25 Days of History: December 11th

On this day on 1967 "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, premiered in New York City. The film to this day holds significant historical and cultural value, depicting interracial marriage in an affirmative way.

Friday, December 13th, 2019 @ 11:45 (11:45am)

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, original release poster

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Significance

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer. It stars Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn, and features Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton.

The film was one of the few films of the time to depict an interracial marriage in a positive light, as interracial marriage historically had been illegal in most states of the United States, and still was illegal in 17 states (notably in the South) until June 12, 1967, six months before the film was released, when anti-miscegenation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia. In 2017, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Sidney Poitier's Historical Contributions to Cinema

Sir Sidney Poitier, is a Bahamian-American actor and film director. He received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor, winning one, by which he became the first black actor to win the Award. Poitier was also nominated six times for both the Golden Globe for Best Actor and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award (BAFTA) for Best Foreign Actor, winning each honor once. From 1997 to 2007, he served as the Bahamian Ambassador to Japan.

Sidney Poitier in For Love of Ivy, 1968

Humble Beginnings

Poiter's family lived in the Bahamas but he was born in Miami while they were visiting, thereby acquiring American citizenship. He grew up in the Bahamas before moving to New York when he was 16. He joined the North American Negro Theatre eventually landing his first film role in 1950 with his role as an incorrigible high school student in Blackboard Jungle (1955) giving him his breakthrough.

Critical Acclaim

In 1958 Poitier starred with Tony Curtis in the critically acclaimed The Defiant Ones as chained-together convicts who escape and must cooperate. Both actors received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor, with Poitier's being the first ever for a black actor, as well as nominations for the BAFTAs, which Poitier won. In 1964 he won the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field (1963) in which he played a handyman who stays with and helps a group of German-speaking nuns build a chapel. Poitier also received critical acclaim for A Raisin in the Sun (1961) and A Patch of Blue (1965).

He continued to break ground in three successful films, each dealing with issues of race and race relations: To Sir, with Love; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and In the Heat of the Night, vaulting him as the top box-office star of that year in 1967. He received nominations for the Golden Globes and BAFTAs for the latter film, but not for the Oscars, likely due to vote splitting between his roles. After twice reprising his Virgil Tibbs character from In the Heat of the Night and acting in a variety of other films, including the thriller The Wilby Conspiracy (1975), Poiter turned to dual acting/directing with the action-comedies Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Let's Do It Again (1975), and A Piece of the Action (1978), all co-starring Bill Cosby. During a decade away from acting he directed the successful Stir Crazy (1980) starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, among other films. He returned to acting in the late 1980s and early 1990s in a few thrillers and limited television roles.

Knighted, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and More Honors

• Poitier was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1974.

• In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Poitier 22nd on their list of Greatest Male Stars of classic Hollywood cinema.

• In 2002 Poitier was chosen to receive an Academy Honorary Award, in recognition of his "remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being".

• In 2009 Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor.

• In 2016, he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for outstanding lifetime achievement in film.