CICELY TYSON NEWS, INTERVIEWS & UPDATES



News for 10/17/2006


Cicely Tyson looking forward

By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith
Los Angeles Daily News


"The day I think I have arrived, I am finished." So says Cicely Tyson, who'll be seen receiving Distinguished Career Achievement honors on this Wednesday's Black Movie Awards on TNT. She's thrilled to be following last year's honoree, Sidney Poitier. Just don't get the idea the esteemed actress is slowing down.

In fact, Tyson recently finished the 2007 release Adam Sandler drama, "Reign Over Me," in which he plays a man trying to put his life back together after losing his family in the 9/11 attacks -- and finds his old college roommate (Don Cheadle) instrumental in helping him move on.

"I was so pleased to be able to work with Don Cheadle again," says Tyson, who appeared with the actor in the 1999 "A Lesson Before Dying." "He's an extraordinary human being. That's what makes him an extraordinary actor. There is no question the two go together. You have to call on certain sinews in your being in order to act as he does."

However, she admits she doesn't know how "Reign Over Me" will turn out. "I honestly never know, and then I never see the films either. For me, the gratification comes in actually preparing, researching and performing," admits Tyson, whose long and impressive list of credits includes her double

Emmy-winning "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" and Oscar-nominated "Sounder" performances, co-founding the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and decades of community and charitable activities.

"I had the most incredible thing happen to me the other day," she remarks. "I tend to walk the streets freely. I'm a wanderer. Last week, I was out walking and the mailman stopped me and he was profuse in his praise, he went on and on, and then he said, `Every day above ground is a good day, and if you see someone without a smile, give them yours.' I've been passing that along. I try to think about things like that, rather than what I've done."



News for 2/23/2005


Cicely Tyson's still in love with her craft

BY CINDY PEARLMAN


In an Academy Awards season in which people are buzzing about the record five nominations for black actors, screen legend Cicely Tyson, who was nominated for her 1972 role in "Sounder," doesn't want to talk about it.

"There is something that makes me uncomfortable when people say to me these days: 'Don't you think it's wonderful that the Academy is finally recognizing African Americans with so many nominations this year?' " says 71-year-old Tyson, the first black actress to win an Emmy award for "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" (1974).

Calling from Los Angeles, the soft-spoken Tyson says, "I've asked myself why this question makes me feel so uncomfortable, and the other day I came up with an answer.

"The talent has always been there," she proclaims. "And the day when African Americans are nominated and we don't make it a topic of conversation is when I'll feel comfortable. Then it will no longer be a novelty, it will be a fact."

The fact is, Tyson, who over the years has been a strong advocate for civil rights and the arts (she co-founded the Dance Theater of Harlem), calls 'em as she sees 'em.

If you want a demure type of interview subject, well, then find another subject. She has been there, done it, and seen it all in this business.

Tyson is the type of trailblazer who doesn't mind remembering the pain of breaking ground for others.

"One lady told me that before she saw 'Sounder,' she didn't believe black people could love each other and have deep relationships in the same way as white people," Tyson recalls.

"I guess we've come a long way," she says in a soft voice.

Tyson, however, figures she's still got a ways to go on her journey. This despite the fact that she's at an age where many might retire and rest on film and TV laurels that include "Roots" (1977) and "A Woman Called Moses" (1978).

Tyson never has been busier, with key roles in two new theatrical releases, "Because of Winn-Dixie" and "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," which opens Friday.

"One of two things happen when I read a script," she says. "Either my skin tingles or my stomach churns. When my stomach churns I know a movie is not for me and I could never do it."

She got tingles over "Because of Winn-Dixie," a Southern charmer about a little girl and a dog that changes the lives of everyone around it. Tyson plays an almost blind, slightly crazy old lady who befriends the girl. "I loved that it's a movie about deep-seated insecurities caused by traumas," Tyson says.

"It's a film fraught with dysfunctional people who are closed to the world. My character has isolated herself from everyone. She's closed to the world because of this loss of sight. Her life is ebbing away, but suddenly her life is opened up by a girl and a dog. It shows that at any age you can begin to live again," she says.

"I have spent years waiting for the right role to come along," Tyson says. "Each time I finished a movie I loved, I was convinced that I might never work again. I waited six years between 'The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter' and 'Sounder' [she had lesser roles in two TV movies in the interim], which is a long, long time in a business that tends to forget.

"I just said to myself that if I never did anything again, I could die knowing I left something of value on the screen," she recalls. "Two years after my six-year wait came 'Miss Jane Pittman' and then 'A Woman Called Moses.'"

Harlem native Tyson didn't plan on working as an actress. She grew up with extremely religious parents who came to the Big Apple from the Caribbean island of Nevis. "Oh, I never expected to be an actress. I grew up in this very devout household and spent all of my time in church as a young girl," she recalls.

A striking woman, Tyson was approached to model by the fashion editor of Ebony magazine. In a blink, her parents were shocked to see their lovely daughter gracing the covers of different publications. Soon, she was encouraged to audition for Off-Broadway shows and made her feature film debut in an uncredited role in 1957's "Carib Gold."

"It is still a source of amazement to my family that I got into this business," she says. "I never said, 'I want to be an actress.'

"I look at it now as if this profession chose me," Tyson says.

Ask her when she fell in love with the work and she doesn't hesitate. "The first time I stood onstage, I realized that this was what I was meant to do," she says. "I was an extremely shy child and a shy young woman. You couldn't get a word out of me. But I realized that I could speak through a character."

"Playing someone else allowed me to understand that I had an avenue for expressing my emotions," says Tyson, who admits there were tough times during her early days in the business.

"When I first started, I wasn't aware of prejudice. I worked in the theater in black pieces," Tyson says. "I went to Europe with a play called 'The Blacks' and we were incredibly celebrated over there.

"I was never confronted with discrimination," she says. "That is, until my agent began to command more money and billing for me. This business often doesn't recognize the contributions made by women."

But women like Kimberly Elise, who plays Tyson's daughter in "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," were taking note. Elise says it was "a dream come true to work with someone who is it for me in terms of acting."

"I've been a huge fan since 'Sounder' and 'Miss Jane Pittman,' " Elise says. "She just reminded me of me onscreen at a time when nobody reminded me of me at the movies.

"Here was a woman just full of self-respect, dignity, elegance and intelligence, and that made me feel proud," she says.


A LOOK AT A FEW OF TYSON'S ROLES


1968: As Portia in "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter"

1972: Her Oscar-nominated role as wife and mother Rebecca Morgan in "Sounder"

1974: Her Emmy-winning role as a woman born a slave, but who lived to be part of the civil rights movement in "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman"

1977: As Kunta Kinte's mother in Alex Haley's acclaimed miniseries "Roots"

1978: As Harriet Tubman in "A Woman Called Moses"

1981: As the Chicago educator in "The Marva Collins Story"

1989: As Mrs. Browne in the Oprah Winfrey presentation "The Women of Brewster Place"

1994: As activist attorney Carrie Grace Battle in the short-lived TV series "Sweet Justice"

1999: As Tante Lou in the cable movie based on Ernest J. Gaines' "A Lesson Before Dying" (which, incidentally, also starred Best Actor Oscar nominee Don Cheadle)

2002: As Leona, mother of the woman credited with launching the civil rights movement in "The Rosa Parks Story"