Beginning in the mid-1960s, Cicely Tyson had a decades-long, intermittent and intermittent romance with trumpeter Miles Davis that culminated in their marriage in 1981 and ended in a divorce in 1989.
Backstage, it was a turbulent relationship, according to both, but during their time in the spotlight, they were one of America’s most striking and stylish couples: she, a dramatic actress and Oscar-nominated movie star, a barrier breaker, known for an unwavering dedication to her craft; he is a revered and charismatic and innovative jazz musician with an addictive personality and a bad reputation.
“Miles and I were among a handful of black power couples from the 1960s, an artistic duo that attracted attention,” wrote Tyson, who died last week at age 96 in “Just As I Am”, his newly published autobiography. “I felt proud to be with Miles, I loved folding my hands with silk gloves on his hands.”
A measure of your fame? Tyson / Davis’ nuptials were held at the then famous comedian Bill Cosby’s house and made official by then-mayor of Atlanta, Andrew Young.
It is a relationship that both Tyson and Davis, who died of organ failure in 1991, covered extensively in their respective autobiographies and the dueling narratives collide in some serious drama. Driven by equal parts of tenderness and fury, her story is marked by Davis’ expansive part-time jazz experiments and Tyson’s rise as one of the most acclaimed black actresses of her generation.
Cicely Tyson and Miles Davis attended the premiere of “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” on July 31, 1968 in New York City.
(Ron Galella / Ron Galella Collection / Getty)
Tyson wrote about seeing Davis perform for the first time years before and being immediately impressed by his presence: “There he was on the stage, low to sculpted cheekbones, skin so velvety dark it almost looked unreal. And man, he was smart: Brooks Brothers blazer, coolness in person. ”Later, she describes him as” a shiny penny, black like me and a few more. “
Their relationship started in New York in 1966, after they met a few times near Riverside Park on the Upper West Side. Both lived in the neighborhood. Davis, then separated from his first wife, saw Tyson on the TV show “East Side / West Side” and fell in love, he wrote in “The Autobiography of Miles Davis”, his vengeful and fascinating 1989 book co-written by Quincy Troupe .
“[S]he wore afro hair and she was always smart when I saw her. I remember wondering what she looked like, ”wrote Davis. “She had a different kind of beauty than you used to see in black women on television; she looked very proud and had a kind of inner fire that was interesting. “
He fell in love with her. The trumpeter – whose livelihood depended on healthy lungs – offered a sample of his feelings for Tyson at the beginning of the novel: “She told me she didn’t like to kiss me with all that cigarette smell on my breath. She said she would stop kissing me if I didn’t, so I did. “
Miles Davis, “Star on Cicely”
Tyson, who was two years older, writes that their conversations “were full of honesty and deep understanding. There is a love that gently guides your palm towards the other’s back, a care that leads you to ensure that no harm will ever happen to that person. From the beginning, this is the love I had for Miles. This is the soft place where our connection rested your head. “
A year after their meeting, Davis presented a close-up of Tyson for the cover of “Sorcerer”, his 1967 transitional album of soulful post-bop. “[E]A lot of people who didn’t know yet knew that we were a pair, ”he wrote. Reserved Davis admitted that he wasn’t sure about the romance at first, but that “Cicely is that kind of woman who just gets into you, gets into your blood and into your head.”
Their first attempt at love did not last long. In 1968, boyfriend Davis presented his new love, Betty Mabry (who, like Betty Davis, released a series of fierce soul-rock albums), on the cover of his album “Filles de Kilimanjaro”. He and Mabry were married the same year. They divorced in 1969, said Mabry, “because of their violent temper”.
Tyson shot in the 1970s without Davis, starring in TV and film productions, including “Sounder”, “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and “Roots”. While she was doing, Davis created some of her best-known jazz-funk records, including “Bitches Brew”, “Live Evil” and “Get Up with It” – while drinking mountains of cocaine and turning into a troubled inmate who couldn’t . t keep a housekeeper, let alone a girlfriend.
Tyson was well aware of the trumpeter’s health problems during the separate times, Davis wrote, due to “this very rigid spiritual thing” they had. “She kind of knows when I’m not doing very well, when I’m sick and shit.”
Tyson’s opinion? “I always had this feeling of gnawing at my stomach when Miles was in trouble.”
Reconciling with Davis at the end of the decade, she devoted her energy to his recovery, Davis wrote, adding that Tyson “protected me and began to see that I ate the right things and didn’t drink as much. She helped me get rid of cocaine. “He added:” Suddenly, I started thinking more clearly and it was then that I really started thinking about music again. “
He released his first studio album in six years, “The Man with the Horn”, in 1981, and then in 1983 with “Star People”, a beat-based fusion album. Although Davis never explicitly cited Tyson as a musical muse, the final composition, “Star on Cicely”, was named after his wife.
Cicely Tyson and Miles Davis at the premiere of “Yentl” in November 1983.
(Associated Press)
The couple’s connection confused many in Tyson’s world. Although considered a renegade artist, Davis’ addictions were not a secret and Tyson was not interested in drugs. Nor could the self-centered musician resist cheating. His love life in the late 1960s was a series of overlapping encounters fueled by ego and lies that hurt everyone but himself. His book reveals these exploits.
“As I am”, on the other hand, is full of compassion. “The Miles I knew were sensitive and sick, hurt by the wounds that this life causes,” writes Tyson. “With trembling lips, he told me about his childhood years in East St. Louis, when he was called Blackie by his friends and even some of his family, seen as a nobody, made invisible by his dark tone. “
Despite the concern of Tyson’s circle of friends, the relationship continued, writes Tyson. “I married Miles not because of the world’s opinion of any of us, but because of who we were to each other in particular.” She adds that “his behavior sometimes disturbed me a lot, even humiliated me. And more than anger, I felt compassion and pity for his sad state. It is possible to be hurt by a man and be heartbroken for him. I couldn’t let Miles throw himself away. ”They were married on Thanksgiving Day 1981.
How did the musician return? “I even went to bed with a woman I met five days after Cicely and I were married, because I no longer felt that sex thing about Cicely.”
Davis was never completely drug free when he and Tyson were married, and within a few years, the marriage was in trouble. It has long been rumored that he was violent with his other two wives, Davis punched Tyson in the chest on one occasion. He immediately apologized, Tyson writes: “This incident marked the first and last time that Miles hit me”.
The actress left Davis in late 1987, after she found out about another one of her flirtations. Their wedding ended unofficially at the door of his Upper West Side apartment, where Davis tried to stop Tyson from leaving and she grabbed him by the scruff. “The moment he struggled to get free, I was holding an entire bushel of his plot in my right hand. I threw it on the floor, marched out of the door and slammed it shut. ”
After the divorce was finalized, Davis’ health deteriorated. With organ failure after decades of drug and alcohol abuse, he was hospitalized in 1991. Tyson was unable to visit him, but Davis transmitted a message through his best friend, Barbara Warren. As Tyson tells it, as soon as Warren was leaving the hospital room, he waved at her.
“She leaned close so she could hear him about the buzz of the breathing machines. “Tell Cicely that I’m sorry,” he whispered with difficulty. “Tell her that I’m really, really sorry.”