Cicely L. Tyson is an American actress of movies, theater, and TV shows; a director and a producer, who is best known for her role of in Sounder (1972) as Rebecca Morgan.
Some of her other famous roles include as Stephanie St. Clair in Hoodlum (1997), Mattie Williams in The River Niger (1976), as Constantine Bates in The Help (2011) and she also has won as well as been nominated for several prestigious awards like BAFTA, Primetime Emmy Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Satellite Award for Best Actress, Critics’ Choice Television Award amongst others.
For her role in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), she bagged two Emmys and a BAFTA for the best actress.
Having worked in TV and movies for such a long time, she was also a phenomenon on stage and theater. She used to work as a lead actress and has appeared in more than a dozen Broadway and off- Broadway acts.
Tyson was born into a family of African American ethnicity on the 18th of December, 1924 in New York City, New York, U.S.A. She was born as the only daughter of worker father William Tyson and a housemaid mother, Frederica Tyson.
Raised in Harlem, she got the virus of acting growing inside her from a young age, after seeing the theater acts in the local market.
With the rest of her family still in Africa, she lived only with her parents and had a hard time growing up. Not allowed to be in school, she spent her time around local theaters watching the actors work.
Because of the color of her skin, she could not get any good roles but her persistency worked out, and she started to appear in small roles.
After a photographer for Ebony magazine discovered her in 1951, she worked as a professional fashion model and instantly became a sensation.
A lean and thin figure, she was very attractive and charming and has a good body with a height of only 5 feet and 4 inches.
She began her career as a TV actress from Carib Gold in 1956 and thus stopped working as a fashion model. She continued Television with theater but could not manage ample time for both which saw her depart from the stage and was welcomed on the screen.
Working hard, she portrayed several characters in many of her works and was often praised as well as criticized.
These things became the pillars for her growth as she learned from her mistakes and worked to become a better stress every day.
Currently, at the age of 92, it has been almost 60 years from when she made her debut. Despite her age and health, she has still been working and producing great work in her recent projects.
With many health problems bothering her, she is still alive despite the news of her death.
A beautiful and attractive woman, she doesn’t seem to have a long list of boyfriends although she has been married and divorced on a couple of occasions.
She was first married to Billy Dee Williams from 1954 to 1966 and divorced without any children. Then in 1970, she was married to her second husband Miles Davis but separated in 1988 with one daughter together.
Enjoyed my morning stroll and talk with @GayleKing. Beautiful way to start the day
Enjoyed my morning stroll and talk with @GayleKing. Beautiful way to start the day.#studiomuseumofharlem pic.twitter.com/6IIjMeay5m
— Cicely Tyson (@IAmCicelyTyson) November 20, 2015
You can stay close to her and know more by either reading her biography in Wikipedia or following her on her Twitter and Instagram accounts. Her estimated net worth value in 2015 is $10 million US dollars.