ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2021 NEWS/FEATURES 13

Pioneering actress was active to the end Cicely Tyson paved way for Black actors to follow footsteps LOS ANGELES, Jan 30, (AP): Cicely girls like me,” actor Tika Sumpter said. she had more to offer with a desire to ate Widow Tells All.” Tyson was a Black actor who knocked Tyson’s death was announced by direct a project in the future. At the age of 88, Tyson won the down doors so other women of color her family, via her manager Larry Tyson was active to the end, in the Tony for best leading actress in a play could walk through them. Thompson, who did not immediately middle of promoting her memoir “Just for the revival of Horton Foote’s “The Tyson strategically selected power- provide additional details. The actor’s As I Am” when she died at age 96. Trip to Bountiful.” ful roles with an intent to elevate how passing comes just a few days after the “This was not a doddering old lady The revival was the actor’s first time Black actors were perceived. With dig- release of her memoir “Just As I Am.” that I’ve heard many older people say, back on Broadway in three decades. nified grace, she starred in films such A onetime model, Tyson began her ‘You know what? I’m just tired. I’m She refused to turn meekly away when as “Sounder” and on TV with “The screen career with bit parts but gained just tired. I’m ready to go. I’m done. the teleprompter told her to wrap up Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” fame in the early 1970s when Black I’m just tired,’” King said. “That was her acceptance speech. She strived to shatter stereotypes and women were finally starting to get starring not Cicely Tyson. She was talking A new generation of moviegoers inspired many Black actresses along roles. Tyson refused to take parts simply about her desire to direct. She said, ‘I saw her in the 2011 hit “The Help.” the way to follow her footsteps. A for the paycheck, remaining choosey. may have something to share later on.’” More recently, she was seen on TV in younger generation of Black actors - Tyson desired to get away from the Tyson earned an Oscar nomination a recurring role on “How to Get Away Viola Davis, Kerry Washington and negative portrayals of Black women for her role in “Sounder,” where she with Murder,” which starred Davis. Zendaya among them - all paid hom- with the hopes of highlighting them played a Depression-era loving wife And in roles in Tyler Perry films - age to Tyson after learning of her death with powerful prestige. of a sharecropper who is confined in ”Diary of a Mad Black Woman’’ and at age 96 on Thursday. “Cicely decided early on that her jail for stealing a piece of meat for his “Madea’s Family Reunion” -- her Davis said Tyson made her feel work as an actor would be more than family. She is forced to care for their character gave sage advice on forgive- “valued in a world where there is still a a job,” Oprah Winfrey said in a state- children and attend to the crops. Cicely Tyson arrives at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept 20, ness and living with integrity. cloak of invisibility for us dark choco- ment. “She used her career to illuminate In the 1974 television drama “The 2009, in Los Angeles. Tyson, the pioneering Black actress who gained Like many, former First Lady Mi- late girls.” Washington felt Tyson was the humanity in Black people. The roles Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in ‘Sounder,’ chelle Obama acknowledged that she a “foretaste of glory,” while Zendaya, she played reflected her values; she based on a novel by Ernest J. Gaines, a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88 and touched TV viewers’ hearts in ‘The will miss Tyson’s presence, but she who made Emmy history last year as never compromised. Her life so fully Tyson is seen aging from a young Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,’ has died. She was 96. (AP) will smile “knowing how many people the youngest lead drama actress win- lived is a testimony to Greatness.” woman in slavery to a 110-year-old she inspired, just like me, to walk a ner, called the actor “one of the great- Gayle King, who interviewed Tyson who campaigned for the civil rights to a “whites only” water fountain and two Emmys. She also won a support- little taller, speak a little more freely, est to ever do it.” last week, said the actor was still full movement of the 1960s. In the touch- takes a drink as white officers look on. ing actress Emmy in 1994 for her char- and live a little bit more like God in- “Thank you for kicking doors down for of life. She said Tyson expressed that ing climax, she laboriously walks up That role in “Pittman” earned Tyson acter in the “Oldest Living Confeder- tended.”