Question: Who played tibbs in the heat of the night?
Disambiguated questions and answers: question: Who played tibbs in the heat of the night in 1967  film?
Who played tibbs in the heat of the night series?
answer: Sidney Poitier
Howard Ellsworth Rollins Jr.
Howard Rollins
Natural Questions answer: Howard Ellsworth Rollins Jr . (from the Wikipedia article "Howard Rollins")