Actors
Sidney Poitier
Bahamian-American actor, Sidney Poitier (b. 1927), was in kinship care as a teenager. Sidney Poitier was born in Miami, Florida. His parents, Evelyn and Reginald Poitier, were visiting Miami at the time, but they lived on Cat Island in the Bahamas where they grew produce. Sidney finally went to school on a regular basis in Naussau, but by the time he was 13 he had quit and headed out to work. He regularly stole and on one occasion was imprisoned overnight because he could not raise bail. After Sidney’s best friend, Yorick Rolle, was caught and sent to a reform school for stealing a bicycle, Sidney’s family sent him to the United States to live with Cyril, the oldest brother. Sidney Poitier won an Academy Award for Best Actor, the first black male actor to win that award, and was nominated a second time. In addition, he was nominated six times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor (four times under Motion Picture Drama, and once for both Miniseries or Television Film, and Motion Picture Musical or Comedy) and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award (BAFTA) for Best Foreign Actor, winning each once. From 1997 to 2007, he served as the Bahamian Ambassador to Japan.