Poitier - The measure of a man : a spiritual autobiography

When I learned that Diane Gedymin at HarperSanFrancisco had expressed interest in my writing, I was thrilled and rushed to the assumption that she was drawn by something she read in the first set of rough and unorganized pages that outlined a book about the life I had lived. Perhaps fragments of how that life was lived caught her eye. Later, after getting to know her, I would think perhaps not. Perhaps she merely saw what her trained eye has come to accept as the familiar in the human condition. Perhaps she was a fearless observer of the endless variety of patterns that characterize human behavior. Maybe something like that accounts for the fact that her faith in this work registered early and remained so steadfast. In any case, all I know for sure is that without her enthusiasm, her support, and her guidance, this book would not have happened. My thanks to her for staying the course.

Liz Perle, also at HarperSanFrancisco, rendered service beyond the call of duty. She encouraged me to toil at the very edge of my limits and then challenged me to reach beyond. With her tirelessly urging me on. I almost never came up empty. I was fortunate to have Diane and Liz watching my back.

In The Measure of a Man , I tried to set my life down on the pages of this book as close as possible to the way it has been livedwithout undue emphasis or understatement. When I finished writing, a series of serendipitous occurrences brought my editor, William Patrick, and my manuscript togethera most fortunate turn of events for my book and for me. Bills talent runs deep and wide. To my delight, the man and his many gifts were no less than magical in their contributions. His professionalism and keen sense of the power of simplicity were absolutely indispensable in organizing, shaping, and focusing the material for this book. In his bones, William Patrick knows about writing, about books, about English language and literature. If I ever write another book, I hope that William Patrick will come back once more to work the magic in his bones.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my assistant, Susan Garrison, for getting me through the day, year after year without once falling on my face, even under the pressure of our perpetually inflexible schedule. I couldnt have gotten the work done in the fashion that I did without her special contributions. I am grateful that her hands were in the details.

The knowledge housed in the mind of my friend Charley Blackwell is awesome, whether it is book-learned, experience-gathered, or simply passed on from ancestors long gone. Hard-fought debates, won and lost, littered the space around our friendshipa reminder that we each tried our utmost to be, for the sake of the other, a worthy opponent. Traces of his life and thought can easily be seen on even the briefest journey across the pages of this book.

MANY YEARS AGO I wrote a book about my life, which was, necessarily, in large part a book about my life in Hollywood. More recently I decided that I wanted to write a book about life . Just life itself. What Ive learned by living more than seventy years of it. What I absorbed through my early experiences in a certain time and place, and what I absorbed, certainly without knowing it, through the blood of my parents, and through the blood of their parents before them.

I felt called to write about certain values, such as integrity and commitment, faith and forgiveness, about the virtues of simplicity, about the difference between amusing ourselves to death and finding meaningful pleasureseven joy. But I have no wish to play the pontificating fool, pretending that Ive suddenly come up with the answers to all lifes questions. Quite the contrary, I began this book as an exploration, an exercise in self-questioning. In other words, I wanted to find out, as I looked back at a long and complicated life, with many twists and turns, how well Ive done at measuring up to the values I espouse, the standards I myself have set.

Writers of a spiritual or metaphysical persuasion often convey their message through storytelling. They illustrate their points with parables drawn from great teachers of the past, whether it be Jesus of Nazareth, or Buddha, or the latest Arabic sage or Sufi mysticthe more exotic the better. Some take this natural tendency to great lengths, writing whole books devoted to finding the deep wisdom embedded in ancient folk tales, psychologically complex stories drawn from Africa, Scandinavia, East Asia, Latin America, and many other far-flung countries. They do this, it seems, to get as far away as possible from our contemporary mindset so that we can see modern, digitized, postindustrial life as if through new eyes (or, perhaps, through very ancient, very grounded eyes).

For me the task is much easier. First of all, Ive spent a very long time working in the dream factory called Hollywood. Its been my privilegebut also my daily businessto participate in constructing and dramatizing what those of us involved always hoped were meaningful stories, and putting them on the screen. Because Ive always believed that my work should convey my personal values, as an author I dont have to look far to find storylines to illustrate points I wish to make. Happily, certain films that are a part of my own personal rsum are also part of the collective unconscious of a great many Americans of a certain age. Its my great good fortune that many of these filmsstories such as Lilies of the Field. A Patch of Blue, Guess Whos Coming to Dinner , and To Sir, with Love are still familiar today, thanks to home video and repeated play on television. Thus they give you and me the possibility of a common bond and a common frame of reference, and I want to use them that way.

But perhaps more important, as someone wishing to make a comment or two about contemporary life and values, I dont have to dig through libraries or travel to exotic lands to arrive at a view of our modern situation refracted through the lens of the preindustrial world, or the uncommercialized, unfranchised, perhaps even unsanitizedand therefore supposedly more authenticperspective of the Third World. Very simply, this is because that other world, as alien as if separated by centuries in time, is the one from which I came.

ITS LATE AT NIGHT as I lie in bed in the blue glow of the television set. I have the clicker in my hand, the remote control, and I go from 1 to 97, scrolling through the channels. I find nothing that warrants my attention, nothing that amuses me, so I scroll up again, channel by channel, from bottom to top. But already Ive given it the honor of going from 1 to 97, and already Ive found nothing. This vast, sophisticated technology andnothing. Its given me not one smidgen of pleasure. Its informed me of nothing beyond my own ignorance and my own frailties.

But then I have the audacity to go up again ! And what do I find? Nothing, of course. So at last, filled with loathing and self-disgust, I punch the damn TV off and throw the clicker across the room, muttering to myself, What am I doing with my time?

Its not as if Im without other resources or material comforts, you follow? Ive been very fortunate in life, and as I lie in my bed, Im surrounded by beautiful things. Treasured books and art objects, photographs and mementos, lovely gardens on the balcony. After many years in this particular business in this particular town, I have a rich network of friends, some only a few steps away, dozens of others whom I could reach on the phone within seconds.