Sidney Poitier & Cicely Tryson started out in different places, but their careers would eventually follow a similar path to stardom. Poitier was born in the US to Bahamian parents and spent his childhood in the Bahamas, and Tyson was born to Caribbean parents in New York.
As a teenager, Poitier came back to the US and enlisted in the army in the medical unit. Tyson worked for the Red Cross. Poitier came to New York City, where he began acting in theaters, which gave way to his first film in 1950, No Way Out. Tyson began her entertainment career in modeling before her big break in a show called Frontier on NBC in 1951.
Both actors were dedicated to only accepting roles that portrayed Black people in a positive light. They both had many achievements on and off the screen. Cicely Tyson was nominated for an Oscar in 1973, and Sidney Poitier was the first Black actor to win a Best Actor Oscar in 1964.
