Saturday, February 22, 2014

Among The Stars - SIDNEY POITIER



Back in the day, when I was still trying to find my way around this town called Hollywood, I did stand-in work on award shows. One year while working a rehearsal of the Academy Awards I was roaming around as usual checking out the surroundings at The Shrine Auditorium. This particular year the Academy was honoring all past Oscar winners.
One of my favorite places to hang out is the green room. It's always so nicely decorated, has the best food and all the stars come through there at one time or another. So there I am strolling through the backstage area on my way to the green room and I see this tall Black man walking toward me. Nobody else was around. As we get closer to one another I see that it's Sidney Poitier. Now I'm not usually star-struck but I think at that moment I gasped out loud and held my breath. While still walking toward him, I started to veer away from him on a diagonal. Why? I don't know! Maybe to clear a space, get out of his way??? Anyway, he began to veer as well, directly towards me. I thought, "What is he doing?" Now, I'm almost up against the wall and he stops right in front of me, extends his hand and says, "Hi, I'm Sidney." I looked up at him, opened my mouth and all that air I was holding in came bursting out. "Hiiiiiiiiiiiii" was all I could say. 
And that my friends, was my Sidney Poitier moment.