Sidney Poitier will forever be known as the first African-American to ever win the Academy Award for best actor.

Nearly 50 years later, Poitier is still being honored as he will soon receive a lifetime achievement award from the California African American Museum in Los Angeles. 

The 85 year old will receive this prize on October 6th, at the museum’s annual gala dinner. Take a look at some interesting facts about the man that paved the way for this generation’s Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, and more. 

-Poitier was first given the Academy Award nomination in 1958 for his role in The Defiant Ones, but it wasn’t until five years later that he actually won the award for Lilies of the Field, where he played Homer Smith.

-He wasn’t expected to survive after he was born prematurely while his parents were travelling to Miami to sell tomatoes and other produce for their farm in the Bahamas. Thank God he did! 

-When first moving from the Caribbean to New York to pursue his acting career, he was so poor that he slept at a bus station. 

-Poitier did what it took to become successful. To earn his first movie role, he lied to the director telling him he was 27, when he was actually only 22 years old.

-He was the first black actor to place autograph, hand, and footprints in the cement in Hollywood at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. 

-Poitier survived prostate cancer. 

-He directed several films including Stir Crazy which was the highest grossing movie directed by a black filmmaker until Scary Movie directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans almost 20 years later.

Watch video below of Denzel paying homage to Poitier: