 01:38:55.684
so they can move forward and
create change in their own lives.

01:38:55.768 --> 01:38:59.939
Sidney Poitier is
an extremely powerful force.

01:39:00.439 --> 01:39:03.817
And the wonderful thing about energy,

01:39:03.901 --> 01:39:07.529
as my grandfather taught me,
you can't kill energy.

01:39:07.613 --> 01:39:09.949
Energy never stops.

01:39:10.032 --> 01:39:14.036
Everything that Sidney
has created is always here,

01:39:14.119 --> 01:39:16.997
and it will always continue to grow.

01:39:17.581 --> 01:39:21.210
And… what a beautiful life.

01:39:22.753 --> 01:39:25.130
Congratulations, Oprah, from all of us

01:39:25.214 --> 01:39:27.424
for those past 20 years,

01:39:28.092 --> 01:39:31.512
and for the light you've brought
that shines so gently

01:39:31.595 --> 01:39:34.556
on those who need it most.

01:39:37.726 --> 01:39:41.981
Every person who felt something
move or open in them

01:39:42.064 --> 01:39:45.192
by watching him in To Sir, with Love,

01:39:45.275 --> 01:39:48.237
or seeing him in
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,

01:39:48.320 --> 01:39:51.865
or that moment of him
rolling out of the train

01:39:52.449 --> 01:39:55.577
and continuing to stand with Tony Curtis,

01:39:55.661 --> 01:39:56.662
and thinking,

01:39:58.038 --> 01:39:59.498
"A Negro would do that?"

01:40:02.459 --> 01:40:04.086
That's the summary of him.

01:40:04.920 --> 01:40:06.922
It's every life that he's touched.

01:40:07.673 --> 01:40:08.966
That's all I got.

01:40:13.929 --> 01:40:17.808
I love him so much.
I just love him so much.

01:40:18.308 --> 01:40:19.643
It's really true.

01:40:19.727 --> 01:40:22.062
My life would not have been
the same without him.

01:40:23.439 --> 01:40:24.898
I have come a long way.

01:40:24.982 --> 01:40:27.651
I really have come a very, very long way.

01:40:27.735 --> 01:40:29.319
And I'm proud of that.

01:40:29.903 --> 01:40:33.490
I am here to be…

01:40:35.034 --> 01:40:38.704
the best husband, the best grandfather,

01:40:38.787 --> 01:40:41.623
the best father,
the best great-grandfather.

01:40:41.707 --> 01:40:46.879
I try to extend to them all that
might be considered good in me.

01:40:47.463 --> 01:40:50.257
I truly try

01:40:50.340 --> 01:40:53.677
to be better tomorrow

01:40:53.677 --> 01:40:58.223
And when I die,
I will not be afraid of having lived.