Icon: enlarge
Cicely Tyson at the Emmy Awards in 2019
Photo:
Richard Shotwell / AP
The American actress Cicely Tyson, who starred in films such as "Green Tomatoes", "The Help" and the TV series "Roots" about the fate of slaves, is dead. Her family has the death of the actress "with a heavy heart" announced on Thursday afternoon, said Tyson's long-time manager of the dpa.
The cause of death was not disclosed.
Tyson was 96 years old.
The native New Yorker, who initially worked as a model, was one of the first African American women to star in a TV series in the early 1960s.
She played a secretary in the drama series "East Side / West Side".
In 1973 she received an Oscar nomination for her leading role in the drama "The Year Without a Father".
The trophy went to Liza Minnelli for »Cabaret«, but in 2018 Tyson was awarded an honorary Oscar for her life's work by the Film Academy.
She won several Emmy trophies, including as a leading actress in the television film "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" (1974), in which she played a former slave who looks back on her life.
Her appearance in the play "The Trip to Bountiful" earned her a Tony trophy for best actress in 2013.
In the 1980s, Tyson was married to jazz musician Miles Davis.
The marriage was divorced three years before his death in 1991.
Icon: The mirror
cop / dpa