Sidney Poitier has died | Hacker News Reader

Sidney Poitier has died

theguardian.com

160 pointsColinWright35 comments

When I was growing up in the 60's, I was enormously impressed by Sidney Poitier. He was undeniably a man in a time when African-American men were called "boy" and gave lie to every negative stereotype I heard back then. He was important in the civil rights movement, if only for his commanding presence and piercing intelligence that helped turn attitudes about blacks around for the better.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is my favorite: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_Who%27s_Coming_to_Dinn...

At the time, interracial marriage was still illegal in most of the south. It’s set in San Francisco as well, so you might recognize things!

You beat me to it – such an excellent film.

Great dialogue, writing, and acting. I loved the rare peek at what San Francisco looked like back in the late 60s (very different from the current San Francisco Bay Area).

I like watching old color movies just to see the cars and city streets of those times.

You might like Christiane F. Very very somber film but lots of good shots of Berlin at night in the 80s (set to Bowie songs)

>...At the time, interracial marriage was still illegal in most of the south.

Not exactly - by the time the movie came out the anti-miscegenation laws had recently been overturned. The decision in Loving v. Virginia was announced on June 12, 1967 and "Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner" was released on December 11, 1967.

Then at the time the movie was made, it was illegal.

Discussion of "Sneakers" happening over here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29840802

The scene at the end of "To Sir, With Love" - where he decides how he wants to have an impact in his career - is always really moving for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXaEf4ktpPA

Sad. I'm a big fan of Sneakers.

My wife and I just re-watched it the other night, on a whim. What a great movie!

Totally holds up 30 years later and in retrospect was WAY ahead of its time for 1992: Hacker spaces in SF, for-profit pen-test teams, cryptography and the implications of quantum computing, etc.

Go watch it if you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it. And, of course, Sidney Poitier is excellent (“Mar-tin!”)

"You all would be chalk outlines by now if it wasn't for me."

One of my favorites as well. The camaraderie in this movie was outstanding.

A propos "Sneakers":

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/dec/20/sneakers-rob...

I found it crazy how for years, River Phoenix was the only person of the main cast to die even though he was early 20's. Is Sidney now the first death since then?

It appears you're correct.

Eddie Jones, who I would argue played a pivotal role, died in 2019.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0428008

Oh wow didn't know that. Yes certainly a pivotal role.

Quick link to his Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Poitier

Bother :(

I had just edited it last week and was surprised at him being the last big Golden Age of Cinema star around.

Coincidentally, the novel currently on my bedside table is "I am Not Sidney Poitier" [1] by Percival Everett.

The main character is Not Sidney Poitier (first name: Not Sidney), who looks a bit like Sidney Poitier. I'm only half way through and don't know yet whether this is significant. Not Sidney's guardian in the novel is Ted Turner, of Turner Broadcasting, and he lives for a while with Ted and his wife Jane Fonda.

It's quite strange, and good fun.

Anyway, this is a good prompt for me to learn more about the real Sidney Poitier and his significance and impact.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Am-Not-Sidney-Poitier-Novel-ebook/dp/...

So famous at the time, he had a syndrome named after him…”Sydney Poitier syndrome”.

https://www.denverpost.com/2010/05/27/from-quiet-life-in-bah...

His stage persona as the Black hero was so perfect, that White audiences ate it up, and Black culture thought it set an unrealistic expectation about what Black folks should aspire to achieve and White folks should expect.

The Cosby Show was criticized for the same issue…a perfect Black couple, one doctor and one corporate lawyer, living in a huge brownstone in NYC with several charming children. A little too aspirational…

He was a great actor, and groundbreaking in this contribution to film.

That said, why is this here?

It's here because someone though it was worth submitting, and it's on the front page because people thought it was worth upvoting.

I see a lot of submissions on here that "someone though it was worth submitting, and people thought it was worth upvoting" that get deleted anyway.

It's entirely possible that some people here were inspired to become Software Devs, etc. by some of his work (especially "Sneakers").

I'd say that's reason enough.

Hacker News is for any story that gratifies intellectual curiosity - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

When someone dies, the story is not just the death of that person, but their life. Such threads are relatively common on HN. It might not be a good thread for HN if the person was too much of a celebrity or if their death was particularly sensational, but those things are not the case here.

Ricky Gervaise and guitar lessons?

https://youtu.be/L3dxMGzt5mU

(And yes, I do appreciate the irony of my replying to your comment :-)

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