This Life
by Sidney Poitier
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sidney PoitierEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1981-03-12
ISBN: 0345294076
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of This Life
Book Review: Slums To Stardom On Sheer Willpower
Summary: 3 Stars
"This Life," Sidney Poitier's first autobiography, makes it clear that Poitier, the much-honored, Oscar-winning, world-famous movie star, has had quite a life. He was born, premature and tiny, not expected to live, in Miami, last of seven living children of Reginald and Evelyn Poitier, dirt-poor Bahamian tomato farmers. Spent his young years on little Cat Island, in the Bahamas. Thrown into the ocean at ten months again and again "like a sack of garbage," because Cat Island children had to swim. Swimming underwater, down a dark and terrifying drainage ditch-- in which the tide should have killed him-- at five because he wanted to. Trying voodoo at nine to catch the attention of a certain eleven year old girl.
Then at eleven, unprepared, to Nassau, where he sees his first movies, and flirts with life on the wrong side of the law. On to Miami, where racism shocks him, and he learns to drive cars by smashing them up in parking lots. To New York at sixteen, where he overdoses on Broadway, elevators, the subway, hot dogs, and malted milk, and washes dishes for a living. His first winter is so cold -- he never heard of winter-- that he joins the army underage to get warm. Gets out by acting crazy.
Auditions for his first acting job because The American Negro Theatre's notice was next to a dishwashing job in "The Amsterdam News," N.Y.'s black newspaper. He didn't know what an actor was, but it sounded like a better job to him. Hooted off the stage because of his inability to read, and his thick West Indian accent. In pride and rage, he breaks the accent by buying a radio and singing along-- "If it said, 'This is WOR bringing you the news,' then I would say 'This is WOR bringing you the news.'" He was taught to read by an elderly Jewish waiter-- to whom he sends his thanks here-- on breaks from dishwashing. Then the long struggle up, so few jobs for black actors then.
At last, harnessing the anger caused by his upbringing in "The Defiant Ones," "In The Heat of the Night," "Blackboard Jungle,""To Sir With Love," "Lilies of the Field," and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." Bulldozing his way to that Oscar, and opening up a path for the black actors who followed: he never has forgotten his concern for his people: it informs "This Life." And succeeding in making a happy family life for himself, too.
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