Sidney Poitier, two-time Academy Award-winning actor, shared “snapshots” of his life Tuesday night at the William H. Lively Lecture of the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series.

The song To Sir With Love played as the lights dimmed. The audience greeted him with a standing ovation.

Poitier, who is selective of his venues, agreed to appear at SMU again. He was last on the Hilltop in 1979 for the graduation of his daughter, Beverly Poitier Mould.

The program opened with a video of his life and work in brief. Clips demonstrated how he ventured to Hollywood in a time of racial stereotypes and of appeared before congressional hearings on racism. But by 1967, Poitier had three box-office hits and was one of the most popular actors in America.

As the houselights rose, the lecture that followed was “a montage of snapshots from the album of his life.”

The first was of his mother and father with a baby born two months premature in a clapboard house. Several of the couple’s other children had died. Fearing the worst, his mother sought the comfort of a soothsayer.

“Don’t worry about your son, he will survive,” she said. “He will walk with kings.”

Another snapshot – His mother throwing him in the ocean at seven months old, his father pulling him out. Living next to the beach, she knew he would be tempted to get to the sea as soon as he could walk. She was preparing him to survive in life as it was.

The next snapshot – a 10-year-old boy writing love letters.

Next, a 12-year-old and some friends, stealing rum and getting too drunk. Another snapshot – two of those friends lost to alcohol within years and two more before 40 years old.

He shared being put on a boat for America with “$3 and infinitely more in ethics and values.”

Poitier says he was taught by words and not by example. He was taught how to think under pressure.

A snapshot of being hassled and threatened by racist cops in Florida and contemplating the value of character, another of being shot in the leg when curiosity brought him to the Harlem riots in 1943.

He told of being arrested for vagrancy in New York and the police officer that gave him 50 cents, a kind word and the directions to the Catholic sisters in Brooklyn who helped him get back on his feet.

He shared another snapshot of want ads for actors and dishwashers – the bravado and ignorance of a young man and the perseverance through which he would grow.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been knocked down,” he said, “but what you do when you get up.”

When asked how far he thought race relations had come he offered his career as a measure of how far racism had digressed.

Poitier said that there were many considerations that young actors should keep in mind and many empty scripts. He suggested looking for dimensions in characters, the internal life of people, and bring those characters to life. He chose his roles to compliment his mother and father, to show their values, to make them smile.

Being self-taught past the age of 12, he places great value in the fullness of a well-rounded education he missed. When asked what occupation he would choose if not acting, he said a teacher.

Poitier will answer more questions at a student forum in the Hughes-Trigg Theater at 9 a.m. Wednesday.