LOS ANGELES -- At 75, Sidney Poitier has reached the point where he limits his screen appearances to projects that particularly interest him. They may include a thriller like "The Jackal" or a made-for-television biography of Thurgood Marshall, "Separate But Equal."
The latest production to capture his fancy is "The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn," which CBS will present tonight at 8 on Ch. 2.Poitier plays Noah Dearborn, a man who has spent his long life as a carpenter and farmer in a small Southern community where he is well-respected for his craftsmanship as well as his personal philosophy.
Dearborn's simple life is upset when a developer offers to buy his land and convert it into a shopping mall. The old man declines, but the developer persists, sending a psychiatrist (Mary-Louise Parker) to determine if Dearborn is mentally unfit.
His friend, a diner operator played by Dianne Wiest, does her own investigating and discovers still more about the enigmatic Dearborn.
"There is a message," Poitier observed. "It is a good, healthy kind of exploration of the human personality. We live in very modern times, in which values do change, not from generation to generation; it's even quicker now in its transformation.
"The things that were of enormous value to us even 15 years ago may now seem ineffective or passe. So much comes at us so fast that to digest them and have the time to feel them as values -- that time gets shorter and shorter."
Poitier, who has directed many of his own movies in the past, described himself as a "hired gun" on "Noah Dearborn," which was directed by Gregg Champion.
"Directing is a labor of love," Poitier said. "It is a time-consuming job, though I don't mind that. If you're going to direct a picture, a goodly part of a year is going to be absorbed.
"Between the time you start preparations and when you deliver, that's a good nine-10 months gone."
Poitier has certainly had a unique career. A star from his first film in 1950, "No Way Out," in 1964 he became the first black actor to win an Academy Award for a leading role, in "Lilies of the Field."
(Hattie McDaniel was the first black actor to ever win an Oscar, as supporting actress for her role as Mammy in 1939's "Gone With the Wind.")
As he turned to directing in the 1970s, Poitier began limiting his screen appearances. A 10-year absence ended in 1985 with "Shoot to Kill."
"I had this remarkable run," he explained, "and there came a time when contemplation was in order. You stand back and you look and feel and you see how you are. You see what has improved and what has atrophied and what has fallen into disrepair.
"Then you come back with a new attitude and a new resolve and a new way of looking at things. The stuff that I'm looking at now are the things that strike me as most important."
Poitier will next appear as Nelson Mandela in "One Man, One Vote," a Showtime movie about the end of apartheid in South Africa.