Cicely Tyson was an award-winning actress whose decades-long career broke ground for Black women, while also inspiring generations to come. From her early beginnings to the numerous honors she'd receive later in life, this is the untold truth of Cicely Tyson.
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00:00Cicely Tyson was an award-winning actress whose decades-long career broke ground for
00:05Black women, while also inspiring generations to come. From her early beginnings to the
00:10numerous honors she'd receive later in life, this is the untold truth of Cicely Tyson.
00:17When asked how she became an actor in an interview with NPR, Cicely Tyson said,
00:23"'Well, it happened because I learned that I could speak through other people. I was
00:27a very shy child.'"
00:29In another interview for Elle magazine, Ms. Tyson said she never thought of being an actress.
00:34She was born into a very religious family, so her introduction to film, theater, and
00:39music came through her church. In speaking about the impact her church had on her creative
00:43output, Tyson had this to say,
00:46"'The church was really where, subconsciously, I was sopping up all of this, whatever I use
00:51now to perform.'"
00:53Ms. Tyson was discovered by a photographer for Ebony magazine. She was working as a typist
00:58in New York City and enjoyed perusing at Lord & Taylor off Fifth Avenue on her lunch break.
01:04One afternoon, according to her interview with NPR, someone tapped her on the shoulder
01:08and said she should be a model. Soon after, Tyson started sending her photos to agencies
01:13and began getting calls.
01:16Cicely Tyson was born in Harlem, New York. Her parents were both working-class immigrants
01:20from Nevis in the West Indies. Cicely's parents divorced when she was very young, and her
01:25mother became her main guardian. While still living at home, Cicely's modeling career took
01:31off. She was featured in Top magazines and Walk the Runways.
01:36Cicely said in an interview with Time magazine that when she was approached to work on a
01:40film, her mother told her, quote, "'You can't do that.'" She ended up kicking Cicely out
01:44of the house, and they didn't speak for over a year. Soon after, Cicely was cast in her
01:49first feature film, Carib Gold, a 1957 B-film taking place in the Florida Keys, with a predominantly
01:56Black cast. When asked in her Elle interview if her mother was ever proud of her, Tyson
02:01said,
02:02"'When I acted in the film, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, I was in California.
02:07She was still in New York. And I called her and said to her, well, you've got to give
02:11me something. She said, I am so proud of you.'"
02:15Tyson told Oprah,
02:16"'She, in fact, is responsible for what I have become.'"
02:22Tyson also credits her mother with being a, quote, "'source of energy' she used to prove
02:26she could succeed as an actress, telling the congregation of the Abyssinian Baptist Church,
02:31"'I was determined to prove my mother wrong.'"
02:37In an interview with InStyle, Cicely said she is often credited for starting the natural
02:42hair movement. In 1962, she auditioned for a role in a CBS drama called Between Yesterday
02:47and Today. Cicely said that the network told her to leave her hair straightened. Tyson,
02:52however, believed the character would wear her hair natural, so she went to a barbershop
02:56in Harlem and had them cut her hair short and shampoo it. On set, Tyson kept her hair
03:01covered until it was time to shoot. When the director saw her hair short and natural, he
03:06said,
03:07In 1963, Tyson went on to star in East Side, West Side, a TV show for CBS, and decided
03:16to keep her hair natural. The studio received letters, some praising the decision and some
03:20criticizing it. In recalling the decision to wear her hair natural on East Side, West
03:25Side, Tyson had this to say,
03:27"'Other people told me I was in a position to glorify Black women, and I had disgraced
03:32them instead. I was not trying to be groundbreaking that day, but that one small choice still
03:37has effects today.'"
03:39In 1972, Cicely Tyson starred in the film Sounder, a children's film about a family
03:44of sharecroppers and their dog, Sounder. This role earned Tyson an Academy Award nomination
03:50for Best Actress in a Leading Role, making her the second Black woman to receive this
03:54honor. After the success of Sounder, she was offered the leading role in the film Claudine.
03:59In an interview with Time magazine, Cicely recalled,
04:02"...I once turned down a movie that everybody thought I was crazy to do, because it wasn't
04:07the kind of woman I wanted to project. Another actress did it, and she got a nomination for
04:11an Oscar. That woman was Diane Carroll, who played the title role in Claudine."
04:16Cicely Tyson told Elle,
04:18"...it has never been easy for us to get roles, roles of enough substance, of any substance."
04:23Despite the scarcity of roles, Cicely Tyson remained picky about which ones she took.
04:28She cared a lot about how her image as a Black woman was projected, and it was a decision
04:32she never regretted. A week after turning down Claudine, she was given the chance to
04:37star in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, for which she won two Emmys.
04:42The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was a made-for-TV movie about a woman who was
04:47110 years old in the 1960s and a former slave. When discussing her preparation for the lead
04:53role of Jane Pittman to Elle, Tyson said,
04:56"...I did a tremendous amount of research. I need to feel as though I am in the person's
05:00skin."
05:01To get the hang of playing an elderly person, she visited a nursing home and spent time
05:06with those older than her, noting how they talked, walked, and held themselves. The TV
05:10movie racked up 13 Emmy nominations, not to mention two more wins for Tyson, who said
05:16that the movie, quote, "...marked the end of my anonymity."
05:19That kind of attention to detail was typical for Tyson. In 2013, Tyson starred in the Broadway
05:25revival of The Trip to Bountiful. To prepare for the role, she went to Texas, where the
05:30play was set, because she had never been there before. CBS also decided to make an entire
05:35behind-the-scenes documentary about her trip. Tyson visited the small town of Wharton, where
05:40the playwright Horton Foote grew up and wrote about in Bountiful. Cicely Tyson won a Tony
05:45Award for her performance.
05:47After reading the book Roots, Cicely Tyson met with the book's author Alex Haley. The
05:52two became fast friends, and soon after, Tyson was granted the part of Binta, Kunta Kinte's
05:57mother. The film was released in 1977, and Tyson was again nominated for an Emmy.
06:03Like all other parts she played, Tyson did a lot of research, but this time, she went
06:07to Africa before getting the part. She went to the former kingdom of Dahomey, now called
06:12Benin, a country west of Nigeria. Tyson told an interviewer,
06:16I had an opportunity to get a feel of the country itself, made lots of notes, take the
06:20dialogue in, just wanting to get to know who my forefathers were. I spent a lot of time
06:25with the women, not being aware that this role was forthcoming."
06:29According to an interview she did with Oprah, Cicely Tyson's mother passed away right before
06:34she landed the role of Binta. She spoke with Oprah about how she was able to use her grief
06:38to bring her character to life, stating,
06:41I think that I have profited more from the negative as opposed to the positive. I really
06:45relish and treasure the more-than-positive. It has enriched my life more."
06:51Miles Davis and Cicely Tyson met in New York in 1966. According to the Los Angeles Times,
06:57Davis remarked,
06:58"...she had a different kind of beauty that you didn't usually see in Black women on television.
07:02She was very proud-looking and had a kind of inner-burning fire that was interesting."
07:06In 1967, Davis used Tyson's face for the cover of his album, Sorcerer. According to Miles,
07:13The Autobiography, by 1968, Davis had married another woman, Betty Mabry, and they divorced
07:19in 1969. Shortly after his divorce, there was a long period where Davis sank into a
07:24deep cocaine addiction. Toward the end of the 70s, at the height of her career, Cicely
07:28Tyson came back into Davis' life. She helped him deal with his addiction, and the two married
07:33on Thanksgiving Day in 1981 at the home of Bill Cosby. Miles began composing music again
07:40and released two albums, one of which had a song titled Star on Cicely.
07:44Miles Davis wrote of how the couple had trouble getting along and fought regularly. He even
07:48confessed to having an affair days after their wedding. While their relationship was on the
07:52downslope for many years, it was not until 1989 that their divorce was final. In 1991,
07:59Miles was hospitalized for organ failure after decades of drug and alcohol abuse. Tyson told
08:04Radio Andy,
08:05"'He needed, at the time I met him, someone to save him from the life of destruction he
08:14was living.'"
08:16Tyson was not able to see him before he died, but a friend of hers relayed a message from
08:20Davis,
08:21"'Tell Cicely I'm sorry. Tell her I'm very, very sorry.'"
08:27Before Cicely Tyson became a household name, she was a stage performer. Her first performance
08:32was at the Little Theatre in Harlem in 1957, for a play called Dark of the Moon. In 1959,
08:38she was an understudy for Eartha Kitt in the Broadway play Jolly's Progress. Her most notable
08:43success would be in the play The Blacks, written by French playwright Jean Genet. The show
08:48ran for 1,408 performances at the St. Mark's Theatre.
08:53Tyson's breakout role on East Side West Side in 1963 may have slowed her stage career down,
08:59but it didn't stop it. Cicely came back here and there, such as for Carry Me Back to Morningside
09:04Heights in 1968 and The Corn is Green in 1983. According to Broadway.com, it would be three
09:11decades until Tyson returned to Broadway for her Tony-winning turn in The Trip to Bountiful.
09:17Upon accepting the award, Tyson said,
09:19"...I had this burning desire to do one more, one more great role. I didn't want to be greedy,
09:25I just wanted one more."
09:26Well, she did two more. Her final play was in 2015, opposite James Earl Jones in The
09:32Gin Game.
09:34On November 22, 2016, Cicely Tyson, along with 20 other recipients, was awarded the
09:40Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was 91 years old. Like her character Jane Pittman,
09:46Tyson had lived through decades of slow progress, in this case, to finally seeing the first
09:50Black president. In 2018, Cicely Tyson was honored by Turner Movie Classics with a hand-in-footprint
09:57ceremony in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Then in 2019, Cicely Tyson became the first
10:03woman of color to receive an Honorary Academy Award. At age 94, she walked the red carpet,
10:09causing both the crowd, as well as her fellow actors, to cheer loudly.
10:14Cicely Tyson died on January 28, 2021, only two days after her memoir, Just As I Am, was
10:20released. She was in the middle of a book tour, and had no plans of slowing down. According
10:25to Vulture, she did her last interview on Live with Ryan and Kelly just a day before
10:30she passed. When asked by Time magazine in 2019 on why she hadn't yet retired, she said,
10:36"...The reason why I've been in this universe as long as I have been is because he's not
10:40ready for me. When I've completed my job, he'll take me away."
10:44Tyson was still working to the end, having recently completed a recurring role on How
10:48to Get Away With Murder. There was an outpouring of lamentations over the icon's death from
10:53the many fans and actors she inspired, specifically Black women. Viola Davis even wrote an entire
10:59article for Vanity Fair about how Cicely Tyson was always her, quote, "...muse."
11:05After Tyson's death, numerous celebrities paid homage. In a touching remembrance, Viola
11:10Davis stated,
11:11"...because of Cicely Tyson, I felt valued in a world where there is still a cloak of
11:15invisibility for us dark chocolate girls."
11:18Kerry Washington also described Tyson as a, quote, "...foretaste of glory." Zendaya, meanwhile,
11:24proclaimed Tyson as, quote, "...one of the greatest to ever do it."
11:28That's something we can all agree on.