Remembering Cicely Tyson
The sense of celebration that surrounded the recent inauguration was capped by Cicely Tyson’s death at age 94. A loss surely. But one that felt less like a mourning than a homegoing—that African American funeral tradition of happily celebrating one’s return to the Lord.
“I’ll miss her dearly,” Michelle Obama said, “but I smile knowing how many people she inspired, just like me, to walk a little taller, speak a little more freely, and live a little bit more like God intended.” “I feel conflicted about my emotions… because how can you not smile when you think about Cicely Tyson?” confessed Gayle King.
On the cover of future husband, Miles Davis’ 1967 release.
I find myself smiling, too. With nearly every picture of Tyson capturing a smile that bathed all around her in sunlight, how could one not? While a pioneer’s path is never easy, she seemed determined to find the joy in travelling that road. Which is why we remember her so joyfully when she came to the end of it.
She was “Essential,” noted King. “A force of nature unto herself,” declared Neil deGrasse Tyson. “A Black queen who showed us how beautiful black is,“ professed godson, Lenny Kravitz—echoing The New York Times, who observed early in her career that, “[Tyson] passes all of her easy beauty by to give us, at long last, some sense of the profound beauty of millions of Black women.”
That unnamed beauty first spoke to me from the cover of Miles Davis’ 1967 release, Sorcerer, years before I knew who Tyson was. (The pair were married from 1981 to ’88.) That this one image—from among my parents’ hundreds of albums—should remain so vivid in my mind speaks volumes. Showing a willful woman in profile, her neck thrust forward like a thoroughbred at the gate, seemingly free of makeup and wearing her hair “natural” (which, I would come to understand, was a politically-charged statement of black female empowerment), the picture symbolizes everything Cicely Tyson was… and would become.
In the Emmy-winning “Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman”
A celebrated New York stage actress by her mid-thirties, and the first African American to have a recurring role on a TV show, Tyson made only occasional (but always heralded) appearances on the big and small screens (her last playing Viola Davis’ mother on How to Get Away with Murder). Tyson was proud of the fact that she never took a demeaning or negligible role just for the paycheck. And with Hollywood’s dismal history of Black representation, I imagine she was offered many.
Winning the Best Actress Tony at age 88 (and the oldest performer to do so), she explained, “I had a burning desire to do more great roles. I didn't want to be greedy. Just one more.”
Is it greedy of me to wish there had been more?
It’s worth noting that her Tony-winning role of Carrie Watts in Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful had, until then, been played by white actresses (Lillian Gish on stage and Geraldine Page on-screen). Having seen Angela Basset play Lady Macbeth and S. Epatha Merkerson in William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba, I wonder what other roles Tyson might have played if producers during the ‘70’s, 80’s or ‘90’s were as willing as today’s to step outside traditional casting norms. Medea, perhaps? The Glass Menagerie’s Amanda Wingfield? The Mother Superior in Doubt or Agnes of God?
That her relatively small output should have such a lasting effect on audiences is a testament to her rare talent. One that earned her—in addition to a Tony—2 Drama Desk Awards; 3 Emmy Awards (and 16 nominations), a Best Actress Oscar nomination (for Sounder) and an honorary Oscar; a Peabody Award; a Kennedy Center Honor; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Asked, “What legacy will you leave?” while promoting her memoir, Just As I Am (released a week before her death), Tyson answered, “One cannot leave anything they do not have.”
Undoubtedly, still the most stylish woman in the room at 88. (Yes, eighty-eight!)
Believing that roles could change the culture, she showed us what it meant to have Faith in the Work. And the World.
She had a Child’s Glee. (Witness her response to Cece Winan’s gospel tribute at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors.)
She had a Dazzling Outer Beauty (that was easy to overlook). And a Dazzling Inner Beauty (that never could be).
She had Style!—though it was little celebrated outside the pages of Essence and Ebony. Swipe through 4 decades of the one-time model’s looks, and I challenge you to name another actress in recent memory who so consistently slayed it!
She had a Pioneer’s Principles—choosing roles that “made an impact on the world, about us as a race of people.” And a Historian’s Heart.
With early ‘70s America stumbling through its first attempts at racial consciousness, it’s no overstatement to say that Cicely Tyson’s roles AND talent made her white America’s first Black History teacher. In 1974’s Sounder—which gave many their first (and perhaps only) glimpse of the indignities suffered under Jim Crow—Tyson’s bare, beautiful performance made us witness the will—born of cynicism and necessity—that generations of black mothers had to summon when dealing with the white power structure. When talking about The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman—in which she played a 110-year-old woman who’d been born into slavery—Tyson said “[People are more ready to] see and accept history from Miss Jane’s point of view… than from someone younger.” Holding this special place in the hearts of a generation of white Americans and countless more African Americans, she feels unique among actors. Which explains the nearly universal outpouring of love for her this past week.
Displaying a childlike glee at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors
Inducting Tyson into the Television Academy’s Hall of Fame, Shonda Rhimes said that, “For a fortunate few of us, some [of our childhood] dreams are fulfilled. And then there is that rarest of souls. That one spark of light who not only fulfills her dreams, but also fulfills the dreams of generations to follow.” She then invited Tyson to the stage with these words: “Because of your going first, there will be no last.”
“What legacy will you leave,” indeed.
Rest in peace, Ms. Tyson