'Life Beyond Measure' by Sidney Poitier
BOOK REVIEW
The groundbreaking actor muses about some of life's lessons in letters to his great-granddaughter.
IN 1967, Sidney Poitier had three box-office smashes: "To Sir, With Love," "In the Heat of the Night," and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" It was the career apex of a trailblazing actor who had vaulted over Hollywood's color barrier to become Hollywood's first black leading man, upturning the stereotypical roles inhabited by Butterfly McQueen, Stepin Fetchit and the like. Poitier gave the movies a bold new image of an African American man who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his white counterparts. That he did this during the turbulent years of the civil rights era made his impact even greater.
Then, suddenly, the love affair was over. In the racial and political fury of the late '60, Poitier and the button-down, impossibly noble characters he played became outdated symbols of slow, moderate progress in a country that was in rapid upheaval. He worked decades longer without another major hit, gradually receding into the role of elder statesman -- revered by African American actors and filmmakers who passed through doors he opened, but seemingly ignored by just about everyone else.
What will Sidney Poitier's legacy be to future generations, those born in the Barack Obama era and beyond? It's an unasked question that resonates through "Life Beyond Measure," Poitier's third memoir. Composed as a series of letters to Poitier's great-granddaughter Ayele, born in 2005 (when Poitier was in his late 70s), the book is equal parts family history, autobiography and ruminations on love, faith, life, death and personal strengths and foibles.
Poitier never lectures or condescends, but "Life Beyond Measure" still has the feel of an old man waxing nostalgic and philosophical to a little girl bouncing on his lap. He revisits oft-told tales from the arc of his life, from his upbringing in a dirt-poor paradise in the Bahamas, to arriving in New York alone at 16 and sleeping in bus-station pay toilets, to the job search that led him to an ad for "actors wanted." Here, though, the stories are used as object lessons and entrees to broader essays about the world Poitier bequeaths to the little girl. It's all written in simple, gentle prose that's restrained even by Poitier's own standards; not kid stuff exactly, but you won't find the four-letter words or the simmering anger that fueled Poitier's two previous books, "This Life" and "The Measure of a Man."
