@TCManiacs Blogs: Sidney Poitier won Academy Award for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field, first black man to win Oscar

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Sidney Poitier won Academy Award for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field, first black man to win Oscar

Sidney Poitier won the 1963 Academy Award for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field, becoming the first black man to win a competitive Oscar in the USA.

Lilies of the Field is a 1962 book by William Edmund Barrett which was made into a 1963 film and adapted for the musical stage with the title Look to the Lilies. It tells the story of a Black-American itinerant worker who encounters a group of East German nuns who are convinced he has been sent to them by God to help them build a new chapel.

The film also stars Lilia Skala, Lisa Mann, Isa Crino, Francesca Jarvis, Pamela Branch, Stanley Adams and Dan Frazer.

The title comes from Matthew 6:28 a portion of the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament.

²⁸And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin --Matthew 6:28 (King James Version)

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