Monday, February 20, 2023

The Classic Film Collective: 7 Amazing Facts from Sidney Poitier’s Memoir The Measure of a Man

This was originally published in the former The Classic Film Collective Patreon.



The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography
by Sidney Poitier
HarperOne
Paperback ISBN: 9780061357909
272 pages


“You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were.” — Sidney Poitier


We lost a bright shining light when Sidney Poitier passed away last year He left behind a legacy of amazing acting work. Films like The Defiant Ones (1958), A Raisin in the Sun (1959), Lilies of the Field (1963), which earned him an Oscar, the first ever awarded to a black male actor, A Patch of Blue (1965), To Sir, With Love (1967), In the Heat of the Night (1967), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967) defined his career, challenged our notions of race and opened doors for many actors to come. In addition to his accomplishments as an actor, he was also a terrific writer. He published a handful of memoirs including This Life in 1980 and two more recent memoirs Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter and The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography. His last book, published in 2013, was a science fiction novel entitled Montaro Caine.

In the 240+ pages of The Measure of a Man, Poitier does a lot of self-reflection. He contemplates growing up on Cat Island in the Bahamas, his treacherous journey to the United States, becoming an actor in New York City, his tumultuous love life, the many obstacles he faced as a black man and of course his amazing movie career. Let’s take a look at 7 amazing facts from this incredible memoir.


Fact #1 Sidney Poitier didn’t see his own reflection until he was 11 years old.

Growing up poor on Cat Island in the Bahamas, young Poitier didn’t have access to mirrors or any type of glass. Poitier recalls, there were “No glass windows, no glass doors, no stores with glass fronts…” Any reflection came from ocean or pond water, the sheen from metallic objects. Little did he know that the image of himself that he could not see would go on to have a major impact on the world around him. When he and his family moved to Nassau, Poitier finally saw his reflection. But it would still be years before he would be exposed to the effects of racism. He wrote, “I didn’t think about the color of my skin. Not any more than I would have bothered to wonder why the sand was white or the sky was blue.”


Fact #2 Poitier almost died by drowning on two separate occasions. 

Poitier recounts that as a child in the village of Arthur’s Town on Cat Island, there was a “ditch one hundred feet long, six feet deep, dug from the sea to an inland salt pond.” This was known among the locals as a death trap and the young Poitier felt determined to conquer it. He made a perilous attempt at opening a trap door through a tunnel but was not able to. It was high tide and if he had unlatched the door he would have surely drowned.

Decades later, while on a trip to Acapulco with his friend and agent Marty Baum went for a swim while their wives stayed behind on the shore. They swam out and didn’t realize that the ocean floor would drop off so quickly. They got caught up in a dangerous current. Poitier remembered, “then the ocean rose up beneath us. It wasn’t a wave on the surface of the water. It was a raging, thundering swell… The momentum of that angry wave yanked us free from the undercurrents that were pulling at our legs and flung us violently into the shallows of the beach.”


Fact #3 A bus station attendant convinced Poitier to move to New York.

Well, sort of. Poitier had a rough time of it when he moved to Miami. Poitier wrote “I knew that Miami wasn’t for me, because Miami designated me, by law and social custom, as being undeserving of human consideration.” He wanted to get as far away from the city as possible. He asked the bus station attendant how far each destination was and what the cost of each ticket was. Two trip options, Chattanooga and Birmingham, were just too close for comfort. He needed to be as far away as possible. The attendant said that “the next bus is going to New York” and that it would be “eleven dollars and thirty-five cents.” Poitier bought a one way ticket and never looked back.


Fact #4 A waiter helped Poitier learn to read proficiently.

Tired of working as a dishwasher in New York City, Poitier decided to give acting a go. In his memoir he writes, “I had no training in acting. I could barely read! And to top it off I had a thick, singsong Bahamian accent.” After approaching a casting agent at the American Negro Theatre, he was told in not so nice terms that he didn’t have what it took to become an actor. Poitier was too proud to listen to the man’s hurtful rejection. “Whatever it was, I knew I had to change it, or life was going to be mighty grim.” Poitier recounts that an older Jewish waiter at the restaurant where he worked offered to help him during breaks. “He became my tutor, as well as my guardian angel of the moment. Each night we sat in the same booth in that quiet area of the restaurant and he helped me learn to read."


Fact #5 Poitier softened his accent by listening to the radio.

Next he had to work on his thick Bahamian accent. Poitier had a disastrous start at the American Negro Theatre after he covered for fellow Caribbean actor Harry Belafonte. He knew that if this acting gig was going anywhere he had to improve on all fronts. Every night while practicing his reading skills, he would sound out syllables of difficult words to get better at enunciating them. He would also listen to radio shows, mimicking how the announcers spoke in order soften his accent. Poitier didn’t give up and strove to become a better actor. When he heard 20th Century Fox was casting for No Way Out (1950) he jumped at the chance. He got the part and a star was born…


Fact #6 Poitier had to be smuggled into South Africa to make Cry, the Beloved Country (1951).

No Way Out director Joseph Mankiewicz put Poitier in touch with Zoltán Korda who was then casting for Cry, the Beloved Country (1951). Korda flew Poitier out to London for an audition and he got the part. Poitier and Canada Lee, in his final role, play two priests in South Africa during the early years of apartheid. In order for Korda to get Poitier and Lee into the country, he had to tell immigration offers that the actors were actually indentured servants. While Poitier doesn’t go into detail about this, he does reflect on the experience of making Cry, the Beloved Country by saying “It was heady stuff, and I couldn’t escape the feeling that, not only was I one lucky youngster, but something more had to be at play here.” Some time after Poitier was asked to publicly denounce co-star Canada Lee because of his political beliefs and Poitier refused.


Fact #7 Poitier believed he was a catalyst for change even when others criticized his complacency.

In the memoir Poitier writes, “Social movement doesn’t come all at once, just as it doesn’t come out of nowhere.” He reflected on a New York Times article entitled “Why Do White Folks Love Sidney Poitier So?” Poitier was criticized for playing gentle characters rather than ones who chose force or to a greater extreme violence to make change. He writes “In essence, I was being taken to task for playing exemplary human beings.” These characters include those in To Sir, With Love, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, all of whom in the face of conflict remain steadfast. Poitier’s subversiveness was more subtle. He found strength in positivity. It was his form of self-preservation but it was also his way of making change. He went on to say, “simply put, I’ve learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me.”


The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Poitier is available through a variety of book retailers and can also be borrowed from your local library through Overdrive.

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (20)

It's that time again! I've poured over countless publisher catalogs to find some classic film book gems so you don't have to. Here is another robust list of new and upcoming releases with something for every classic movie enthusiast.

Are you new to my list? Here are the details. The books include biographies, memoirs, scholarly texts, coffee table books and more from a variety of publishers. For any scholarly books I make sure the ones included are affordable. There are also some reissues and paperback editions added to the bunch. Publication dates range from January to June 2023 (with some late 2022 releases thrown in) and these are subject to change. These are U.S. release dates. International release dates may vary.

Links go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Powell's. I receive a small commission if you shop through some (not all) of my buy links. 




AVAILABLE NOW



The Acrobat
by Edward J. Delaney
Turtle Point Press
280 pages — November 2022




Claude Rains
Madness, Magic & Mayhem
by John T. Soister, Jessica Rains and JoAnna Jones
BearManor Media
494 pages — October 2022




Elizabeth Taylor
The Grit & Glamour of an Icon
by Kate Andersen Brower
Harper
512 pages — December 2022




**REISSUE**
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
by Anita Loos
Dover Publications
112 pages — December 2022




Local Hero
Making a Scottish Classic
by Jonathan Melville
Polaris
352 pages — October 2022



JANUARY



Anna May Wong
From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend
by Graham Russell Gao Hodges
Chicago Review Press
304 pages — January 2023




Crooked, but Never Common
The Films of Preston Sturges
by Stuart Klawans
Columbia University Press
376 pages — January 2023




Jean Gabin
The Actor Who Was France
by Joseph Harriss
University Press of Kentucky
328 pages — January 2023




Ida Lupino
A Biography
by William Donati
University Press of Kentucky
360 pages — January 2023




Lugosi
The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Dracula  
by Shadmi Koren
Humanoids, Inc.
160 pages — January 2023




Madness at the Movies
Understanding Mental Illness through Film
by James Charney
Johns Hopkins University Press
448 pages— January 2023




The Motion Picture Teller
by Colin Cotterill
Soho Crime
240 pages— January 2023




Nothing To Fear
Alfred Hitchcock And The Wrong Men 
by Jason Isralowitz
Fayetteville Mafia Press
250 pages — January 2023




Obsession Dietrich
by Edouard Taufenbach and Bastien Pourtout
L'artiere
48 pages — January 2023




Oscar Wars
A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears 
by Michael Schulman
Harper
608 pages — January 2023




Perplexing Plots
Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder
by David Bordwell
Columbia University Press
512 pages — January 2023




The Way They Were
How Epic Battles and Bruised Egos Brought a Classic Hollywood Love Story to the Screen 
by Robert Hofler
Citadel
304 pages — January 2023




The Way We Were
The Making of a Romantic Classic
by Tom Santopietro
Applause Books
336 pages — January 2023




Will Rogers and His America
by Gary Clayton Anderson
University of Oklahoma Press
244 pages — January 2023



FEBRUARY



American Rivals of James Bond
by Graham Andrews
McFarland
120 pages  — February 2023




The Annotated Abbott and Costello
A Complete Viewer's Guide to the Comedy Team and Their 38 Films
by Matthew Coniam and Nick Santa Maria
McFarland
490 pages — February 2023




**Paperback Edition**
Barbara Stanwyck
The Miracle Woman
by Dan Callahan
University Press of Mississippi
272 pages  — February 2023




Dancing Down the Barricades
Sammy Davis Jr. and the Long Civil Rights Era 
Matthew Frye Jacobson
University of California Press
344 pages  — February 2023




(New on sale date)
The Farrows of Hollywood
Their Dark Side of Paradise
by Marilyn Ann Moss
Skyhorse Publishing
312 pages — February 2023



Harvard, Hollywood, Hitmen, and Holy Men
A Memoir
by Paul W. Williams
University Press of Kentucky
312 pages  — February 2023




Ida Lupino, Filmmaker
edited by Phillip Sipiora
Bloomsbury Academic
288 pages  — February 2023




Once Upon a Rind in Hollywood
50 Movie-Themed Cheese Platters and Snack Boards for Film Fanatics 
photographed by Rachel Riederman
Ulysses Press
144 pages  — February 2023




Rochelle Hudson
A Biography and Career Record
by David C. Tucker
McFarland
178 pages  — February 2023




Silent Film's Last Hurrah
The Remarkable Movies of the Long 1928
by David Meuel
McFarland
158 pages  — February 2023




**Paperback Edition**
Truly, Madly
Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century
by Stephen Galloway
Central Publishing
416 pages  — February 2023




A Queer Way of Feeling
Girl Fans and Personal Archives of Early Hollywood
by Diana W. Anselmo
University of California Press
280 pages — February 2023



MARCH



**Paperback Edition**
12 Angry Men
Reginald Rose and the Making of an American Classic
by Phil Rozenweig
Empire State Editions
314 pages — March 2023




Battle of Britain: The Movie
The Men and Machines of one of the Greatest War Films Ever Made 
by Dilip Sarkar and Robert J. Rudhall
Air World
224 pages — March 2023




Being Bardot
Photographed by Douglas Kirkland and Terry O'Neill
Acc Art Books
252 pages — March 2023




Blanche
The Life and Times of Tennessee Williams's Greatest Creation 
Nancy Schoenberger
Harper
340 pages — March 2023




Blood on the Moon
Reel West
by Alan K. Rode
University of New Mexico Press
136 pages — March 2023




But Have You Read the Book?
52 Literary Gems That Inspired Our Favorite Films
by Kristen Lopez
TCM and Running Press
240 pages — March 2023




Cinema Ann Arbor
How Campus Rebels Forged a Singular Film Culture
Frank Uhle
University of Michigan Press
344 pages — March 2023




Colors of Film
The Story of Cinema in 50 Palettes
by Charles Bramesco
Frances Lincoln
208 pages — March 2023




**En Español**
El libro de cine
Nueva edición
por DK
352 paginas — March 2023




French B Movies
Suburban Spaces, Universalism, and the Challenge of Hollywood 
by David A. Pettersen
Indiana University Press
346 pages — March 2023



Mel Brooks
Disobedient Jew
by Jeremy Dauber
Yale University Press
216 pages — March 2023




Melody in the Dark
British Musical Films, 1946-1972
by Adrian Wright
Boydell Press
384 pages — March 2023




**Paperback Edition**
My West Side Story
A Memoir
by George Chakiris with Lindsay Harrison
Lyons Press
232 pages — March 2023




**Paperback Edition**
The Real Diana Dors
by Anna Cale
200 pages — March 2023




The Story of Disney
100 Years of Wonder
by John Baxter, Bruce Steele, Staff of the Walt Disney Archives
Disney Editions
304 pages — March 2023




**Commemorative Edition**
Walt Disney
An American Original
Disney Editions
432 pages — March 2023




The Woman Who Dared
The Life and Times of Pearl White, Queen of the Serials
by William M. Drew
University Press of Kentucky
672 pages — March 2023



APRIL



Bloodstained Narratives
The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad 
edited by Matthew Edwards and Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns
University Press of Mississippi
304 pages —April 2023




**Paperback Edition**
Citizen Welles
A Biography of Orson Welles
by Frank Brady
University Press of Kentucky
680 pages —April 2023




Eddie Muller's Noir Bar
Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir 
by Eddie Muller
TCM and Running Press
248 pages —April 2023




Eraserhead
BFI Film Classics
by Claire Henry
BFI
120 pages —April 2023




From Silent Film Idol to Superman
The Life and Career of John Stuart
by Jonathan Croall
McFarland
164 pages —April 2023




(Updated on sale date)
Getting Carter
Ted Lewis and the Birth of British Noir 
by Nick Triplow
Soho Syndicate
April 2023




Guns, Dames and Private Eyes
The Rivals of Philip Marlowe
Stories from the Golden Age of the American Pulp Magazines
edited by Nick Rennison
No Exit
320 pages — April 2023




Hollywood in the Klondike
Dawson City’s Great Film Find 
Michael Gates
Lost Moose Books
304 pages — April 2023




Memories of Underdevelopment
BFI Film Classics
by Darlene J. Sadlier
BFI
104 pages —April 2023




Military Women in World Cinema
A 20th Century History and Filmography
by Deborah A. Deacon and Stacy Fowler
McFarland
291 pages —April 2023




The Official John Wayne Handy Book for Boys
Essential Skills and Fun Activities for Adventurous, Self-Reliant Kids 
by James Ellis
Media Lab Books
256 pages — April 2023




On Marilyn Monroe
An Opinionated Guide
by Richard Barrios
Oxford University Press
192 pages — April 2023




Recollecting Collecting
A Film and Media Perspective
edited by Lucy Fischer
Wayne State University Press
300 pages —April 2023




Rod Serling
His Life, Work, and Imagination
by Nicholas Parisi
Foreword by Anne Serling
University Press of Mississippi
558 pages —April 2023




The Soundies
A History and Catalog of Jukebox Film Shorts of the 1940s
by Mark Cantor
McFarland
120 pages —April 2023




A Taste of Honey
BFI Film Classics
by Melanie Williams
BFI
104 pages —April 2023




**Revised and Updated**
Where Are They Buried?
How Did They Die? Fitting Ends and Final Resting Places of the Famous, Infamous, and Noteworthy 
by Tod Benoit
Black Dog & Leventhal
592 pages —April 2023



MAY



The Brightest Star 
A Novel
by Gail Tsukiyama
HarperVia
320 pages — May 2023




The Cinema of Barbara Stanwyck
Twenty-Six Short Essays on a Working Star
by Catherine Russell
University of Illinois Press
368 pages — May 2023




**Paperback Edition**
Elizabeth and Monty
The Untold Story of Their Intimate Friendship
by Charles Casillo
Kensington
400 pages — May 2023




Hollywood Cocktails
Over 200 Excellent Recipes 
Michael O'Mara Books
60 pages — May 2023




The Official John Wayne Handy Book of Emergency Preparedness
Essential skills for prepping, surviving and bugging out when disaster strikes
by Billy Jensen and Check Freedman
illustrated by Richard Phipps
Media Lab Books
256 pages —May 2023




Warner Bros. 100
100 Years of Storytelling
Mark A. Vieira
Running Press
368 pages — May 2023




Women and New Hollywood
Gender, Creative Labor, and 1970s American Cinema 
edited by Aaron Hunter and Martha Shearer
Rutgers University Press
230 pages — May 2023




The Women Who Built Hollywood
12 Trailblazers in Front of and Behind the Camera 
by Susan Goldman Rubin
Calkins Creek
208 pages — May 2023



JUNE



Bogie & Bacall
The Surprising True Story of Hollywood's Greatest Love Affair
by William J. Mann
Harper
448 pages — June 2023




Cinema of Swords
A Popular Guide to Movies about Knights, Pirates, Barbarians, and Vikings 
(and Samurai and Musketeers and Gladiators and Outlaw Heroes) 
by Lawrence Ellsworth
Applause
376 pages — June 2023




Corman/Poe
Interviews and Essays Exploring the Making of Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe Films, 1960-1964 
by Chris Alexander
Foreword by Roger Corman
Headpress
250 pages — June 2023




Hollywood Confidential
How the Studios Beat the Mob at Their Own Game
by Ted Schwarz
Lyons Press
312 pages — June 2023




Twelve Films about Love and Heaven
by Pete Fraser
St. Augustine's Press
210 pages — June 2023



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