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Betty White dies just shy of her 100th birthday

Author of the article:
Reuters
Reuters
Bill Trott
Publishing date:
Dec 31, 2021 • 8 hours ago • 4 minute read •
17 Comments
Actress Betty White accepts Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award onstage during The 42nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 26, 2015 in Burbank, California.
Actress Betty White accepts Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award onstage during The 42nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 26, 2015 in Burbank, California. Photo by Jesse Grant /Getty Images for NATAS
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Comedic actress Betty White, who capped a career of more than 80 years by becoming America’s geriatric sweetheart after Emmy-winning roles on television sitcoms “The Golden Girls” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” has died less than three weeks shy of her 100th birthday, People magazine said on Friday, quoting her agent.
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The agent, Jeff Witjas, told the magazine: “Even though Betty was about to be 100, I thought she would live forever.” No cause was cited.

In a youth-driven entertainment industry where an actress over 40 faces career twilight, White was an anomaly who was a star in her 60s and a pop culture phenomenon in her 80s and 90s.

Playing on her eminent likability, White was still starring in a TV sitcom, “Hot in Cleveland,” at age 92 until it was canceled in late 2014.

White said her longevity was a result of good health, good fortune and loving her work.
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“It’s incredible that I’m still in this business and that you are still putting up with me,” White said in an appearance at the 2018 Emmy Awards ceremony, where she was honored for her long career. “It’s incredible that you can stay in a career this long and still have people put up with you. I wish they did that at home.”

White was not afraid to mock herself and throw out a joke about her sex life or a snarky crack that one would not expect from a sweet-smiling, white-haired elderly woman. She was frequently asked if, after such a long career, there was anything she still wanted to do and the standard response was: “Robert Redford.”

“Old age hasn’t diminished her,” the New York Times wrote in 2013. “It has given her a second wind.”
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Minutes after news emerged of her death, U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters: “That’s a shame. She was a lovely lady.” His wife Jill Biden said: “Who didn’t love Betty White? We’re so sad about her death.”

Betty Marion White was born on Jan. 17, 1922, in Oak Park, Illinois, and her family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression, where she attended Beverly Hills High School.
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A DEBUT IN THE 1930s

White started her entertainment career in radio in the late 1930s and by 1939 had made her TV debut singing on an experimental channel in Los Angeles. After serving in the American Women’s Voluntary Service, which helped the U.S. effort during World War Two, she was a regular on “Hollywood on Television,” a daily five-hour live variety show, in 1949.

A few years later she became a pioneering woman in television by co-founding a production company and serving as a co-creator, producer and star of the 1950s sitcom “Life With Elizabeth.”

Through the 1960s and early ’70s White was seen regularly on television, hosting coverage of the annual Tournament of Rose Parade and appearing on game shows such as “Match Game” and “Password.” She married “Password” host Allen Ludden, her third and final husband, in 1963.
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White reached a new level of success on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” playing the host of a home-making television show, the snide, lusty Sue Ann Nivens, whose credo was “a woman who does a good job in the kitchen is sure to reap her rewards in other parts of the house.” White won best-supporting actress Emmys for the role in 1975 and 1976.

She won another Emmy in 1986 for “The Golden Girls,” a sitcom about four older women living together in Miami that featured an age demographic rarely highlighted on American television. White also was nominated for an Emmy six other times for her portrayal of the widowed Rose Nylund, a sweet, naive and ditzy Midwesterner, on the show, which ran from 1985 to 1992 and was one of the top-rated series of its time.
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After a less successful sequel to “The Golden Girls” came a series of small movie parts, talk-show appearances and one-off television roles, including one that won her an Emmy for a guest appearance on “The John Larroquette Show.”

By 2009 she was becoming ubiquitous with more frequent television appearances and a role in the Sandra Bullock film “The Proposal.” She starred in a popular Snickers candy commercial that aired during the Super Bowl, taking a brutal hit in a mud puddle in a football game.

A young fan started a Facebook campaign to have White host “Saturday Night Live” and she ended up appearing in every sketch on the show and winning still another Emmy for it.

The Associated Press voted her entertainer of the year in 2010 and a 2011 Reuters/Ipsos poll found that White, then 89, was the most popular and trusted celebrity in America with an 86 percent favorability rating.

White’s witty and brassy demeanour came in handy as host of “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers,” a hidden-camera show in which elderly actors pulled pranks on younger people.

“Who would ever dream that I would not only be this healthy, but still be invited to work?” White said in a 2015 interview with Oprah Winfrey. “That’s the privilege … to still have jobs to do is such a privilege.”

White, who had no children, worked for animal causes. She once turned down a role in the movie “As Good as It Gets” because of a scene in which a dog was thrown in a garbage chute.
 
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South Africa's anti-apartheid veteran Tutu to be laid to rest in state funeral

Author of the article:
Reuters
Reuters
Wendell Roelf
Publishing date:
Dec 31, 2021 • 4 hours ago • 1 minute read •
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Pallbearers carry the coffin as the casket containing body of late Archbishop Desmond Tutu arrives at St. Georges Cathedral, in Cape Town, South Africa, December 31, 2021.
Pallbearers carry the coffin as the casket containing body of late Archbishop Desmond Tutu arrives at St. Georges Cathedral, in Cape Town, South Africa, December 31, 2021. Photo by Sumaya Hisham /REUTERS
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CAPE TOWN — Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a hero of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, will be laid to rest on Saturday in an official state funeral in St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town, where for years he preached against racial injustice.
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President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to deliver the main eulogy for Tutu, whose death on Sunday aged 90 triggered an outpouring of tributes from around the world.

Tutu, awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1984 for his non-violent opposition to white minority rule, was known for his infectious laugh and easy-going manner but they belied a steely resolve to fight for the downtrodden during the darkest hours of apartheid and beyond into the 21st century.

Widely revered across South Africa’s racial and cultural divides for his moral integrity, Tutu never stopped fighting for his vision of a “Rainbow Nation,” in which all races in post-apartheid South Africa could live in harmony.

“Without forgiveness, there’s no future,” the charismatic cleric once said.
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Hundreds of well-wishers queued on Thursday and Friday to pay their last respects to Tutu as he lay in state at the cathedral in a simple, closed pine coffin with rope handles, in accordance with his wishes for a frugal funeral.

As Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Tutu turned St George’s into a refuge for anti-apartheid activists during the turbulent 1980s and 1990s when security forces brutally repressed the mass democratic movement.

His body will be cremated in a private ceremony after Saturday’s requiem mass and will then be interred behind the pulpit from where he once denounced bigotry and racial tyranny.

Church bells have tolled daily this week at St George’s in honor of the man often described as South Africa’s “moral compass.” Many would refer to Tutu as “Tata” or father.

“Sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humor, Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless,” is how long-time friend and former president Nelson Mandela, who died in December 2013, described his friend.
 
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'OUR NATIONAL CONSCIENCE': Desmond Tutu laid to rest in South Africa

Author of the article:
Reuters
Reuters
Wendell Roelf
Publishing date:
Jan 01, 2022 • 17 hours ago • 3 minute read •
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Pallbearers carry the casket holding the body of Archbishop Desmond Tutu after his funeral service at St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa, Saturday, on Jan. 1, 2022.
Pallbearers carry the casket holding the body of Archbishop Desmond Tutu after his funeral service at St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa, Saturday, on Jan. 1, 2022. Photo by Charlie Shoemaker /Getty Images
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CAPE TOWN — President Cyril Ramaphosa lauded the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu as “our moral compass and national conscience” as South Africa bade farewell at a state funeral on Saturday to a hero of the struggle against apartheid.
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“Our departed father was a crusader in the struggle for freedom, for justice, for equality and for peace, not just in South Africa, the country of his birth, but around the world,” Ramaphosa said, delivering the main eulogy at the service in St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town, where for years Tutu preached against racial injustice.

The president then handed over the national flag to Tutu’s widow, Nomalizo Leah, known as “Mama Leah.” Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1984 for his non-violent opposition to white minority rule, died last Sunday aged 90.

His widow sat in a wheelchair in the front row of the congregation, draped in a purple scarf, the colour of her husband’s clerical robes. Ramaphosa wore a matching necktie.
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Cape Town, the city where Tutu lived for most of his later life, was unseasonably rainy early on Saturday as mourners gathered to bid farewell to the man fondly known as “The Arch.”

The sun shone brightly after the requiem Mass as six white-robed clergy acting as pall bearers wheeled the coffin out of the cathedral to a hearse.

Tutu’s body will be cremated and then his ashes interred behind the cathedral’s pulpit in a private ceremony.

“Small in physical stature, he was a giant among us morally and spiritually,” said retired Bishop Michael Nuttall, who served as Tutu’s deputy for many years.

Life-size posters of Tutu, with his hands clasped, were placed outside the cathedral, where the number of congregants was restricted in line with COVID-19 measures.
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Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who leads the global Anglican Communion, said in a recorded message: “People have said ‘when we were in the dark, he brought light’ and that… has lit up countries globally that are struggling with fear, conflicts, persecution, oppression.”

Tutu’s family members were visibly emotional.

His daughter, Reverend Nontombi Naomi Tutu, thanked well-wishers for their support as the Mass began, her voice briefly quivering with emotion.

Widely revered across South Africa’s racial and cultural divides for his moral integrity, Tutu never stopped fighting for his vision of a “Rainbow Nation” in which all races in post-apartheid South Africa could live in harmony.

Hundreds of well-wishers queued on Thursday and Friday to pay their last respects as his body lay in state at the cathedral.
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As Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Tutu turned St George’s into what is known as a “People’s Cathedral” a refuge for anti-apartheid activists during the turbulent 1980s and 1990s when security forces brutally repressed the mass democratic movement.

A small crowd of around 100 people followed the funeral proceedings on a big screen at the Grand Parade, opposite City Hall where Tutu joined Nelson Mandela when he gave his first speech after being freed from prison.

“We have come to give our last respects to our father Tutu. We love our father, who taught us about love, unity and respect for one another,” said Mama Phila, a 54-year-old Rastafarian draped in the green, red and yellow colours of her faith.

Mandela, who became the country’s first post-apartheid president and who died in December 2013, once said of his friend: “Sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour, Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless.”
 
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Former N.L. provincial and federal cabinet minister John Efford dead at 77

Author of the article:
Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Publishing date:
Jan 02, 2022 • 9 hours ago • 3 minute read •
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In this Dec. 15, 2004 file photo, Minister of Natural Resources Canada John Efford is pictured in Ottawa.
In this Dec. 15, 2004 file photo, Minister of Natural Resources Canada John Efford is pictured in Ottawa. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick /Postmedia Network files
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ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Former federal and provincial cabinet minister John Efford is being remembered as “true icon” of Newfoundland and Labrador politics.

He died Sunday at the age of 77, prompting notes of remembrance and gratitude from politicians across the province, both current and retired.

In a news release, Premier Andrew Furey said Efford “selflessly served his province and country” for two decades, and that he was glad to have called Efford a friend.

“Without a doubt, John was one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s most recognizable and colourful figures, inside and outside the political arena,” Furey said. “Today, Newfoundland and Labrador has lost a true icon.”
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Efford was born in 1944 in the small fishing community of Port de Grave, which sits on the coast of Conception Bay, just west of St. John’s. He was first elected to the provincial legislature in 1985, and he held several cabinet positions throughout his tenure, including Minister of Development and Rural Renewal and Minister of Social Services.

He became the provincial Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture in 1996, four years after a moratorium on cod fishing in the province led to widespread economic collapse and despair, particularly in rural areas. Efford was a fisherman himself and, as minister, he fought hard for the industry’s recovery, travelling to countries such as Japan to investigate new markets for Newfoundland and Labrador seafood.
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In 1992, fish harvesters from the province travelled to Toronto and held a rally at Nathan Phillips Square to protest the cod moratorium. In online footage from the rally, Efford is called to the stage as a founding member of the United Fisherpersons of Newfoundland and Labrador.

“How’re ya gettin’ on?” Efford hollers out to the crowd before him. The phrase is a common Newfoundland expression for, “How are you doing?”

“Let me tell you one thing from the very beginning,” he continues. “I’m from Port de Grave, and I’m not making believe with my accent, it’s real.”

He then launches into a blistering speech about the importance of the cod fishery to Newfoundland and Labrador, and the devastation wrought by its imposition.
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“Every Newfoundlander’s got the right to the fishery,” he yells. “The fishery belongs to Newfoundland and Labrador!”

Efford left provincial politics in 2001, and was elected to the House of Commons in 2002 to represent the federal riding Bonavista-Trinity-Conception. There, he was appointed Minister of Natural Resources in 2003 and held the post until he retired in early 2006.

In the years before his death, he spoke openly about his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

As word of his passing spread Sunday, politicians expressed their admiration for Efford’s dedication and legacy.

Former Prime Minister Paul Martin, for whom Efford served as Natural Resources Minister, issued a statement with his condolences.

“John had a remarkable political career in Ottawa and Newfoundland and Labrador,” Martin said. “He was a passionate advocate for … the province he loved, for its fishing industry as well as the communities that depend on it.”

Former premier Dwight Ball said Efford had an uncanny ability to connect with people.

“He spent his life fighting for rural (Newfoundland and Labrador),” Ball wrote on Twitter. “His determination and resilience has had a positive impact on all that knew him.”

In his release Sunday, Furey said Efford had “a strength of personality and character that made him a force in our province.”

Flags at government buildings in Newfoundland and Labrador will be flying at half-mast in Efford’s honour, Furey added.
 

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Sidney Poitier, first Black winner of best actor Oscar, dead at 94
Author of the article:
Reuters
Publishing date:
Jan 07, 2022 • 14 hours ago • 4 minute read •
21 Comments
Sidney Poitier arrives on the red carpet for the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood, Calif.
Sidney Poitier arrives on the red carpet for the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood, Calif. Photo by Valerie MACON /AFP via Getty Images
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Sidney Poitier, who broke through racial barriers as the first Black winner of the best actor Oscar for his role in “Lilies of the Field,” and inspired a generation during the civil rights movement, has died at age 94, Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said on Friday.
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“It is with great sadness that I learned this morning of the passing of Sir Sidney Poitier,” Davis said in a speech broadcast on Facebook. “But even as we mourn, we celebrate the life of a great Bahamian: a cultural icon, an actor and film director, an entrepreneur, civil and human rights activist and, latterly, a diplomat.”

Poitier created a distinguished film legacy in a single year with three 1967 films at a time when segregation prevailed in much of the United States.

In “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” he played a Black man with a white fiancee and “In the Heat of the Night” he was Virgil Tibbs, a Black police officer confronting racism during a murder investigation. He also played a teacher in a tough London school that year in “To Sir, With Love.”
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Poitier had won his history-making best actor Oscar for “Lilies of the Field” in 1963, playing a handyman who helps German nuns build a chapel in the desert. Five years before that Poitier had been the first Black man nominated for a lead actor Oscar for his role in “The Defiant Ones.”

His Tibbs character from “In the Heat of the Night” was immortalized in two sequels – “They Call Me Mister Tibbs!” in 1970 and “The Organization” in 1971 – and became the basis of the television series “In the Heat of the Night” starring Carroll O’Connor and Howard Rollins.

His other classic films of that era included “A Patch of Blue” in 1965 in which his character was befriended by a blind white girl, “The Blackboard Jungle” and “A Raisin in the Sun,” which Poitier also performed on Broadway.
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Sidney Poitier, Katharine Houghton and Spencer Tracy in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”
Sidney Poitier, Katharine Houghton and Spencer Tracy in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” Photo by file photo /handout

“If you wanted the sky i would write across the sky in letters that would soar a thousand feet high.. To Sir… with Love Sir Sidney Poitier R.I.P. He showed us how to reach for the stars,” Whoopi Goldberg, award winning actor and TV host, wrote on Twitter.
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“The dignity, normalcy, strength, excellence and sheer electricity you brought to your roles showed us that we, as Black folks, mattered!!!,” Oscar winner Viola Davis tweeted.
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Poitier was born in Miami on Feb. 20, 1927, and raised on a tomato farm in the Bahamas, and had just one year of formal schooling. He struggled against poverty, illiteracy and prejudice to become one of the first Black actors to be known and accepted in major roles by mainstream audiences.
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Poitier picked his roles with care, burying the old Hollywood idea that Black actors could appear only in demeaning contexts as shoeshine boys, train conductors and maids.

“I love you, I respect you, I imitate you,” Denzel Washington, another Oscar winner, once told Poitier at a public ceremony.

As a director, Poitier worked with his friend Harry Belafonte and Bill Cosby in “Uptown Saturday Night” in 1974 and Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in 1980’s “Stir Crazy.”

Poitier was knighted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in 1974 and served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan and to UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency. He also sat on Walt Disney Co’s board of directors from 1994 to 2003.
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Poitier grew up in the small Bahamian village of Cat Island and in Nassau before he moved to New York at 16, lying about his age to sign up for a short stint in the Army and then working at odd jobs, including dishwasher, while taking acting lessons.

The young actor got his first break when he met the casting director of the American Negro Theater. He was an understudy in “Days of Our Youth” and took over when the star, Belafonte, who also would become a pioneering Black actor, fell ill.

Poitier went on to success on Broadway in “Anna Lucasta” in 1948 and, two years later, got his first movie role in “No Way Out” with Richard Widmark.

In all, he acted in more than 50 films and directed nine, starting in 1972 with “Buck and the Preacher” in which he co-starred with Belafonte.
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In 1992, Poitier was given the Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, the most prestigious honour after the Oscar, joining recipients such as Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred Astaire, James Cagney and Orson Welles.

“I must also pay thanks to an elderly Jewish waiter who took time to help a young Black dishwasher learn to read,” Poitier told the audience. “I cannot tell you his name. I never knew it. But I read pretty good now.”

In 2002, an honorary Oscar recognized “his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being.”

Poitier married actress Joanna Shimkus, his second wife, in the mid-1970s. He had six daughters with his two wives and wrote three books – “This Life” (1980), “The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography” (2000) and “Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter” (2008).
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“If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you’re not going to get very far,” he told the Washington Post. “The journey has been incredible from its beginning. So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.”
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Poitier wrote three autobiographical books and in 2013 published “Montaro Caine,” a novel that was described as part mystery, part science fiction.

In 2009, Poitier was awarded the highest U.S. civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama.

The 2014 Academy Awards ceremony marked the 50th anniversary of Poitier’s historic Oscar and he was there to present the award for best director.
 

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View attachment 11554

The streets will never be the same in Sparta, Mississippi

RIP 🪦
Sidney Poitier, first Black winner of best actor Oscar, dead at 94
Author of the article:
Reuters
Publishing date:
Jan 07, 2022 • 14 hours ago • 4 minute read •
21 Comments
Sidney Poitier arrives on the red carpet for the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood, Calif.
Sidney Poitier arrives on the red carpet for the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood, Calif. Photo by Valerie MACON /AFP via Getty Images
Article content

Sidney Poitier, who broke through racial barriers as the first Black winner of the best actor Oscar for his role in “Lilies of the Field,” and inspired a generation during the civil rights movement, has died at age 94, Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said on Friday.
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content

“It is with great sadness that I learned this morning of the passing of Sir Sidney Poitier,” Davis said in a speech broadcast on Facebook. “But even as we mourn, we celebrate the life of a great Bahamian: a cultural icon, an actor and film director, an entrepreneur, civil and human rights activist and, latterly, a diplomat.”

Poitier created a distinguished film legacy in a single year with three 1967 films at a time when segregation prevailed in much of the United States.

In “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” he played a Black man with a white fiancee and “In the Heat of the Night” he was Virgil Tibbs, a Black police officer confronting racism during a murder investigation. He also played a teacher in a tough London school that year in “To Sir, With Love.”
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content

Poitier had won his history-making best actor Oscar for “Lilies of the Field” in 1963, playing a handyman who helps German nuns build a chapel in the desert. Five years before that Poitier had been the first Black man nominated for a lead actor Oscar for his role in “The Defiant Ones.”

His Tibbs character from “In the Heat of the Night” was immortalized in two sequels – “They Call Me Mister Tibbs!” in 1970 and “The Organization” in 1971 – and became the basis of the television series “In the Heat of the Night” starring Carroll O’Connor and Howard Rollins.

His other classic films of that era included “A Patch of Blue” in 1965 in which his character was befriended by a blind white girl, “The Blackboard Jungle” and “A Raisin in the Sun,” which Poitier also performed on Broadway.
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content
Sidney Poitier, Katharine Houghton and Spencer Tracy in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”
Sidney Poitier, Katharine Houghton and Spencer Tracy in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” Photo by file photo /handout

“If you wanted the sky i would write across the sky in letters that would soar a thousand feet high.. To Sir… with Love Sir Sidney Poitier R.I.P. He showed us how to reach for the stars,” Whoopi Goldberg, award winning actor and TV host, wrote on Twitter.
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content

“The dignity, normalcy, strength, excellence and sheer electricity you brought to your roles showed us that we, as Black folks, mattered!!!,” Oscar winner Viola Davis tweeted.
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content

Poitier was born in Miami on Feb. 20, 1927, and raised on a tomato farm in the Bahamas, and had just one year of formal schooling. He struggled against poverty, illiteracy and prejudice to become one of the first Black actors to be known and accepted in major roles by mainstream audiences.
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content

Poitier picked his roles with care, burying the old Hollywood idea that Black actors could appear only in demeaning contexts as shoeshine boys, train conductors and maids.

“I love you, I respect you, I imitate you,” Denzel Washington, another Oscar winner, once told Poitier at a public ceremony.

As a director, Poitier worked with his friend Harry Belafonte and Bill Cosby in “Uptown Saturday Night” in 1974 and Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in 1980’s “Stir Crazy.”

Poitier was knighted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in 1974 and served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan and to UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency. He also sat on Walt Disney Co’s board of directors from 1994 to 2003.
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content

Poitier grew up in the small Bahamian village of Cat Island and in Nassau before he moved to New York at 16, lying about his age to sign up for a short stint in the Army and then working at odd jobs, including dishwasher, while taking acting lessons.

The young actor got his first break when he met the casting director of the American Negro Theater. He was an understudy in “Days of Our Youth” and took over when the star, Belafonte, who also would become a pioneering Black actor, fell ill.

Poitier went on to success on Broadway in “Anna Lucasta” in 1948 and, two years later, got his first movie role in “No Way Out” with Richard Widmark.

In all, he acted in more than 50 films and directed nine, starting in 1972 with “Buck and the Preacher” in which he co-starred with Belafonte.
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content

In 1992, Poitier was given the Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, the most prestigious honour after the Oscar, joining recipients such as Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred Astaire, James Cagney and Orson Welles.

“I must also pay thanks to an elderly Jewish waiter who took time to help a young Black dishwasher learn to read,” Poitier told the audience. “I cannot tell you his name. I never knew it. But I read pretty good now.”

In 2002, an honorary Oscar recognized “his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being.”

Poitier married actress Joanna Shimkus, his second wife, in the mid-1970s. He had six daughters with his two wives and wrote three books – “This Life” (1980), “The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography” (2000) and “Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter” (2008).
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content

“If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you’re not going to get very far,” he told the Washington Post. “The journey has been incredible from its beginning. So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.”
Advertisement
Story continues below
Article content

Poitier wrote three autobiographical books and in 2013 published “Montaro Caine,” a novel that was described as part mystery, part science fiction.

In 2009, Poitier was awarded the highest U.S. civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama.

The 2014 Academy Awards ceremony marked the 50th anniversary of Poitier’s historic Oscar and he was there to present the award for best director.
1641646309141.png
 

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RIP Sidney! When I saw "To Sir with Love" I fell in love with him - he was soooo handsome. I think that's the first time I saw him on screen. I get tears in my eyes whenever I hear the song of the same name.

Needless to say, I absolutely loved everything he did. Sigh....
 

Tecumsehsbones

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If you haven't seen "Lilies of the Field," ya gotta!

It's what Sir Sidney won his Best Actor Oscar for, and brilliantly showcases his titanic talent.

Funny part is, his singing was dubbed, because for all of his massive talent and skills, Sir Sidney was tone-deaf.
 
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Piranhas kill four swimmers in series of attacks in South America
Author of the article:
Postmedia News
Publishing date:
Jan 07, 2022 • 23 hours ago • 1 minute read •
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Piranha fish on black background
Photo by File Photo /Getty Images
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Those flesh-eating fish known as piranhas have claimed four victims in South America.
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The Daily Mail reports the bodies of four swimmers were found in a series of attacks in Paraguay where people swam in local rivers to beat sweltering temperatures during the current heat wave.

The first fatality happened Sunday when a 22-year-old man vanished while in the Paraguay River. His body was discovered 45 minutes later with several body parts torn off and eaten by piranhas.

The second attack happened in the same river but it’s believed the 49-year-old victim suffered a heart attack before being attacked by piranhas that bit his face.

The other two victims were found dead in the Tebicuary River on Sunday with bites on their bodies from piranhas.

The attacks are more common during hotter weather as the flesh-eating fish reproduce and come close to the coast when water levels are low.

Argentinian biologist Julio Caply said piranhas mainly live in the Parana and Paraguay rivers and like to hide under floating plants where they may be guarding eggs and offspring before racing out to attack.

Needless to say, swimmers have been told to avoid bathing during breeding season, especially in areas with floating plants.
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Sinead O'Connor's teenage son found dead after going missing
Author of the article:
Bang Showbiz
Publishing date:
Jan 08, 2022 • 13 hours ago • 1 minute read •
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Sinead O'Connor performs at Massey Hall in downtown Toronto, Oct. 24, 2014.
Sinead O'Connor performs at Massey Hall in downtown Toronto, Oct. 24, 2014. Photo by Stan Behal /Toronto Sun / Postmedia Network / Files
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Sinead O’Connor’s 17-year-old son has been found dead, two days after going missing.
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The 55-year-old singer revealed the news via social media on Saturday, explaining to her followers that he “decided to end his earthly struggle.”

She tweeted: “My beautiful son, Nevi’im Nesta Ali Shane O’Connor, the very light of my life, decided to end his earthly struggle today and is now with God. May he rest in peace and may no one follow his example. My baby. I love you so much. Please be at peace. (sic)”
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Shane O’Connor had been missing since Thursday, and the police in Ireland previously admitted to being concerned for his welfare. Sinead also took to social media to ask her son to contact her.

The singer – who changed her legal name to Shuhada Sadaqat in 2018 – wrote on the micro-blogging platform: “Shane, your life is precious. God didn’t chisel that beautiful smile on your beautiful face for nothing.

“My world would collapse without you. You are my heart. Please don’t stop it from beating. Please don’t harm yourself. Go to the Gardai and let’s get you to hospital.

“This is a message for my son, Shane. Shane, it’s not funny any more all this going missing. You are scaring the crap out of me. Could you please do the right thing and present yourself at a Gardai station. If you are with Shane please call the Gardai for his safety.”
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However, the Gardai has now confirmed that their search for Shane has ended.

A spokesperson told the Irish Mirror newspaper : “Following the recovery of a body in the Bray area of Wicklow on Friday 7 January 2022, a missing person appeal in respect of Shane O’Connor, 17 years, has been stood down.”
 

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Sinead O'Connor will 'never forgive' Irish state for son's death
Author of the article:
Bang Showbiz
Publishing date:
Jan 09, 2022 • 1 day ago • 1 minute read •
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Sinead O'Connor performs at Massey Hall in downtown Toronto, Oct. 24, 2014.
Sinead O'Connor performs at Massey Hall in downtown Toronto, Oct. 24, 2014. Photo by Stan Behal /Toronto Sun / Postmedia Network / Files
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Sinead O’Connor has formally identified the body of her 17-year-old son.
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The 55-year-old singer has revealed via Twitter that she’ll “never forgive” the Irish state after her teenage son took his own life .

Sinead – who changed her name to Shuhada’ Davitt in 2018 – wrote on social media: “I have now formally identified the remains of my son, Shane. May God forgive the Irish State for I never will. (sic)”

I have now formally identified the remains of my son, Shane. May God forgive the Irish State for I never will.
— Sinead The 1 And Only (@OhSineady) January 8, 2022

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Sinead alleges that her son was allowed to leave hospital while he was still on “suicide watch.”

And she’s pointed the finger of blame at the Irish health service HSE and the child and family agency Tusla.

She tweeted: “Now Tusla want to discuss with me ‘a media release’ no doubt wishing to have me join in their efforts to make this death of my child seem like it wasn’t at the hands of the Irish State.

“Tusla and HSE to release dishonest statement in response to international questioning. A load of lies, refusals to accept responsibility. Couched as always in the omnipotent and false concern they claim to have for the privacy of the children who die on their watch.

“I’m going to take private time now to grieve my son. When I am ready I will be telling exactly how the Irish State in the ignorant, evil, self-serving, lying forms of Tusla and the HSE enabled and facilitated his death. Magdalene Ireland never went away. Ask the youth.

“And any statement out of Tusla suggesting they a) did their best b) care or c) have deepest sympathies for anyone here but their lawyers, is a load of crap trap that has killed too many kids and it isn’t going to wash this time. Too many kids are dying on Tusla’s watch. (sic)”

And any statement out of Tusla suggesting they a) did their best b) care or c) have deepest sympathies for anyone here but their lawyers, is a load of crap trap that has killed too many kids and it isn’t going to wash this time.
Too many kids are dying on Tusla’s watch.
— Sinead The 1 And Only (@OhSineady) January 8, 2022

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In response to Sinead’s accusations, the HSE told MailOnline: “The HSE cannot comment on individual cases when to do so might reveal information in relation to identifiable individuals, breaching the ethical requirement on us to observe our duty of confidentiality.”