Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier was such an iconic actor that his recent death prompts HCC film professors Marie Westhaver and Mike Giuliano to pay tribute to his career in this podcast episode. Poitier became a movie star in the 1950s and he was the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor with "Lilies of the Field" in 1963. Marie and Mike talk about the miraculous year of 1967, in which Poitier

 starred in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," "In the Heat of the Night" and "To Sir With Love." Poitier worked within the Hollywood studio system, but by the early 1970s there also were independent producers making so-called Blaxploitation movies. Marie and Mike talk about the Pam Grier-starring "Coffy" (1973). This violent revenge drama speaks to the zeitgeist of the era.