Cicely L.Tyson (born December 19, 1924) is an American actress and former fashion model. She is best known for playing strong African-American women on screen and stage throughout her career. She is the recipient of three Primetime Emmy Awards, four Black Reel Awards, one Screen Actor Guild Award, and one Tony Award. Tyson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States in November 2016.
Having appeared in minor film and television roles early in her career, Tyson garnered widespread attention and critical acclaim for her performance as Rebecca Morgan in Sounder (1972); she was nominated for the Academy and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, and won the NSFC Best Actress and NBR Best Actress Awards for the role. Her portrayal of a young slave at the end of the American Civil War in the 1974 television film The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman won her further praise. The role won her two Emmy Awards and a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role among other accolades.
Tyson appeared in the 2011 drama film The Help; set in the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement the film had her play the role of Constantine, a maid in Jackson, Mississippi and won her the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Screen Actors Guild Award for best ensemble cast. She has played the role of Ophelia Harkness in American Broadcasting Company's legal drama How to Get Away With Murder since the show's inception in 2014. Other notable film roles include the dramas Hoodlum (1997) and Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005), and the television films Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (1994) and A Lesson Before Dying (1999).
In addition to her screen career, Tyson has also appeared in various theater productions; she starred as Carrie Watts in the Broadway play, The Trip to Bountiful, winning the Tony Award, Outer Critics Award, and Drama Desk Award for Best Actress in a Play. She had previously received a Drama Desk Award in 1962 for her Off-Broadway performance in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl. Tyson has also been honoured by the Congress of Racial Equality, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the National Council of Negro Women. In 1977 she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and named a Kennedy Center honoree in 2015.
Video Cicely Tyson
Early life
Tyson was born and raised in Harlem, New York, on December 19, 1924, the daughter of Frederica Tyson, a domestic, and William Augustine Tyson, who worked as a carpenter, painter, and at any other jobs he could find. Her parents were immigrants from Nevis in the West Indies. Her father arrived in New York City at age 21 and was processed at Ellis Island on August 4, 1919.
Maps Cicely Tyson
Career
Early work
Tyson was discovered by a photographer for Ebony magazine and became a popular fashion model. Her first acting role was on the NBC series Frontiers of Faith in 1951. Tyson got her first play role in 1950 and her first film role in Carib Gold in 1956, but she went on to do more television work, such as the celebrated series East Side/West Side and the soap opera The Guiding Light.
In 1961, Tyson appeared in the original cast of French playwright Jean Genet's The Blacks, the longest running off-Broadway non-musical of the decade, running for 1,408 performances. On March 25, 1963, Tyson appeared on the game show To Tell The Truth as a decoy contestant for Shirley Abicair. In 1965 - I Spy with Bill Cosby Season 1, Episode 1. She appeared with Sammy Davis Jr. in the film A Man Called Adam (1966) and starred in the film version of Graham Greene's The Comedians (1967). Tyson had a featured role in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), and appeared in a segment of Roots.
In 1972, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the critically acclaimed Sounder. In 1974, she won two Emmy Awards for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Other acclaimed television roles included Roots; King, in which she portrayed Coretta Scott King, The Marva Collins Story, When No One Would Listen, and The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, for which she received her third Emmy Award.
In 1982, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women, who through their endurance and the excellence of their work have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. In 1988 she received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.
In 1991 she appeared in Fried Green Tomatoes as Sipsey. In her 1994-95 television series Sweet Justice, Tyson portrayed a civil rights activist and attorney named Carrie Grace Battle, a character she shaped by reportedly consulting with noted Washington, D.C. civil rights and criminal defense lawyer Dovey Johnson Roundtree. In 2005, Tyson co-starred in Because of Winn-Dixie and Diary of a Mad Black Woman. The same year she was honored at Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball.
Later career
In 2010, she appeared in Why Did I Get Married Too?, and also narrated the Paul Robeson Award-winning documentary, Up from the Bottoms: The Search for the American Dream. In 2011, Tyson appeared in her first music video in Willow Smith's 21st Century Girl. That same year she played Constantine Jefferson in the critically acclaimed period drama The Help. At the 67th Tony Awards on June 9, 2013, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance as Miss Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful. She also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for the role. In 2013, Tyson had a supporting role in the horror film The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia. Since 2014, Tyson has guest starred in How to Get Away with Murder as Ophelia Harkness, the mother of main character Annalise Keating (Viola Davis), a role for which she has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2015, 2017 & 2018.
Personal life
Tyson married jazz trumpeter Miles Davis on November 26, 1981 in a ceremony conducted by Atlanta mayor Andrew Young at the home of actor Bill Cosby. Tyson and Davis resided in Malibu, California, until their divorce in 1988. She has no children. Tyson appeared on the cover of Davis' 1967 album, Sorcerer. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
Tyson was awarded the NAACP's 2010 Spingarn Medal for her contribution towards the entertainment industry, her modeling career, and her support of civil rights. The Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts, a magnet school in East Orange, New Jersey, was named after her. She plays an active part in supporting the school, which serves underprivileged African-American communities.
Tyson was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Columbia University in 2014; in 2009 she was given an honorary degree from Morehouse College, an all-male historically black college, and an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Howard University, a distinction which she shared in 2016 with United States President Barack Obama. Tyson was awarded United States' highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in November 2016.
Filmography
Film
Television
Theatre
Radio
References
External links
- Cicely Tyson at the Internet Broadway Database
- Cicely Tyson at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Cicely Tyson on IMDb
- Cicely Tyson at the TCM Movie Database
Source of article : Wikipedia
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