With a career spanning more than four decades, Denzel Washington has established himself as one of the world’s most celebrated and versatile acting talents. Following his formative years in off-Broadway theatre, Denzel broke into the movie business, eventually becoming a two-time Academy Award winner for his supporting role in 1989’s Glory and a central role in 2001’s Training Day.
As an aspiring young actor, Washington had an array of vital influences, but none, it would seem, so direct and empowering as the late, great Sidney Poitier. The Miami-born Hollywood veteran rose to prominence in the late 1950s following a lauded performance in The Defiant Ones. Poitier became the first African American man to receive an Academy Award nomination in the ‘Best Actor’ category for his stand-out performance in the Stanley Kramer direction.
In the 1960s, he consolidated his position in history after winning the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for ‘Best Actor’ for portraying Homer Smith in Ralph Nelson’s 1963 drama Lillies of the Field.
Understandably, Poitier remained a towering presence in Hollywood and inspired countless actors of all different backgrounds. In the early 1980s, the rising talent Washington tracked down his hero and, over time, established a relationship that transcended mentorship, friendship and kinship.
“Sidney… you know, we go back 40 years, so he’s more than a friend, more than a father figure,” Washington said of his hero in a 2022 interview on SiriusXM. “I could ask him everything about where I was going because he’d been there. And where I was and where I was going, there was no one else I could ask because there was no one else who had been there, who was Black and a man and had been there, but I had him to ask. He was available and shared all kinds of things with me. So that I’ll treasure forever.”
In January 2022, following decades of eminence as both an actor and activist, Poitier passed away aged 94. Naturally, Washington was struck emotionally by the news but cherished the relationship the pair had. Continuing, Washington explained how, even after years of knowing Poitier, he would have to pinch himself while sitting down to chat.
“I could just ask him anything, and he’d give me his honest opinion,” Washington added. “So we talked about everything, professionally, personally, you know, about his life and about my life. And some days, I’d be sitting there going, ‘I’m with Sidney Poitier, I’m listening to him [grins]. I don’t even let him know – I’m nodding my head, but inside, I’m going, ‘That’s Mr. Tibbs for crying out loud!”
Mr. Tibbs is the name of Poitier’s character in Norman Jewison’s 1967 movie In the Heat of the Night. Although Poitier wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award, the movie won five, including ‘Best Actor’ for Rod Steiger. It has since been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” thanks to its important race messages.
Watch the trailer for In the Heat of the Night below.
