Cicely Tyson

(b. Dec. 19, 1933, New York, N.Y., U.S.), American model and actress, perhaps best remembered for her role as the 110-year-old title character of the television drama The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), for which she won two Emmy Awards. She was the first actor to be recognized by the Harvard University Faculty Club with a day in her honour.

The daughter of immigrants from the Caribbean island of Nevis, Tyson grew up in a religiously devout household in New York City’s Harlem. Discovered by a fashion editor at Ebony magazine, she quickly rose to the top of the modeling world. She began appearing in Off-Broadway productions in 1957, and during the 1961-62 season, she won the Vernon Rice Award twice for her roles as strong black women in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl and The Blacks.

Tyson began appearing in feature films in 1957 with Twelve Angry Men (which also starred Henry Fonda) and was commended for her performance in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968). Owing to her commitment to playing only roles that portrayed positive images of black women, Tyson’s film and television career underwent an occasional hiatus. After one such absence she resumed with the popularly and critically acclaimed film Sounder (1972), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. This was followed in 1974 by her roundly lauded portrayal of Miss Jane Pittman, a former slave whose life is depicted up through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Later in her career, Tyson took on supporting roles in the television miniseries Roots (1977) and The Women of Brewster Place (1989) and also the film Fried Green Tomatoes (1991).

Honoured by the Congress of Racial Equality, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the National Council of Negro Women, Tyson was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1977.