Sir Sidney Poitier: 2016 Fellowship

Sir Sidney Poitier, the first Black actor and filmmaker to win a BAFTA, accepted the 2016 BAFTA Fellowship at the EE British Academy Film Awards on Sunday 14 February.

Poitier was the first Black star to be a top box office draw with classic sixties films Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, To Sir With Love and In the Heat of the Night.

Recognised as an inspirational film actor, his award-winning career features six BAFTA nominations, including one BAFTA win, and a British Academy Britannia Award for Lifetime Contribution to International Film.

It’s been nearly sixty years since BAFTA first recognised Sidney Poitier with a Foreign Actor Award for The Defiant Ones, Stanley Kramer’s landmark drama about two escaped prisoners.

By the end of the 1960s a run of acclaimed roles, including detective ‘Mister Tibbs’ in The Heat of the Night, won him power and influence in Hollywood.

Alongside Barbra Streisand and Paul Newman he created First Artists, a production company designed to give actors greater say in the films they starred in.

“The industry is moving into a new era,” Poitier said at the time. “You either lead it, or move with it, or follow it. We have opted for leadership.”

“I felt fortunate to play parts in movies that challenged prejudices, took on repressive regimes or involved interracial relationships, whose storylines dared to show a Black man as powerful, articulate and important at a time when that wasn’t acceptable to many.”
– Sir Sidney Poitier

Later in his career Poitier became a director, making massive 1980s hit prison caper Stir Crazy, starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. The film made over $100m at the US box office, the first film directed by an African-American to gross as much.

In his prestigious career Poitier has received an honorary Oscar, the Cecil B DeMille Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He says he’s “honoured in the extreme” to receive this latest accolade.

Awarded every year by the Academy, the BAFTA Fellowship is the highest accolade given to an individual in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, games or TV.

Previous Fellows include Elizabeth Taylor, Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench and Vanessa Redgrave.

For more inspiring stories from the world of film, games and TV explore our BAFTA Award Stories section.