After two years in the Army, Poitier decided on an impulse to audition at the American Negro Theatre. Although he was initially rejected, Poitier was now determined to become an actor. He worked on getting rid of his Bahamian accent and improving his theatre performance for six months. On his second audition he was accepted into the American Negro Theater Company.
Poitier’s first role was a small part in a Broadway production of Lysistrata. He received great reviews and by the end of 1949 Poitier was given the opportunity to star in films.
In 1950 Poitier made his film debut in No Way Out where he played a doctor who treated a white bigot. In 1951 he played a South African minister and political activist in Cry, the Beloved Country. In 1955 Poitier played a troubled teenager in Blackboard Jungle although at the time he was 27. Three years later Poitier was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his co-starring role in The Defiant Ones with Tony Curtis.
In 1961 Poitier received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in the film version of A Raisin in the Sun. In 1963, however, Poitier made history by being the first African American actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his leading role in Lilies of the Field. (James Baskett received an honorary Academy Award in 1948 for his performance as Uncle Remus in the Walt Disney production Song of the South). Poitier also won a Golden Globe Award for Lilies of the Field.
Major Hollywood roles now came quickly. In 1965, he co-starred in The Bedford Incident and A Patch of Blue. Two years later he starred in three major films. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner which co-starred Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn and explored the controversial subject of interracial marriage. Later that year co-starred with actor Rod Steiger in the film, In the Heat of the Night where his character, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Detective Virgil Tibbs, was forced to assist a bigoted Mississippi Sheriff played by Steiger in solving a homicide.
