Sidney Poitier

Actor Dustin Hoffman, center, greets Sidney Poitier as actress Rachel Weisz looks on at the 2006 British Academy of Film and Television Arts / Los Angeles Cunard Britannia Awards, Thursday night, Nov. 2, 2006, in Los Angeles. Weisz received the Britania Award for artist of the Year. Poitier received the Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film.

Actor Sidney Poitier, left, poses with his wife Joanna Shimkus after being awarded Commander in the Order of the Arts and Letters by France's Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres during a ceremony at the Festival Palace, at the 59th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Thursday, May 18, 2006.

Actor Sidney Poitier poses after being awarded Commander in the Order of the Arts and Letters by France's Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres during a ceremony at the Festival Palace, at the 59th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Thursday, May 18, 2006.

Actor Sidney Poitier, second from left, arrives with his wife Joanna Shimkus, left, actress Juliette Binoche, second from right, and the French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu De Vabres for the screening of "The Da Vinci Code," at the 59th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Wednesday, May 17, 2006.

Sidney Poitier speaks to the audience after winning a special award for Distinguished Career Achievement during the 2005 Black Movie Awards at the Wiltern Theater on Oct. 9, 2005 in Los Angeles, Calif.

Actor Sidney Poitier and his wife, Joanna Shimkus, attend Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball at the Bacara Resort and Spa on May 14, 2005 in Santa Barbara, Calif.

President Bill Clinton, right, applauds as first lady Hillary Clinton shakes hands with actor Sidney Poitier, center, Dec. 3, 1995, at a reception at the White House in Washington. From left: dancer Jacques d'Amboise, opera star Marilyn Horne, musician B.B. King, Poitier and playwright Neil Simon. They were later awarded Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement in the arts.

Sidney Poitier played Det. Virgil Tibbs in the 1967 film "In the Heat of the Night." He became the first African-American actor to place his autograph, hand, and footprints in the cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on June 23, 1967. Poitier got a number of roles that catapulted him into a category rarely if ever achieved by a black man of that time, that of starring leading man.