Oscar Flashback: How Sidney Poitier’s dramatic and historic 1964 Best Actor triumph went down

When Sidney Poitier was honored as the first African American male to win a competitive acting Oscar in 1964 for his lead performance in “Lilies of the Field,” it had been 24 years since Hattie McDaniel became the Jackie Robinson of the Academy Awards with her breakthrough triumph in 1940 for “Gone With the Wind.” And it would be another 19 years before there was a third: Louis Gossett Jr.’s supporting actor victory in 1983 for “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

Wins for three performers of color in 43 years didn’t exactly represent a trend. But in the 39 years after that, there would be 19 more, including a pair of African American actors (Denzel Washington and Mahershala Ali) who won twice apiece. Poitier’s ’64 triumph proved as surprising as it was stirring, and undeniably political. Leading up to that historic event, his inscrutable countenance and the almost regal way he carried himself made Poitier a very different sort of Black performer. He was elegant, clean-cut, classy, quietly charismatic and professional. He was certainly nobody’s Stepin Fetchit. His style oozed character.

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But by the same token, Poitier seemed to carry the hopes and dreams of an entire community on his shoulders. He was the only big-time African American movie star of the time, and he spoke often about how that responsibility weighed on him. He didn’t look at awards recognition as his ultimate, or even as the means to a racial breakthrough. But that’s what he got in “Lilies of the Field,” a small, feelgood gem of a movie – shot in black-and-white – that cast Poitier as Homer Smith, an itinerant handyman who is enlisted by a group of nuns to build them a chapel near their dilapidated desert convent.

“Lilies” was released in October 1963 and took in about $3 million at the box office on a shoestring budget of $240,000. (It was a different time indeed.) It was on its way to being a nice little movie but got swept up in the tumult of the time. Just five weeks before its release, the March on Washington happened, with Poitier among those participating. Six weeks after it came out, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. United Artists drew parallels between a Catholic President’s being gunned down and a film about tolerance, with churches and civic groups getting behind “Lilies of the Field.”

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But Poitier was determined not to participate in the film’s Oscar campaign, maintaining to the columnist Sheilah Graham, “I’m an actor, not a politician.” The reluctance of its star notwithstanding, “Lilies of the Field” was nominated for five Academy Awards, including picture, actor (Poitier), supporting actress (Lilia Skala), screenplay and cinematography. Meanwhile, President Lyndon Johnson was working to push through JFK’s legislation for the Civil Rights Act. A protracted, racist filibuster among five Southern senators began in late March in an attempt to derail the act.

The political fallout spread to Hollywood, and by the time the Oscars ceremony took place on April 13, 1964, it became a matter of racists not being ascribed the power to dictate the kind of America the rest of us would be living in. Besides Poitier, the nominees for Best Actor were Albert Finney for “Tom Jones,” Richard Harris for “The Sporting Life,” Rex Harrison for “Cleopatra” and Paul Newman for “Hud.” Newman, sensing the significance of the moment and with his social awareness just coming into bloom, announced that he backed Poitier’s nomination and wouldn’t attend the ceremony.

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Meanwhile, Poitier himself wasn’t entirely down with the idea of being a symbol for racial justice and considered joining Newman on the sidelines. But as he wrote in his 1981 memoir, “This Life,” he ultimately opted to attend the ceremony at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, believing it would be good for Black people to see him competing for the top honor. When the envelope was opened and Poitier’s name was called that night by presenter Anne Bancroft, his popular win was greeted with thunderous applause. “Because it is a long journey to this moment I am naturally indebted to countless numbers of people,” he said before naming some of those people.

The hope of the moment spread far and wide and would certainly lead to an explosion in Poitier’s career. Never was that truer than in 1967, when he became the biggest film star in the country by starring in three hits: “To Sir, with Love,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “In the Heat of the Night,” with “Heat” becoming a Best Picture winner. But the impact of his win in altering Oscar culture? Not so much. And Poitier predicted it. As he told a reporter the day after his win, “I like to think it will help someone. But I don’t believe my Oscar will be a sort of magic wand that will wipe away the restrictions on job opportunities for Negro actors.”

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