TRIBUTES: CICELY TYSON AND CLORIS LEACHMAN

I know this is very late but I couldn't miss the opportunity to pay tribute to these two legendary actresses, Cicely Tyson, who passed away this year on January 28th at the age of 96 and Cloris Leachman, who died on January 27th at 94, both who enjoyed long careers on stage and screen for decades, continuing to work well in to their nineties. 

CICELY TYSON (1924 - 2021)

I remember being captivated by the screen performances of Cicely Tyson in the 1972 feature, "Sounder", then later in the television film, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" and appearing briefly in the groundbreaking mini-series, "Roots". And I was so thrilled for her when she was nominated for an Oscar and won an Emmy for her extraordinary work in these films. This was important for me at the time as a young Black teen, filling me with so much pride of seeing this strong, beautiful African-American woman being recognized for doing excellent work and being honored for her outstanding achievements.

As she has revealed in her recently released best-selling memoir, "Just As I Am", Tyson, born in East Harlem, decided to pursue a career as actor against the wishes of her deeply religious mother who didn't speak to her daughter for many years. Tyson actually first began as a model before moving on to acting, appearing in several supporting film and television roles. Her first breakthrough came when she appeared in the 1961 Off-Broadway production of French playwright Jean Genet's "The Blacks" along with other notable original cast members, Maya Angelou, James Earl Jones, Godfrey Cambridge and Louis Gossett Jr.

As she pursued her acting career, Tyson made sure she never accepted roles that were demeaning or stereotypical of African-Americans. After becoming a star, she would go to appear in the films, "Fried Green Tomatoes", "Hoodlum", "The Help" and the Tyler Perry movies, "Diary of a Mad Black Woman", "Why Did I Get Married Too?" and "A Fall From Grace". Some of Tyson's television work included "The Marva Collins Story", "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All", "The Women of Brewster Place", "A Lesson Before Dying" and guest-starred on "How to Get Away with Murder" playing the mother of lead character, Annalise Keating (played by Viola Davis) which she would be nominated five times for an Emmy as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Tyson returned to the stage in 2013 to appear in the revival of Horton Foote's "The Trip to Bountiful" where she would win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play at the age of eighty-eight.

One source of endless fascination in Tyson's personal life involved her relationship with jazz musician, Miles Davis. While in the process of divorcing his wife, Frances, Davis began seeing Tyson and even  used a photo of her for his 1967 album, "Sorcerer". Although he had announced that he would marry Tyson after his divorce was final in 1968, he instead ended up marrying singer, Betty Davis. The two performers rekindled their romance ten years later and married in 1981. But the marriage proved to be highly volatile due to Davis' increased drug use and infidelity. Tyson did help him get off drugs but the marriage had run it's course, ending in 1989, two years before Davis died in 1991.

CLORIS LEACHMAN (1926 - 2021)

While she won the 1971 Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her mesmerizing work in "The Last Picture Show", Cloris Leachman really would go on to make her mark largely on television. She certainly proved to be a wonderful dramatic actress yet throughout her career she displayed that her greatest strength was found doing comedy.

Born and raised in Des Moines, IA, Leachman competed in the 1946 Miss America pageant, which lead her to the opportunity to study under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York. She began in theater, appearing in early productions of "South Pacific", "Come Back, Little Sheba" and "The Crucible". Leachman would move to live television broadcasts in the 1950's and appeared briefly as Timmy's mother in the fourth season of "Lassie" but was dropped from the show by the end of the year. She did appear a few small roles in the films, "Kiss Me Deadly", "The Rack" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" before her major break in Peter Bogdanovich's coming-of-age, small-town Texas drama.

After the Oscar win, Leachman was part of Mel Brooks' ensemble cast, appearing in his films, "Young Frankenstein" (as Frau Blücher), "High Anxiety and "History of the World, Part I". But it was the role of Phyllis Lindstrom, Mary Richards's landlady on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" that truly made the actress a star. She would appear on the sitcom for five season and then get a spin-off show, "Phyllis" in 1975 that lasted for two seasons. Leachman would win two of her eight Emmy Awards for her work on the show (tied with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the most awarded actress in Emmy history) and was nominated a record twenty-two times for the television honor. 

She would also make history appearing on the dance competition program, "Dancing with the Stars" in 2008, making her the oldest person to have competed on the show to date. Leachman had continued to work steadily over the years, appearing on the comedy series, "The Facts of Life", "The Office", "Malcolm in the Middle", "Two and a Half Men", "Raising Hope" and the recent 2019 revival of "Mad About You".