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Trailblazing Black US actress Cicely Tyson dies aged 96
LOS ANGELES, Jan 29, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Cicely Tyson, the pioneering African-
American actress and honorary Oscar winner, died Thursday aged 96, her
manager said.
Known best for Emmy-winning television movie “The Autobiography of Miss
Jane Pittman” and her Academy-nominated turn in 1972 film “Sounder,” Tyson’s
acting career spanned seven decades and often tackled issues of racism and
social justice.
She frequently turned down roles she saw as reinforcing negative Black
stereotypes, including maids and prostitutes, and was seen as recently as
last year on the small-screen thriller “How to Get Away with Murder.”
“With heavy heart, the family of Miss Cicely Tyson announces her peaceful
transition this afternoon,” manager Larry Thompson said in a statement to
AFP.
“I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a
privilege and blessing,” Thompson wrote, without further details of the cause
of death.
Tyson’s highly decorated career included multiple Emmys and a Tony in 2013
for “A Trip to Bountiful.”
Beside Depression-era drama adaptation “Sounder,” her other film credits
include “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “The Help”.
In 2018, at the age of 93, Tyson was granted an honorary Oscar for her
life-long work as an icon for two generations of African American actresses.
“She’s a queen to us, Afro-Americans,” the actor and producer Tyler Perry
said at the glitzy Hollywood ceremony.
“She had to work ten times harder to be paid a hundred times less” because
she was a black woman, Perry said.
The composer Quincy Jones, in an emotional tribute, said Tyson “opened the
door” for Black actresses from Angela Bassett to Lupita Nyong’o.
Born in New York’s Harlem to Caribbean immigrant parents, Tyson began her
career as a model before turning to acting.
She won Emmys for “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” in which she
played a 110-year-old woman in the Civil Rights Era reflecting on a life
dating back to slavery times, and for “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells
All.”
She played other legendary Black female historical figures, including
Harriet Tubman and Coretta Scott King, the activist wife of Martin Luther
King, Jr.
“Trailblazer is not a sufficient description. What a legendary artist, sage
and matriarch. We salute her. Rest in power, Lady Cicely,” tweeted the Martin
Luther King Jr Center on Thursday.
Tyson’s memoir, “Just as I Am: A Memoir” had just been published Tuesday.
“Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all
the ornaments of her personal and professional life,” wrote manager Thompson.
“Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/0912 hrs