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Legendary Hollywood actor Sidney Poitier has died at the age of 94.

Sidney Poitier was the first black man to win a best actor Oscar. The cause of his death is still unknown.

His passing was confirmed by the Bahamas’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fred Mitchell, on Friday morning.

Poitier won an Oscar in 1964 for his role in Lilies of the Field. He later earned two Academy Award nominations, ten Golden Globes nominations, two Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, six BAFTA nominations, eight Laurel nominations, and one Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination.

His movies struggled for distribution in the South due to their racial and civil rights undertone, and his choice of roles were limited to what White-run studios would produce in the midst of the civil rights movement.

Sidney Poitier had four daughters first with his wife Juanita Hardy and two with his second wife Joanna Shimkus.

Poitier received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1995 and an received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2009.

He was also awarded an Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1974.

 

1. Sidney Poitier

2. Anne Bancroft And Sidney Poitier At Oscar Awards 1964

3. Sidney Poitier

4. Sidney Poitier’s Oscar

5. Actors Sidney Poitier and Morgan Freeman pose at Plan!t Now’s gala