Sidney Poitier

While other actors and actresses of color made impact before and after him, Poitier in his time leveraged his mesmerizing screen presence into a culture-changing force. His very first film set off a chain of events that freed his native Bahamas of British colonial rule, and from there he not only became the first black Best Actor Oscar winner - for "Lilies of the Field" (1963) - but was the number-one box-office draw in 1967 in a triumvirate …