Joanna Shimkus

Joanna Shimkus

Born: October 30, 1943
in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
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 director Robert Enrico, who selected her to appear in three of his films; Les aventuriers (1967), opposite Alain Delon and Lino Ventura, Tante Zita (1968) and Ho! (1968).

She appeared in Joseph Losey's film Boom! (1968), opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and The Lost Man (1969), opposite Sidney Poitier. Her film career continued until the early 1970s, including roles in L'Invitée (1969), The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970), The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971) and A Time for Loving (1972).

Shimkus married Sidney Poitier in 1976, and they have two daughters: Anika and Sydney Tamiia, who is also an actress. Shimkus has three grandchildren; two from Anika and one from Sydney Tamiia. Sidney Poitier died on 6 January 2022, aged 94.

Source: Article "Joanna Shimkus" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Movies for Joanna Shimkus...

Sidney
Title: Sidney
Character: Self
Released: September 10, 2022
Type: Movie
This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.
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A Time for Loving
Title: A Time for Loving
Character: Joan
Released: April 1, 1972
Type: Movie
The story of an apartment in Paris and the various people that occupy it over the years.
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The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
Title: The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
Character: Lisa Alren
Released: August 19, 1971
Type: Movie
A stockbroker is stuck in a dreary job and a marriage that's become a dull routine. To cope with the boredom and frustration, he resorts to voyeurism and extramarital love affairs.
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The Virgin and the Gypsy
Title: The Virgin and the Gypsy
Character: Yvette
Released: June 1, 1970
Type: Movie
Film adaptation from the novel by D.H. Lawrence, discovered after the celebrated author's death in 1930, a romantic love story tells of a prim young English girl who is sexually attracted to a seductively virile gypsy. The climatic dam burst is linked with the consummation of her desire.
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The Uninvited
Title: The Uninvited
Character: Anne
Released: October 31, 1969
Type: Movie
When her husband returns from his work abroad with a guest, a young girl, his wife suspects a liaison. She leaves her home. Her boss takes her to the Côte d'Azur. They get closer during the long voyage and the man invites her to his marital home.
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The Lost Man
Title: The Lost Man
Character: Cathy Ellis
Released: July 11, 1969
Type: Movie
A gang of black militants plots to rob a factory to finance their "revolutionary struggle."
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Ho!
Title: Ho!
Character: Bénédicte
Released: November 4, 1968
Type: Movie
Race driver who has lost his membership card becomes the chauffeur of a gangsters pack
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Boom!
Title: Boom!
Character: Miss Black
Released: May 26, 1968
Type: Movie
Explores the confrontation between the woman who has everything, including emptiness, and a penniless poet who has nothing but the ability to fill a wealthy woman's needs.
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Zita
Title: Zita
Character: Annie
Released: January 12, 1968
Type: Movie
Because "Tante Zita" main theme is death: a twenty-year old girl, Annie (Shimkus) lives with her mother and her aunt (both played by first-class actresses Suzanne Flon and Katina Paxinou). The auntie is dying, and for the first time in her life, Annie has to cope with death. One night, she finds it too hard to bear, and leaving home where the old woman is suffering, she begins to hang around in Paris. She will meet people, and, from dusk to dawn, she will learn to leave her childhood behind and to grow into a woman.
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The Last Adventure
Title: The Last Adventure
Character: Laetitia
Released: April 12, 1967
Type: Movie
Two adventurers and best friends, Roland and Manu, are the victims of a practical joke that costs Manu his pilot's license. With seeming contrition, the jokesters tell Roland and Manu about a crashed plane lying on the ocean floor off the coast of Congo stuffed with riches. The adventurers set off to find the loot.
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Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
Title: Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
Released: October 21, 1966
Type: Movie
In this excoriating satire of the fashion industry, Polly Maggoo is a 20-year-old Brooklyn-born fashion model in Paris, on the runway at the big shows where magazine editor Ms. Maxwell is the reigning opinion maker. The ridiculous passes for sublime. Polly becomes the subject of an episode of a vapid TV news documentary series called "Qui êtes-vous?" and is pursued by the filmmaker and by the prince of Borodine, a small country in the Soviet bloc.
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Six in Paris
Title: Six in Paris
Character: Monica (segment "Montparnasse-Levallois")
Released: May 19, 1965
Type: Movie
Six vignettes set in different sections of Paris, by six directors. St. Germain des Pres (Douchet), Gare du Nord (Rouch), Rue St. Denis (Pollet), and Montparnasse et Levallois (Godard) are stories of love, flirtation and prostitution; Place d'Etoile (Rohmer) concerns a haberdasher and his umbrella; and La Muette (Chabrol), a bourgeois family and earplugs.
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Title: Dim Dam Dom
Character: Self
Released: March 7, 1965
Type: TV
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Montparnasse et Levallois
Title: Montparnasse et Levallois
Character: Monica
Released: January 1, 1965
Type: Movie
A Canadian woman with two working class boyfriends writes letters to them, breaking off with one of them while professing her love for the other, but fears that she mixed up the letters.
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All About Loving
Title: All About Loving
Character: Sophie
Released: December 28, 1964
Type: Movie
Serge follows Hélène in the crowded streets of Paris and manages to seduce her. Werther takes Sophie to her dentist, Raoul, who tries to seduce her too.