Every so often there comes along a truly special human being.
Actor, Sidney Poitier was one of them.
Another was an elderly Jewish waiter who mentored the future screen star to full literacy.
Poitier loved to recall how they would sit and read together in the kitchen of the Queens, New York restaurant where they worked and that the old man "would teach me what a comma is and why it exists, what periods are, what colons are, what dashes are ...
“He would teach me that there are syllables and how to differentiate them in a single word and consequently, learn how to pronounce them. Every night.
“One of my great regrets in life is that I went on to be a very successful actor, and one day I tried to find him, but it was too late, and I regret that I never had the opportunity to really thank him".
Top and bottom then, Sidney Poitier was not only an Oscar-winning actor, director and renowned civil rights figure. He was also a solid gold mensch!
I wish his wife Canadian Joanna Shimkus and their family a sincere 'long life'.
Poitier's great friend and colleague, Harry Belafonte was latterly married to Julie Robinson, a former dancer with the Katherine Dunham Company who was of Jewish descent. Among her distant relatives was the late Joan Spindler, nee Stein of Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, UK.
NATALIE WOOD
08 JANUARY 2022