Sidney Poitier was born in Miami, Florida in 1927, but raised in the Bahamas. He was the youngest of eight children. He is married to Joanna Shimkus and is the father of six kids, Beverly, Pamela, Sherri, Gina, Anika, and Sydney. He experienced a lot of proverty when he was young. His father was a tomato farmer and was considered the poorest man in the village. When Poitier was 11 his family moved to the capital of Bahamas where he first learned about movies and acting. When he saw his first movie he expected the cowboys and horses come out of the theater, But his friends told him that is was only a movie. He thought that the movies where magical so he went all the time. .
When Poitier was 16 he went to New York while he was in the army. He only served in the army for a few years. He then went on to become a dishwasher, but often talked about how he wanted to act. "I didn't study in school, I never got that far. I had no intentions on becoming an actor." Said Poitier . (Contemporary Black Biography-Volume 11, pg.203). One day he just looked in the paper and saw an ad for an audition at the American Negro Theater. The co-founder, Frederick O"Neal, did not like Poitier at all. He did not like his accent of the way he read. He got very angry, told him to leave, and to stop wasting people's times. Poitier was disappointed but he knew he had to prove O"Neal wrong. .
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Poitier kept his dishwashing job, but listened to the radio to try and change his accent. When an elderly Jewish man taught him to read he went back to the theater and asked them to hire him as a janitor in exchange for acting lessons. Poitier soon became an understudy for Harry Belafonte in Days of Our Youth, a play. After he appeared in the play on night he got small role in the Greek comedy Lysistrata . On the night of the play Poitier was so nervous he said the word lines and ran off stage.
But critics loved him and he soon got more work.
