Sidney Poitier, the first black man to win a best actor Oscar, has died at 94.
The Hollywood star's death was confirmed to the BBC by the office of Fred Mitchell, the Bahamas' minister of foreign affairs.
Poitier was a trailblazing actor and a respected humanitarian and diplomat. He won the Academy Award for best actor for Lilies of the Field in 1963.
Born in Miami, he grew up on a tomato farm in the Bahamas and moved to New York aged 16.
He signed up for a short stint in the army and did several odd jobs while taking acting lessons, en route to becoming a star of the stage and screen.
His appearance in The Defiant Ones in 1958 earned him his first Oscar nomination - in itself an historic achievement for a black man in a lead category at the time.
Five years later he went one better, taking the glory for Lilies of the Field, in which he played a handyman who helps German nuns to build a chapel in the desert.
The actor was a regular on the big screen at a time of racial segregation in the US, appearing in a Patch of Blue in 1965, and then Heat of the Night the year after, followed by Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, playing a black man with a white fiancée.
In Heat of the Night he portrayed Virgil Tibbs, a black police officer confronting racism during a murder investigation.
His other classic films included A Patch of Blue, The Blackboard Jungle and A Raisin in the Sun, which he also performed on Broadway.
He went on to direct a raft of films, and a Broadway play about life and career was announced last month.
Empire magazine's Amon Warmann told the BBC: "He was a pioneer, he's so influential and paved the way for so many in the industry to make their own mark, not least Denzel Washington, who paid tribute to him when he won an Oscar."
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