A silver screen star who was married to the legendary Sidney Poitier until his death at age 94 was spotted making a rare outing in Los Angeles. This actress worked with cinema icons Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton before meeting her spouse on the set of their 1969 film, The Lost Man. They had two children together, tied the knot in 1976, and remained married until he passed in 2022.
The star appeared in Boom!, Ho!, The Uninvited, and The Virgin and the Gypsy but gave up her film career to devote herself to her family with Poitier. Now 82, she was seen arriving at the Beverly Hills hotspot Cipriani. If you guessed Joanna Shimkus, you are correct!
Shimkus was seen being dropped off at the Italian restaurant, where a kind valet offered her his arm and helped her out of the vehicle. A smiling Shimkus looped her hand around the gentleman's arm and made her way towards the sidewalk with the assistance of her cane.
Career and Family
Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Shimkus has an impressive list of Hollywood credits. She starred in The Last Adventure, The Virgin and the Gypsy, Ho!, and worked with the sensational power couple Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the 1968 film Boom! But she gave up her film career to be with Poitier and devote herself to their family.
In the 1998 PBS documentary Sidney Poitier: One Bright Light, she said, 'I guess my career was very short-lived. I started out making French films and then when I met Sidney and I knew that this was the man of my life, you know, that this was going to be my partner in life. And I knew that you really can't have, I believe, for myself and for him, two egos in that same kind of space. His was definitely a bigger career than mine. So I decided what I wanted most anyway was a relationship, a family. And that was more important than a career. So I gave it up.'
She added, 'I wanted to have the family that I never had. I wanted to be the mother to my children that I never had. And I was always there for my children. I never worked. My mother always worked.'
Meeting Poitier
It was his character that drew Shimkus to him. 'The thing that attracted me to him the most, I think, is his integrity and his honesty... his loyalty to his family. He's just an amazing human being. He's just a good, good, good person,' she said. 'And he's cute too, yes! And he was especially gorgeous then. He still is too now, but he was very, very attractive then.'
They wed in 1976 after Shimkus gave birth to their two daughters, Anika Poitier, now 54, and Sydney Tamiia Poitier, now 52. The marriage to Shimkus marked Poitier's second walk down the aisle. He was previously wed to Juanita Hardy, with whom he had four daughters.
Poitier's second marriage to Shimkus endured happily for 45 years, and he was known as a doting family man to his daughters. In a 2013 interview, they recalled how he used to play along when they dressed him up as children. 'He'd be on location and we'd put barrettes in his hair,' they told The Hollywood Reporter. 'We'd make him call room service. And he'd have to open the door with pink barrettes and lipstick on.'
Poitier's Legacy
'If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you're not going to get very far,' Poitier told the Washington Post. 'The journey has been incredible from its beginning. So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.'
Poitier died at age 94 in 2022 as a result of heart failure, Alzheimer's dementia, and prostate cancer. After the news of his death broke, his family released a statement revealing how grateful they were that their father was 'able to spend his last day surrounded by his family and friends.'
'To us Sidney Poitier was not only a brilliant actor, activist, and a man of incredible grace and moral fortitude, he was also a devoted and loving husband, a supportive and adoring father, and a man who always put family first,' the statement read. 'He is our guiding light who lit up our lives with infinite love and wonder. His smile was healing, his hugs the warmest refuge, and his laughter was infectious.'
