SEE ALSO:

Newark Mayor Rescues Woman From Fire

Lilies Of The Field was a film adaption of the novel of the same name by William Edmund Barrett. Poitier played Homer Smith, a handyman who encounters a group of nuns at an Arizona farm who are all of European descent. The lead nun, played by Austrian actress Lilia Skala, convinces Homer to fix an issue with their roof under the assumption of payment. When Homer runs into roadblocks from the mother superior in getting paid for his work, they both engage in a war of Bible verses. Although the pair bandy over payment, Homer eventually warms up to the nuns after learning of their hardship.

LIKE NewsOne On Facebook To Stay Up On Black News Worldwide!

The film continues its lessons of humility after Homer takes on a side job to help the nuns with food and other supplies on the farm where they make a meager living. The nuns believe that Homer was sent by God to help them erect a chapel on the farm for its surrounding Hispanic residents, as the nearest church was too far away. Homer’s side job is construction, and the lead contractor finds himself impressed with Homer’s ability to operate the equipment. At night, Homer helps the nuns with their English, and in the film, Poitier was able to show his singing abilities on screen as well.

The film’s feel-good ending culminates with the completion of the chapel, after Homer’s determination became a local legend. Although the nuns were denied help from philanthropists, the locals all pitched in, including the formerly resistant construction contractor, in completing the task. Poitier and Skala both own their roles as strong, bull-headed personalities but at the end, a mutual respect has grown between the pair.

Poitier’s Oscar win was also bolstered by him winning the Golden Globe that same year, jump-starting his career with the release of three popular box-office smashes with In The Heat Of The Night, To Sir, With Love, and the classic Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. This would not be Poitier’s lone Oscar award, after he received an honorary award in 2002 which recognized his achievements. Other awards include a Grammy in 2001 for Best Spoken World Album in The Measure Of A Man, an audio adaptation of his second biography of the same name.

Although Poitier hasn’t been in the theaters well over a decade, it would be difficult to ignore what his contributions meant for future African-American box office stars such as Eddie Murphy, Will Smith and Jamie Foxx among others. With his striking good looks and ease on the camera, Poitier paved a mighty path for many Black actors who would do well in studying his illustrious career.

Sidney Poitier, we celebrate you on this historic day.

SEE ALSO:

North Korea Rocket Fizzles

Mom Sues School Over Shocking of Autistic Son

SEE ALSO:

Need A Passport Photo? There’s An App For That!

Listen To Destiny’s Child & Beyonce’s Hometown Playlist!

What’s Drake’s Favorite Vacation Destination?

TMZ says they unearthed a home video of Jamie Fox dancing in his underwear in his LA home. The video is reported shot ten years ago. Check it out for yourself and tell us what you think!

‘LIKE’ NewsOne’s FB Page To Stay Up On Black News From Around The World
http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FNewsOneOfficial&width=600&height=290&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&border_color&stream=false&header=true&appId=126014200784041

Jamie Foxx Dancing In His Underwear

A jailbird by the name of Shamont Lyle Sapp, who is reportedly serving time for multiple bank robberies, is suing Jamie Foxx, Tyler Perry and a number of other parties for apparently stealing his movie ideas, TMZ reports.

SEE ALSO: How Ron Paul Helps Obama

In case you haven’t heard … the project is called “Skank Robbers” — a wacky action comedy about two lady bank robbers … with Lawrence’s Sheneneh character from “Martin,” Foxx’s Wanda from “In Living Color,” and according to reports … Tyler Perry‘s Madea … from every bad movie you’ve seen. The project is reportedly in development.

Enter Shamont Lyle Sapp — who, coincidentally, says he’s serving time in Oklahoma for 10 bank robberies — he’s filed a lawsuit, claiming he gave Foxx and Perry the idea for the project … and they cut him out of the action.

According to the docs, Shamont had the idea to unite the three characters in one film — but his version wasn’t a comedy about bank robbers … it was a drama about a mental hospital.

The lawsuit encapsulates Sapp’s idea — “A male white mental patient takes Madea hostage … He deals with phone calls from the negotiators, as Madea actually pleads for her life in a very sad tear-jerking way … Her pleas are to be very sad. No jokes at all.”

Check out the rest of the story here.

SEE ALSO:

Southerners Pay For Fake Snow

Most Overlooked Movies Of 2011

Actress Kerry Washington is the latest addition to a cast that features the likes of  Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Don Johnson, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

See also:  Joseph Gordon-Levitt Joining ‘Django Unchained’? Star In Talks For Tarantino Film

The Boyhood Home Of Martin Luther King Jr.

The film, which takes a raw look at slavery, is about a freed slave’s journey to reunite with his estranged wife.

Washington will star as Broomhilda, the long-suffering slave wife of Django (Jamie Foxx), who is freed by a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) and taught the tricks of that trade. Django’s real desire is to be reunited with his wife, who winds up in distress while being held up in a variety of unsavory places.

Read more at the Grio.

The Oscar and Grammy winner said Tuesday his 16-year-old daughter, Corinne, gave him the best advice when he began recording music.

“When I first started I was doing this little slow music, you know, just R&B … and my daughter walked in and said, ‘What you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m working on the album.’ She said, ‘I hope you don’t put that on there because you going to put everybody to sleep,’” Foxx said.

His daughter told him reach out to younger artists to aid in his music career. And that’s exactly what the 43-year-old performer did.

In 2005 Foxx released “Unpredictable,” a double-platinum album that featured production work and guest appearances from Kanye West, Ludacris and Tank. He followed that with 2008′s “Intuition,” another platinum CD that featured the Grammy-winning party jam, “Blame It.” And this week Foxx released “Best Night of My Life”; the album has collaborations with top acts like Drake, Justin Timberlake, Rick Ross and T.I.

“A lot of times in order to be successful with music, you have to listen and sometimes allow other people to sort of steer you in the right direction,” Foxx said.

Share this post on Facebook! CLICK HERE:

Vindicated! Judge rules in Fantasia’s favor [from Hellobeautiful.com]

Nicki Minaj calls Rihanna “The best fondler ever” [from Hellobeautiful.com]

Trey Songz ex-bodyguard diss record “warning shots,” attempts to expose Trey [from TheUrbanDaily.com]

Antoine Dodson’s “Chimney Intruder” song [from Theurbandaily.com]

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Almost two decades after his breakout stint on “In Living Color,” Oscar winner Jamie Foxx is back at Fox with another sketch-comedy show.

The network has ordered a pilot for an untitled project executive produced by Foxx and two of his fellow “Color” writers, “MadTV” creators Fax Bahr and Adam Small, with “Wild ‘N Out” alumnus Affion Crockett attached as one of the stars.

GALLERY: Black Hollywood
Black Hollywood

Start Gallery

The pilot is the result of merging two projects. Foxx wanted to do a sketch-comedy series with an urban twist and paired with Bahr and Small to pitch the idea to Fox.

Click here to read more.

RELATED:

Jamie Foxx Fights Hotel Intruder

Jamie Foxx May Play Frank Sinatra

I was not part of the contingent that thought the movie Precious was an outright disgrace, embarrassment, and slap in the face to Black people. I had read the book Push, by Sapphire—which the movie Precious is based on—and the book, to me, was about as unsettling as anything that I had ever read.

So when the movie came out, I was actually a bit relieved. I thought Lee Daniels (who I’m usually not a super-fan of) did an excellent job and I gave the movie about a 7 on a scale of 1-10 mostly because I was blown away by the acting.

Learning that star Gabourey Sidibe is some geeky little schoolgirl and not the simultaneously menacing bully and molestation victim that she played onscreen was a revelation.

Mariah Carey was downright ugly, yet somehow, strangely sexier.

Lenny Kravitz was amazing, non-glam rock and all.

Paula Patton was solid if a little everyday chic to be a special education teacher in Harlem.

And the girls that played Precious’ classmates were all cute enough, weird enough or interesting enough to make the film work.

Then there was Mo’Nique.

Mo’Nique is hilarious. She’s the best host the BET Awards ever had and her full-voiced rants that tackle everything from her hatred of skinny women to her own hairy legs are legendary.

So to watch Mo’Nique play ‘Mary’, a woman so self-absorbed that she considers her daughter’s rape to be an affront to her own sovereignty, was incredible. She threw a baby on the floor in one scene! In another, she forced her own daughter to do the sexually unthinkable.

Sometimes we Black people can get in a huff about depictions of ourselves that we consider to be less than favorable as if it was our low Q Rating that caused the transatlantic slave trade.

But, whatever.

I’m one of those people that believe that once an actor or an actress wins an Oscar, it forces film fans to take a re-enhanced view of all of that actor or actor’s previous film work.

So now, as with what Jamie Foxx’s Oscar win did for Booty Call and what Halle Berry’s Oscar win did for B.A.P.S., Mo’Nique’s win calls for a critical reexamination of both Phat Girlz and Soul Plane.

All kidding aside, there has simply not been a better acting performance in a number of years than Mo’Nique’s work in Precious.

She’s now a serious actress.

I just hope not too serious.

Smokey Fontaine and I go through this every year. We bicker like children over the socio-political implications of the annual BET Awards. I think last year’s show picked our current president. He thinks it was ‘ok’.

One thing we do seem to agree on, though, is that the best rap performance is usually a coronation of the at-the-minute top rapper in the game. In 2001, Jay-Z had the gall to actually debut the song “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” and killed it. In 2003, 50 Cent blew the doors off the show with “What Up Gangsta”. Last year, Lil Wayne sang something; but it was good.

And I can’t deny that I wasn’t waiting for this moment again, as part of the numbing process. I was hoping that maybe Drake would do something interesting, but he just sat there, rapping from a stool like an old man. I also hoped that Hov would cut his “DOA” performance short to kick his lead verse from the remix of “You Rock My World” but I was disappointed. Lil Wayne didn’t disappoint me any more than he has of late, which was completely.

Other offenders on this horrible night were Beyonce. By showing up on stage in an all white gown, she had me gassed to think that she was gonna refigure Diana Ross’ “Missing You” tribute to Marvin Gaye for… you know, but she sang “Ave Maria” and I wanted to throw some kind of magical shoe that could pass through my television screen and conk her on the head.

But there was good, of course. Much good. Maxwell was brilliant and single-handedly brought back the double-breasted suit. Ne-Yo freaked his version of “The Lady In My Life”. The OJays were great with the exception of not singing “I Love Music“, “Love Train” or “Cry Together“.  And Jamie Foxx was a competent host and funny and he was also the only one that gave us what we needed all night long. Then Janet Jackson showed up to reclaim what was hers.

After that, we went back to mourning. I must admit, it was an almost impossible task trying to both celebrate and grieve at the same time and on only three days notice.

But it was done.

Several stars came out to the Apollo Theater 75th Anniversary Gala. Here’s a video of some of them paying tribute to the legendary Apollo Theater.

Apollo Theatre Celebrates 75th Anniversary

Watch The Video

From Newsday.com:

No matter how good your Memorial Day weekend plans may be, Abby Dobson probably has you beat.

“I get to open for Common and Robin Thicke in Aruba… How incredible is that!” says the Freeport-based singer, who landed the opening slot at the Soul Beach Music Festival by winning a contest on BlackPlanet.com.

“I’m gonna walk away with wonderful experiences.”

Dobson was chosen by online voters for the festival, which also includes Jamie Foxx and Estelle, for her sultry R&B song “Born 2 Love U,” from the upcoming solo album she is currently wrapping up. With appearances on John Legend and Talib Kweli albums, Dobson is also part of the Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber ensemble led by Greg Tate.

“Would you believe I dreamed of winning?” said Dobson. “And I actually did win! Here’s to making the world you dream.”

Click here for more.

From the UK Telegraph

Foxx, who won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the 2004 film Ray, reportedly considered to be “perfect” for the role. If he is chosen for the part, it will be one of the most prominent examples of “colour-blind” casting in Hollywood history.

Also in the running are George Clooney, Leonardo di Caprio, Harry Connick Jnr and Justin Timberlake.

But an unnamed source told the Daily Express: “Cool is colour-blind.”

Read the Whole Story

Black Actors Playing White Characters

Here’s A Gallery Of White Actors In Blackface

A man has been arrested for allegedly stalking Academy Award winning actor Jamie Foxx as he was filming his latest feature in Philadelphia.

The actor was staying at the AKA Hotel in Rittenhouse Square while shooting his latest film, Law Abiding Citizen.

Sources said 49-year-old Steven Taliver, who also apparently goes by William Brown, allegedly attempted to break into Foxx’s hotel room on three separate occasions. The three alleged incidents occurred on March 22, March 27 and March 31.

Read the Whole Report

Watch the News Report