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c h a p t e r 1 1 LONG JOURNEYS (1963–1964) v In April 1963, Poitier went to Yugoslavia to film The Long Ships, a historical epic based on a Swedish novel. Neither Poitier nor co-star Richard Widmark were particularly enthused by the project. The actionadventure clash had a terrible script, and it lacked the political cache of Poitier’s better films. Poitier took the role while his career seemed stuck in a rut. In Belgrade, the mood was glum, the locals seemed hostile, and the weather was freezing. ‘‘I have been spending hours on the set dreaming about tropical climates and little shacks on pink beaches,’’ Poitier told the Los Angeles Times.∞ He won a two-week reprieve in late May. He flew to Glen Canyon National Forest in Utah to play Simon of Cyrene in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Producer-director George Stevens, legendary for his perfectionist gusto, had been planning a motion picture version of the Fulton Oursler biblical epic since 1959. He vowed to avoid another biblical ‘‘spectacular,’’ but by 1960, he had announced a $10 million budget, hired Pulitzer Prize–winner Carl Sandburg, and already secured Poitier and John Wayne for cameos.≤ More than $2 million deep, Twentieth Century-Fox shelved production in September 1961. Stevens forged on, independently producing it with a United Artists release. By the end of filming, he created 117 speaking parts, hired 30 Oscar winners, built 47 major sets, and imported a bevy of animals, including four white donkeys. Equipment complications , housing shortages, and bitter cold created more delays, but by the end of Poitier’s stint in early June, expectations ran high that The Greatest Story Ever Told would live up to its name.≥ Meanwhile, as Poitier journeyed from Yugoslavia to Utah and back to Yugoslavia, America’s moral conscience awakened. That spring Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led nonviolent mass demonstrations against segregated businesses and long journeys (1963–1964) 209 public facilities in Birmingham, Alabama. Jailed from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday, King wrote his famous open letter from a Birmingham Jail, painting the protesters as upholders of America’s founding principles. On the evening news, Americans watched Birmingham policemen blast high-pressure fire hoses at demonstrators, swing nightsticks into crowds, and set attack dogs upon teenagers and young children. These images of black sacrifice helped forge a critical mass of white middle-class support for racial integration.∂ In a televised address on 11 June, President Kennedy called civil rights ‘‘a moral issue’’ that was ‘‘as old as the Scriptures’’ and ‘‘as clear as the American Constitution.’’ Hours later, a white extremist killed the Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers, and demonstrations resumed throughout the South. Now Kennedy moved beyond hollow gestures. Appealing to delegates black and white, northern and southern, Republican and Democrat, he pledged a comprehensive civil rights bill.∑ The blooming liberal consensus coincided with a renewed campaign to end discrimination in Hollywood. At the end of June, the NAACP threatened pickets and economic boycotts against studios that stereotyped black characters. The grievance had been aired before, but never had the NAACP devoted it such attention. Producers had to move beyond glib promises and token jobs. ‘‘Reality,’’ wrote the New York Times, ‘‘has forced Hollywood to realize that it is part of the United States and must deal with the same issues as the rest of the nation.’’ Studios now incorporated blacks into crowd and street scenes. The NAACP pushed for more middle-class black characters and threatened legal action against discriminatory craft unions. Motion pictures, many hoped, might soon reflect the growing sympathy for black equality.∏ In this atmosphere, Poitier’s political importance magnified. He symbolized the liberal notion that extending basic rights to black Americans reflected the virtue of the American system. In July 1963, he and Stanley Kramer showed The Defiant Ones at the Moscow Film Festival. Poitier trumpeted the movie as an example of American freedom. ‘‘Such a picture could only be made in a free country, unafraid of self-criticism,’’ said Poitier. After the film, the 8,000 spectators at Moscow’s Sports Palace applauded for minutes and wiped tears from their eyes. They also streamed toward Poitier, who was standing in the corner of the auditorium. The Russians carried the actor on their shoulders, celebrating Hollywood’s beacon of racial democracy.π One month later, Poitier participated in the quintessential demonstration of faith in a colorblind society: the March...

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