By Richard G. Carter
As a Milwaukee-born Black journalist and devotee of vintage films who has kept the notes of all my significant interviews, my first exposure to Black movie actors was, as a callow youth, 1943’s saucy “Stormy Weather.” It featured wonderful singers and dancers in non-threatening roles. I didn’t see 1939’s “Gone With the Wind” – with Oscar-winning Hattie McDaniel — until one of its re-releases years later.
Thus, among the highlights of my long career, was my welcome discovery of the late, great serious Sidney Poitier – who just passed away at 94. This occurred in his sensitive, yet strong role as a young South African minister in 1952’s “Cry the Beloved Country.” And I remember it like it was only yesterday.
I told Sidney – years ago — I had been even more impressed by his work as an idealistic doctor in 1950’s “No Way Out.” In it, he had to endure vile, anti-Black epithets by sneering, White racist gangster, Richard Widmark, who taunted him and called him “nigger.”
“How did you feel about that?” I asked Sidney, during our up-close-and personal 1963 Milwaukee Star interview, following his appearance at the Strand Theater on W. Wisconsin Ave., at the local premier of his Academy Award-winning role in ”Lillies of the Field.”
“Widmark was a great actor and a really nice guy, and no way was he racist,” he told me. “In fact, Widmark apologized to me, during a break in the shooting. I told him to forget it, we were only acting.” I then said that although I loved his work in “Lilies,” I much preferred him in tougher roles – eliciting a smile.”
As for my mother, Juanita Carter,” I added, “she loved you as Walter Lee Younger and, especially, Claudia McNeil as your mother, in 1961’s “ A Raisin in the Sun.” Mrs. Carter always said she saw some of herself in Claudia, whose work she truly admired.
”Oh, yeah, I can understand that,” Sidney said. “Claudia was remarkable. She epitomized the strong, Black family matriarch, and helped me and the rest of the cast – Ruby Dee, Diana Sands and Lou Gossett – be so much better.”
In 1988 — during our New York Daily News interview in a hotel — I said my fave role for him was in 1965’s taut, Cold War drama, “The Bedford Incident.” In it, he played a noted magazine writer, again co-starring Widmark.
His reply: “Why do you like that so much? Most people who interview me say they prefer “The Defiant Ones.”
“Sure, you were great in that one,” I said, “and so was Tony Curtis. “You got that right,” said Sidney, commenting on the 1958 breakthrough, Black-White buddy movie. “Tony was a very underrated actor.”
“But as a Black journalist who has struggled to make it,” I said, “I think I identified with your journalist role in ‘The Bedford Incident’ and, especially, how you pressed Widmark – the pro-war captain of a nuclear navy vessel. You really took it to him.”
“Thanks, man,” he said. “And by the way, I do remember you from Milwaukee in 1963. I got a long memory.”
Before ending, I mentioned that I’d recently run into his pal and frequent co-star, Harry Belafonte, walking along Madison Ave. ”He looked great, and so do you.”
In concluding, I said: “By the way, I still wonder why, at 28, you played a teenage high-school student in 1955’s ‘Blackboard Jungle.’ “
“So do I,” he laughed.
Rest in peace, Sidney. You were the best.
Milwaukee native Richard G. Carter, is a freelance columnist
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