'He was the smartest actor I ever worked with.' Norman Jewison pays tribute to the late Sidney Poitier, star of 'In the Heat of the Night.'
The result ended up winning five Oscars, including Best Picture, and cemented a lifelong friendship between the director and his star; it’s arguably Poitier’s best-known movie to this day.
“Later in the shoot, I wanted to shoot some exteriors in actual Southern locations, so we talked about going to Tennessee. ‘I’ll give you four days, Norman,’ Sidney told me, so we all went down to this small town with one hotel…and it was ‘Whites Only.’ So all of us, the cast and crew, ended up in a Holiday Inn a little ways away, which allowed both Blacks and whites.
“When he says ‘they call me Mr. Tibbs!’ and the slap Virgil gives that white business owner after he’s been slapped…those bits were in the script, but it wasn’t until you saw what Sidney did with those moments that youunderstood the power of them. With the former, I think that Sidney was scared of Rod a little bit, because he could be so over the top.
“We made what turned out to be a revolutionary move together, and we became really close because of that experience, Sidney and I. Then after the Oscars, I went to Europe to go makeand Sidney was becoming a wonderful director in his own right, so we didn’t see each for a bit. But we stayed friends over the years. The last time I saw him, I had dinner with him and Joanna [Shimkus, his second wife]…we’d always remained close to both of them. He wasn’t feeling that well.
“What can I say? I’m heartbroken he’s gone. We lost a brilliant actor and I’ve lost a close friend. But it’s not just a sad day for the movies, or just a sad day for me…it’s a sad day for everybody. I do think that Sydney will go down as one of the greats in American cinema, however. And I hope that people really do continue to recognize him as one of the best.”
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