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NEW YORK (AP) – Cicely Tyson, the pioneering black actor who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in “Sounder,” a 2013 Tony Award at age 88 and touched the hearts of viewers in ” The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman ”, died Thursday at the age of 96.
Tyson’s death was announced by his family, via his manager Larry Thompson, who did not immediately provide further details.
“With heavy hearts, Miss Cicely Tyson’s family announce their peaceful transition this afternoon. For now, please give the family their privacy, ”according to a statement released by Thompson.
A unique model, Tyson began her on-screen career with few parts but gained fame in the early 1970s when black women were finally starting to secure lead roles. Besides her Oscar nomination, she won two Emmys for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.”
Tyson’s memoir, “Just As I Am,” was released this week.
“I’m very selective because I’ve spent my whole career working on what I do. Unfortunately, I’m not the type to work just for money. It has to have real substance for me to do it, ”she told The Associated Press in 2013.
Besides her Oscar nomination, she won two Emmys for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” A new generation of moviegoers saw her in the 2011 hit “The Help”. In 2018, she received an honorary statuette at the Oscars at the annual Governors Awards. “This is the culmination of all these years of have and have not,” Tyson said.
She was one of the recipients of the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. At the ceremony, President Barack Obama said, “Cicely’s belief and grace have helped us see the dignity of every beautiful memory of the American family.”
“Sounder”, based on the William H. Hunter novel, was the film that confirmed her fame in 1972. Tyson was cast as the loving, depressed wife of a sharecropper (Paul Winfield) who is imprisoned for stealing a piece of meat for his family. She is obliged to take care of their children and to take care of the crops.
The New York Times reviewer wrote, “She lets go of all her easy beauty to give us, finally, a sense of the deep beauty of millions of black women.” Tyson went on to win an Oscar nomination for Best Actress of 1972.
In an interview with cable channel Turner Classic Movies, she recalled that she was asked to test out a smaller role in the film and said she wanted to play the mother, Rebecca. She was told: “You are too young, you are too pretty, you are too sexy, you are too this, you are also that, and I said:” I am an actress “.
In 2013, at the age of 88, Tyson won the Tony for Best Leading Actress in a Rebirth Stage of “The Trip to Bountiful” by Horton Foote. It was the actress’ first time on Broadway in three decades and she refused to obediently turn away when the teleprompter told her to finish her acceptance speech.
“‘Please wrap up,” he said. Well that’s exactly what you did with me: you wrapped me in your arms after 30 years, “she told the crowd.
She told the PA afterwards that she hadn’t prepared any speeches – “I think it’s presumptuous” – and that “I wasted half my time wondering what I was going to do. say.” She reprized her role in a Lifetime TV movie, which screened in the White House.
In the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” based on a novel by Ernest J. Gaines, Tyson is seen aging from a young woman in bondage to a 110-year-old woman who campaigned for it. 1960s civil rights movement.
In the moving climax, she trudges towards a water fountain “reserved for whites” and takes a drink in front of the white officers.
“It’s important that they see and hear the story from Miss Jane’s perspective,” Tyson told The New York Times. “And I think they’ll be more willing to accept it from him than from someone younger”
New York film critic Pauline Kael praised it: “She’s an actress, okay, and as tough and honorable in her methods as any we have.
At the Emmy Awards, “Pittman” won several awards, including two for Tyson, Best Leading Actress in a Drama and Best Actress in a Special.
“People ask me what I prefer to do – cinema, stage, television? I say, “I would have done ‘Jane Pittman’ either in the basement or in a window.” It’s the role that determines where I go, ”she told the AP.
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