Through her graceful presence on stage, in film and on television, actress Cicely Tyson created portraits of proud and even majestic women who helped to break American stereotypes of African American women. The iconic star, who inspired a generation of black actresses, died Thursday at age 96.
Tyson was born on December 19, 1924, in New York’s East Harlem neighborhood, for deeply religious immigrant parents from the tiny Caribbean island of Nevis. Her father, William Tyson, was a handcart operator; his mother, Theodosia, was a domestic worker. To help increase family income, young Tyson sold shopping bags on street corners.
After finishing high school, she started to work as secretary of the American Red Cross. Tyson soon found the job unsatisfactory and started looking for something else. (She would remember how she announced to her co-workers: “I’m sure God didn’t put me on the face of the earth to hit a typewriter for the rest of my life.”) She ended up serving as a model after her hairdresser asked her to show one of her styles at a fashion show. Not long after, she enrolled at the Barbara Watson Modeling School and was soon doing photo shoots during lunch breaks at the Red Cross.
She became one of the top black models after a photographer from Ebony magazine discovered her and appeared on catwalks and major magazines. However, she soon lost her enthusiasm for being a model, later telling Time magazine that she “felt like a machine”.
G / O Media can receive a commission
Tyson ended up being asked to appear in the film The spectre, which focused on tensions between light and dark skinned African Americans. Although it was never released due to financial problems, the experience was enough to make her fall in love with acting. She enrolled in drama school and in 1959 performed in off-Broadway shows, including the musical The darkness of the moon. Tyson was also a replacement for Eartha Kitt in the role of Jolly Rivers in Jolly progress and had participations in films like Odds against tomorrow and The Last Angry Man.
In 1961, she was one of the original cast members in the off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s drama Blacks. Other cast members included heavyweights like James Earl Jones, Maya Angelou, Lou Gossett Jr., Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques. Tyson, who played a prostitute named Virtue, did such an attractive job that he won the Vernon Rice Award (now known as the Drama Desk Award) in 1962.
Tyson’s dramatic work blossomed from that point. His first major appearance in cinema was in 1966 A Man Called Adam; she played the love interest of Sammy Davis Jr. She also appeared in 1968 The heart is a lonely hunter. In addition, Tyson made frequent television appearances from the 1960s and 1970s, including East side / West side, I spy, Naked city, Eddie’s father dating and The Bill Cosby Show.
The advent of the blaxploitation film made Tyson very selective about the roles he would assume. She said People Magazine in 1974: “The lesser of the two evils for me is waiting, instead of doing something that is not right. The producers know how I feel and are very cautious when sending me things, even though I read everything I receive. They can make my skin tingle or my stomach turn. I’m really tired of assuming that black people don’t like anything but sex and violence. “
In 1972, she was nominated for an Oscar for best actress and a Golden Globe for her role as Rebecca Morgan, the matriarch of a family of sharecroppers from the 1930s in Sounder. In 1974, she won two Emmy Awards – including an outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or film – for Miss Jane Pittman’s autobiography, in which she portrayed a woman born in slavery who lived to see and participate in the 1960s civil rights movement. She was the first African American woman to win the coveted award for a leading role. She would receive several other Emmy nominations in the 1970s, for roles in Roots and King.
Tyson continued to perform in the 2000s, and she continued to gain recognition for her performance. She received an Emmy nomination in 1981 for The story of Marva Collins and received another Emmy, for best supporting actress, in 1994 for The older Confederate woman tells everything. In addition to his 1999 appointment for A lesson before you die, Tyson was nominated in 2009 for another Emmy for his performance in Relative Strange. In 2014, she was also nominated as the best lead actress in a miniseries or film for Bountiful Travel.
Tyson also received a record 12 NAACP Image Awards and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She appeared in the 2011 award-winning film The help, and in 2015 she starred in the hit ABC TV series How to escape murder and was recognized with an honor from Kennedy Center. In 2016, she also appeared in the Netflix political drama House of cards-and received President Obama’s Presidential Medal of Freedom, the greatest American tribute paid to a civilian. In 2018, she was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an honorary Oscar at the Governor’s Awards, and her hands and footprints were added to those in front of the city’s legendary TCL (former Grauman) Chinese Theater. Last year, Tyson was honored with the Peabody Award for Career Achievement.
Honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Tyson received an honorary degree from Morehouse College, exclusively for men, in 2009. In 2010, she became the 95th recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal, the organization’s greatest honor, which is accorded to Afro-descendant Americans for “notable and noble achievements”. A magnetic school in East Orange, NJ, has been renamed Community School of Performance and Fine Arts Cicely L. Tyson in his honor.
As responsible and disciplined with her health as she was with her craft, Tyson fervently believed in fitness and was a longtime vegetarian. A celebrity who also believed in keeping her private life private, she was married to jazz legend Miles Davis from 1981 to 1988. (Andrew Young officiated at the wedding ceremony.)
On Tuesday, January 26th, she released her memoir, Just as I am through Harper Books.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
Looking at her myriad roles, Tyson says “there are traits of who I am in every woman I portrayed” and each character left her “with an emotional, spiritual and psychological heritage that I will carry with me forever”.
We will take you with us forever. Rest in heavenly paradise, Queen.
Corrected, 1/28/21 9:44 PM Eastern Time: Cicely Tyson was born in 1924. An earlier in this story had an incorrect birth year.