Cicely Tyson, the pioneering actress who racked up award after award over the years and touched the hearts of many with her remarkable style, wit, and grace died Thursday at age 96.
Tyson’s death was announced by her family, via her manager Larry Thompson, who did not immediately provide additional details.
“With heavy heart, the family of Miss Cicely Tyson announces her peaceful transition this afternoon. At this time, please allow the family their privacy,” according to a statement issued through Thompson.
The legendary actress recently recounted her seven-decadelong career in her riveting first memoir, “Just As I Am.”
Viola Davis, Tyson's onscreen daughter Annalise Keating in the ABC drama series "How to Get Away With Murder," pens the foreword, sharing emotional memories of her first discovery of Tyson's work and how it impacted her.
At 96, Tyson has lived a lot of life, and her book is filled with much-lived history, as well as historical notes that provide context to past and current events. Being born to West Indian parents (both from Nevis) in New York, dealing with the reality of being Black, having her parents separate during her childhood and birthing a baby girl at age 17 was the backdrop for her art to come through on screen.
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Tyson raised her daughter, whom she calls “Joan” in the book, pretty much out of the limelight of Hollywood. She describes her daughter’s birth and upbringing in detail in the book. Tyson said she and her daughter “continue to work on our relationship, as fragile as it is precious,” and she dedicates the book to her: “the one who has paid the greatest price for this gift to all.”
Throughout her career, Tyson dropped a number of great gems that we still hold on to now:
She Always Held Her Head Up High
"I don’t Uncle Tom to anybody," she explains in an interview with The New York Times. "I don’t care who it is. When I smile, I smile. I do not grin. There’s a difference, OK? And I would say that to Jesus, do you understand? White people always think that when Black people smile a lot or laugh a lot, they’re being Uncle Tom to white folks. Well, that is not me. Absolutely not me. I smile when I feel like smiling, and I don’t when I do not."
She Never Feared Death
"I’m not scared of death," Tyson said emphatically. "I don’t know what it is. How could I be afraid of something I don’t know anything about?"
"It’s something a lot of people are scared of. They just think they know death because other people say it is something to be scared of, but they don’t know that it is a frightening thing..."
"People say it is this and it is that. But they don’t know. They’ve not been there. I’ve not been there. I’m not in a hurry to go either! I take it a day at a time...and I’m grateful for every day that God gives me."
She Always Stayed True to Her Goal
"Well, it's remarkable to me that I have arrived at where I am today because I had not anticipated it," confessed Tyson in a NPR interview. I made the decision based on things that happened to me along the way, and I just kept going. You know, no matter what happened in my life, it did not deter me from reaching the goal that I had set for myself."
The award-winning actress made her film debut with a small role in 1957’s “Twelve Angry Men” and her formal debut in the 1959 Sidney Poitier film “Odds Against Tomorrow,” followed by “The Comedians,” “The Last Angry Man,” “A Man Called Adam” and “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.” Refusing to participate in the blaxploitation movies that became popular in the late ’60s, she waited until 1972 to return to the screen in the drama “Sounder,” which captured several Oscar nominations including one for Tyson as best actress.
Tyson received an Oscar nomination in 1973 for Martin Ritt’s drama “Sounder” and an Honorary Oscar in 2018.
Despite her achievements onstage and in films, however, much of the actress’s best work was done for television. In addition to “Miss Jane Pittman,” she did outstanding work in “Roots,” “The Wilma Rudolph Story,” “King: The Martin Luther King Story,” “When No One Would Listen,” “A Woman Called Moses,” “The Marva Collins Story,” “The Women of Brewster Place,” “The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All” and the TV adaptation of “Trip to Bountiful.”
In television she nabbed the first recurring role for a Black woman in a drama series, “East Side/West Side,” and the actress later won two much-deserved Emmys for 1974’s memorable “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” She was nominated a total of 16 times in her career, also winning for supporting actress, in 1994 for an adaptation of “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All”; she was nominated five times for guest actress in a drama for “How to Get Away With Murder.”
The actress became a household name thanks to her starring role in “Miss Jane Pittman.” The TV movie, in which a 110-year-old woman recalls her life, required her to portray the heroine over a nine-decade period. Writing about Tyson’s performance, Pauline Kael compared her “to the highest, because that’s the comparison she invites and has earned.”
As scores of pictures, memories, quotes, and condolences flood social media, we remember Tyson as the gracious woman she was.
Well done, Ms. Tyson. Well done.
