Translated From: From Biden to Oprah, US politics and entertainment say goodbye to …
Discovered on: 2022-01-08 04:39:14
Washington, Jan 7 (EFE) .- The world of politics and entertainment in the United States said goodbye this Friday to Sidney Poitier, the first black actor to win an Oscar as a leading actor, whom they remembered as the great symbol of the movement for civil rights in Hollywood.
The US president, Joe Biden, lamented in a statement the death of Poitier, whom he considered “one of the best actors in the history” of the country.
Biden considered that thanks to his work in films that showed racial discrimination in the United States during the 50s and 60s, the interpreter “changed the world on and off the big screen.”
For his part, his predecessor in the Presidency Barack Obama (2009-2017) highlighted in his social networks that “through his innovative roles and his unique talent, Sidney Poitier personified dignity and grace, revealing the power of films to get closer together. It also opened the doors to a generation of actors. “
The former president accompanied his message with a photograph with Poitier and his wife, Michelle Obama, of when he decorated the actor in 2009 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civil award in the United States.
Also the television presenter Oprah Winfrey published on her social networks a photograph of Poitier, who died this Friday at the age of 94, with an emotional farewell message.
“It was an honor to have had him as a teacher, friend, brother and confidant. The highest respect for his magnificent and eloquent life. I treasured him. I adored him. He had a huge soul that I will always cherish,” said Winfrey.
These reactions were joined by the actress and producer Viola Davis, who stressed that Poitier was “a great” and revealed that the work of this artist changed his life “radically”.
“The dignity, normality, strength, excellence and the pure electricity that he contributed in his roles showed us that we, as blacks, matter !!! It was an honor,” he wrote in networks.
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Meanwhile, actress Whoopi Goldberg expressed her condolences and stressed that Poitier taught her to “reach for the stars.”
“I would write in the sky in letters a thousand feet high: To the Lord, with love. Sidney Poitier, rest in peace,” Goldberg noted on Twitter.
Morgan Freeman was another figure in the film world who praised Poitier with a message in which he assured that “Sidney” was his inspiration, his light and his friend. “I send my love to Joanna (Shimkus) and her family,” Freeman wrote alongside a picture of the two hugging.
Also actor Denzel Washington said that “it was a privilege to have been friends with Sidney Poitier”, whom he defined as “a gentleman who opened the doors” to many actors.
The actor, composer, singer and activist Harry Belafonte, who shared the screen with Poitier several times, described him as “a friend and companion”, with whom he tried “to make the world a little better”.
For his part, the former CEO of The Walt Disney Company Bob Iger claimed that Poitier was “the most dignified man” he has ever known.
The death of Poitier was confirmed this Friday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Bahamas in a statement in which it did not specify the cause of death of the legendary actor, born in Miami in 1927 and of natural parents from the island of Cat .
Considered the first black “dandy” in Hollywood, Poitier was the symbol of cinema during the civil rights movement and left after his death a trace of rectitude, elegance and know-how that no other actor has been able to impersonate like him in more than fifty years of career that he leaves behind.
(c) EFE Agency
