Joanna Shimkus

Joanna Shimkus started her career as a model and was extremely successful in Europe and particularly in Paris. This led to opportunities to try acting and she began appearing in movies in the mid-1960s. That ultimately led to a meeting with Sydney Poiter. They were married on January 23, 1976 and shortly after, she effectively gave up her career. They lived in Beverly Hills and raised two daughters. Oscar-winning actor Sydney Poitier, known for films including Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, directed by Norman Jewison, and Lilies of the Field, for which he became the first Black and Bahamian man to win a Best Actor Oscar®. He was 94 when he died on January 7, 2022.