CANNES, France (May 18, 2006) — France gave Sidney Poitier its highest arts honor Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival, where the culture minister praised the Oscar winner for tearing down barriers for black actors in Hollywood.
Poitier, 79, was named a commander in France’s order of arts and letters. In 1964, he became the first black performer in a leading role to win an Academy Award, for “Lilies of the Field.”
“You are the champion of equality between men,” Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said.
Poitier thanked his parents, who were field workers in the Bahamas, for giving him a sense of honesty, integrity and compassion.
He also thanked the directors who broke convention to hire him, calling them “men who chose to change that pattern because it was not democratic, it was not American, it was not human.”
Poitier’s screen credits also include roles in “The Defiant Ones,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “A Patch of Blue” and “A Raisin in the Sun.”
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