Oscar-nominated actress and TV trailblazer Cicely Tyson died Thursday. She was 96. Her death was announced by longtime manager Larry Thompson.
Tyson’s work opposite George C. Scott on the gritty CBS drama “East Side/West Side” made her one of, if not the first African American actress to have a continuing role on a network series.
She was also the first African American to win a lead actress Emmy Award when she played a woman who ages from 23 to 110 in the 1974 CBS telefilm “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman”. Tyson also won a supporting actress Emmy for the 1994 CBS mini-series “The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All”.
The actress told the New York Times in 2013 she used her career “as a platform to address the issues of the race I was born into” as she “could not afford the luxury of just being an actress”. She was famed for taking meaningful roles as opposed to glamorous ones, always willing and eager to take risks, and says she saw negative experiences are better teachers than positive ones.
Her work was wide and varied from an Oscar nom for Martin Ritt’s “Sounder” to reprising her Tony-winning role in Lifetime’s “The Trip to Bountiful,” to a key role in CBS’s mega-event series “Roots”. Other films she did included “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” “The Comedians,” “A Man Called Adam”
More recent roles ranged from multiple Tyler Perry films to “The Help,” Richard Linklater’s “Last Flag Flying,” and Netflix’s “House of Cards”. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, back in 2016. She was also active in numerous community and charitable activities.
Source: THR
