Biography

Joanna Shimkus Poitier (born 30 October 1943) is a Canadian film actress. She is the widow of actor Sidney Poitier, and mother of actress Sydney Tamiia Poitier. Shimkus was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Joseph Shimkus, a Lithuanian-Jew and Marie Petrie, a Catholic of Irish descent. Her father worked for the Royal Canadian Navy. She attended a convent school and was brought up in Montreal, Quebec. She went to Paris at age nineteen, where she worked as a fashion model and soon attracted the attention of movie people on the lookout for new talent. She made her debut in 1964, in Jean Aurel's film De l'amour. She was then noticed by film dire...Read More