Poitier Uses Letters to Granddaughter to Tell Life Story

May 1, 2008 — -- Sidney Poitier is one of Tinseltown's most heralded actors. Known for more than his acting ability, the elder statesman of Hollywood also is praised for his grace, bravery and convictions.

Poitier has chronicled his extraordinary life in the book "Life Beyond Measure." He uses extended letters to his great-granddaughter to tell the story of his life in the book. Read an excerpt of his book below.

The first, most significant turning point in my career came one morning when I happened to stop at a newsstand at the intersection of 125th Street and Seventh Avenue, where I picked up a local newspaper, the Amsterdam News, and thumbed through it to the want-ad pages, looking for a job as a dishwasher. With my couple of years of schooling, I couldn't read much in the paper other than the help-wanted listings. Not seeing anything of interest, I turned to toss the paper into the trash. But just as I was about to crumple it up and pitch it into the trash can, I looked again at the paper and my eyes caught something on the opposite page from the one with the dishwasher listings, which happened to be the theatrical listings. It was a headline streamer that said, in bold type: "Actors Wanted."

Knowing nothing about actors, I was still curious enough to look more closely at the article underneath the heading, which told me of a production being cast at a place called the American Negro Theatre in Harlem—not many blocks from where I was standing! The proximity was a major enticement.

After all, ordinarily when looking for work I would get on the subway early and go all the way downtown to stop in at the scores of employment agencies where I would invariably find a dishwashing job somewhere in the distant reaches of mid- to lower Manhattan. But this was a different kind of help-wanted ad, and the theater was close enough to home that I figured, Why not? Why not go to this place, this address, and see what kind of a job it is and what I will have to do?

With that one tiny flash of nothing more than curiosity, I unwittingly altered the direction of my life. Right there on the sidewalk of Harlem, standing over a trash can, a newspaper page in hand, puzzling over two words: "Actors Wanted."

How exactly, you may wonder, did it go at the audition—a word that was then as foreign as the fascinating sights, smells, and flamboyant personalities of the people who inhabited this strange behind-the-scenes world of the theater? Let me tell you, it could not have been worse! The first clue that it wasn't going to be easy was when the director had me read for him from a book. Needless to say, reading silently to myself was still a struggle, but reading aloud was painful for both of us. Before I got very far at all, he said abruptly, "Thank you very much for coming by," and he snatched the book out of my hand.