Sidney Poitier Exposed His 3 Real Friends and the 3 Who Faked Their Friendship in Old Hollywood

For six decades Sidney Poitier lived at the center of an American entertainment industry that celebrated his dignity and refused his equal treatment. In April 1964, that industry made him the first Black man in history to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. From his 1950 20th Century Fox debut in No Way Out alongside Richard Widmark, through The Defiant Ones in 1958 with Tony Curtis, through Lilies of the Field in 1963, through Otto Preminger's 1959 Porgy and Bess, through In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in 1967, and into his January 6, 2022 death at age 94 in Los Angeles, Poitier built a vantage point on Hollywood racism no other Black entertainer of his generation occupied. His 1980 autobiography This Life, his 2000 memoir The Measure of a Man, his 2008 final memoir Life Beyond Measure, and Aram Goudsouzian's 2004 biography Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon documented the specific white colleagues who had actually shown up when standing with him cost them something, and which had only performed friendship for the cameras. This video traces the six figures Poitier named: the three white stars who faked their friendship for the cameras, and the three who stayed real when standing with the first Black Best Actor Oscar winner meant accepting consequences their contemporaries had refused to accept. What's covered in this video: Spencer Tracy's 1967 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner co-starring relationship with Poitier, his private discomfort with the interracial marriage plot preserved across Stanley Kramer's 1997 autobiography A Mad Mad Mad Mad World: A Life in Hollywood, and his June 10, 1967 death from a massive heart attack seventeen days after completing the film. The Fake Friend. Tony Curtis's 1958 Defiant Ones co-starring role, his personal refusal of Universal Pictures marketing executives' proposal to position his name above Poitier's on the theatrical marquee, his demand that both names appear on the same line at the same height, his joint 1959 Best Actor Academy Award nomination alongside Poitier that made Poitier the first Black male lead actor nominee in Academy Award history, his 2008 memoir American Prince: A Memoir, and his September 2010 death. The Real Friend. Katharine Hepburn's four Best Actress Academy Awards, her aristocratic Bryn Mawr upbringing, her Fenwick Connecticut estate and private employment of Black domestic staff, A. Scott Berg's 2003 biography Kate Remembered and William Mann's 2006 biography Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn documenting her private racial reservations, and her sustained public performance of maternal warmth toward Poitier during Guess Who's Coming to Dinner that concealed the private discomfort with the interracial marriage plot. The Fake Friend. Paul Newman's early 1960s friendship with Poitier that deepened during the 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr., his 1965 Selma Alabama marches, his sustained public advocacy for the integration of the American film industry, his partnership with Poitier across dozens of civil rights events, and his September 2008 death from lung cancer at which Poitier delivered memorial remarks. The Real Friend. Otto Preminger's 1959 Samuel Goldwyn production of Porgy and Bess casting Poitier as Porgy, Poitier's documented regret across all three memoirs about accepting the role, Preminger's tyrannical on-set treatment of Poitier alongside Dorothy Dandridge, Diahann Carroll, and Sammy Davis Jr., Preminger's four-year affair with Dorothy Dandridge across Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess while married to costume designer Mary Gardner, and Dorothy Dandridge's September 8, 1965 death at age 42 with 2.14 dollars in her checking account. The Fake Friend. Richard Widmark's 1950 20th Century Fox No Way Out production where he played a violently racist white villain against the 23-year-old unknown Sidney Poitier's Black doctor character, the Joseph L. Mankiewicz direction that required Widmark to hurl racial epithets at Poitier on screen, Widmark's apologies to Poitier before each take, his insistence on sharing his private dressing room with Poitier, his sustained public defense of Poitier across the 1960s and 1970s, and his March 2008 death at age 93. The Real Friend. Mentioned in this video: Sidney Poitier, Spencer Tracy, Tony Curtis, Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Otto Preminger, Richard Widmark, Dorothy Dandridge, Diahann Carroll, Sammy Davis Jr., Martin Luther King Jr., Stanley Kramer, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Samuel Goldwyn, Aram Goudsouzian, A. Scott Berg, William Mann, Mary Gardner, Bernard Schwartz, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, No Way Out, The Defiant Ones, Lilies of the Field, Porgy and Bess, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, Captains Courageous, Boys Town, Kiss of Death, This Life, The Measure of a Man, Life Beyond Measure, 1963 March on Washington, Selma Alabama, Bryn Mawr, Old Hollywood Golden Age. #SidneyPoitier #GoldenAgeHollywood