Biography
Cicely Louise Tyson (December 19, 1924 – January 28, 2021) was an American actress. In a career which spanned more than seven decades in film, television and theatre, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson received various awards including three Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Tony Award, an Honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award. Description above from the Wikipedia article Cicely Tyson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on ...
Known For
Complete Filmography
How It Feels to Be Free
2021
as Self (archival footage)
Tells the inspiring story of how six iconic African American female entertainers – Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tys...
A Fall from Grace
2020
as Alice
When a law-abiding woman gets indicted for murdering her husband, her lawyer soon realizes that a larger conspiracy may be at work.
The Other Boys of Summer
2019
as Narrator
The story of racism, segregation and Civil Rights in America told through the lives of the Negro League baseball players. Features exclusive interview...
Last Flag Flying
2017
as Mrs. Hightower
Thirty years after serving together in the Vietnam War, Larry, Sal and Richard reunite for a different type of mission: to bury Doc's son, a young Mar...
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise
2016
as Self
A celebration of Dr. Maya Angelou by weaving her words with rare and intimate archival photographs and videos, which paint hidden moments of her exube...
Showing Roots
2016
as Hattie
Set in the year 1977, two women look to integrate their small town, inspired by the miniseries "Roots" as it hits the airwaves.
The Trip to Bountiful
2014
as Mrs. Watts
Carrie Watts begrudgingly lives with her busy, overprotective son, Ludie and pretentious daughter-in-law, Jessie Mae. No longer able to drive and forb...
And the Oscar Goes To...
2014
as Self (archive footage)
The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy ...
The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia
2013
as Mama Kay
A young family moves into a historic home in Georgia, only to learn they are not the house's only inhabitants. Soon they find themselves in the presen...
Alex Cross
2012
as Nana Mama
Alex Cross, a genius homicide detective/psychologist is trying to clean up the mean streets of Detroit while keeping his family out of the line of fir...
The Help
2011
as Constantine Jefferson
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson ...
Why Did I Get Married Too?
2010
as Ola
Four couples reunite for their annual vacation in order to socialize and to spend time analyzing their marriages. Their intimate week in the Bahamas i...
Relative Stranger
2009
as Pearl
After the death of his father, a former football star reunites with the family that he abandoned years earlier.
Idlewild
2006
as Mother Hopkins
A reticent piano player Percival, along with Rooster, his flamboyant lead performer and manager, struggle to keep their speakeasy, in the Prohibition-...
Fat Rose and Squeaky
2006
as Celine
The Irish-willed eighty-year-old Bonnie Ash Fitzpatrick and her only friend in life, seventy-year-old Celine Snow disagree on just about everything. W...
Madea's Family Reunion
2006
as Myrtle
Southern matriarch Madea has a lot on her plate. Her nieces, Vanessa and Lisa, have relationship troubles - Vanessa moves into Madea's house with her ...
Diary of a Mad Black Woman
2005
as Myrtle
Charles, an attorney, and Helen, his devoted wife, seem to have everything – money, a beautiful mansion – the American Dream. However, as Helen prepar...
Because of Winn-Dixie
2005
as Gloria Dump
A girl, abandoned by her mother when she was three, moves to a small town in Florida with her father. There, she adopts an orphaned dog she names Winn...
The Rosa Parks Story
2002
as Leona Edwards McCauley
A seamstress recalls events leading to her act of peaceful defiance that prompted the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.
Jewel
2001
as Cathedral
In the 1940s a 40-year-old woman with five healthy children gives birth to a girl with Down's syndrome.
A Lesson Before Dying
1999
as Tante Lou
In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him wi...
Moments of Discovery: The Making of Fried Green Tomatoes
1998
as Self
An original documentary exploring one of America's most beloved films. Take a journey with director Jon Avnet, actresses Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, M...
Always Outnumbered
1998
as Luvia
An ex-con moves to L.A. to find work and creates a disturbance by fighting for a position. More importantly he touches the lives of many of his neighb...
Ms. Scrooge
1997
as Ms. Ebenita Scrooge
Television movie updating Charles Dickens' story, "A Christmas Carol." Businesswoman Ebenita Scrooge treats her employees and customers poorly. She ha...
Hoodlum
1997
as Stephanie St. Clair
In 1934, the second most lucrative business in New York City was running 'the numbers'. When Madam Queen—the powerful woman who runs the scam in Harle...
Blessed Assurance
1997
as Vesta Lotte Battle
Upon his discharge following the Korean War, soldier Jerry moves back to the small town in South Carolina where he grew up. Jerry is reunited with his...
The Road to Galveston
1996
as Jordan Roosevelt
Jordan Roosevelt, at 65, found herself alone, destitute, and depressed. Up against the wall, she took heart from the suggestion of a friend, a blind w...
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
1994
as Castralia
Lucy married at the turn of the last century, when she was fifteen and her husband was fifty. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for...
House of Secrets
1993
as Evangeline
Marion Ravinel is trapped in an abusive spousal relationship. She forms a plan with her husband's former lover to kill him. However, the outcome turns...
Duplicates
1992
as Dr. Randolph
A family falls victim to a scientific institute that removes memories and transfers them to a computer.
Fried Green Tomatoes
1991
as Sipsey
Amidst her own personality crisis, a southern housewife meets an outgoing old woman who tells her the story of Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison, two...
The Kid Who Loved Christmas
1990
as Etta Mercer
In this sentimental holiday tale, a young boy is taken away from his loving, adoptive household when his new mom is killed in an auto accident and his...
Heat Wave
1990
as Ruthana Richardson
A rookie black journalist investigates the tensions of the Watts section of Los Angeles in the bloody summer of 1965.
The Women of Brewster Place
1989
as Mrs. Browne
A multigenerational story of the lives of several black women who call an inner-city tenement home.
The Women of Brewster Place
1989
A multigenerational story of the lives of several black women who call an inner-city tenement home.
Intimate Encounters
1986
as Dr. Claire Dalton
It started as fantasy...and ended as intimate encounters.
Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story
1986
as Muriel
Outraged by the treatment of New York City’s unhoused residents, an activist brings national attention to the issue by taking their case to Congress.
Acceptable Risks
1986
as Janet Framm
The manager of a chemical plant and a city manager rise up against their respective bosses to keep a town safe in this ecologically conscientious made...
Playing with Fire
1985
as Carol Phillips
Gary Coleman stars as a teenage arsonist. The authorities, friends, and neighbors warn his absentee parents until it is too late.
Benny's Place
1982
as Odessa
Time begins to catches up to a tough factory worker who is feeling threatened by younger men at work and at play.
Night of 100 Stars
1982
as Self
The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City ...
The Marva Collins Story
1981
as Marva Collins
Cicely Tyson was Emmy-nominated as Outstanding Actress for her portrait of a Chicago schoolteacher whose remarkable achievements with black children l...
Bustin' Loose
1981
as Vivian Perry
After ex-con Joe Braxton violates his probation, he is given a second chance. All he has to do is drive a group of special kids across the country.
The Concorde... Airport '79
1979
as Elaine
Aviation disaster-prone Joe Patroni must contend with nuclear missiles, the French Air Force and the threat of the plane splitting in two over the Alp...
Wilma
1977
as Blanche Rudolph
The story of American track sprinter Wilma Rudolph, who overcame physical handicaps to win three gold medals in the 1960 Olympics.
A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich
1977
as Sweets
A troubled boy becomes addicted to heroin, and his mother and foster father help him fight it.
Just an Old Sweet Song
1976
as Priscilla Simmons
Upon learning that their grandmother is not long for this world, Nate and Priscilla Simmons pack up their kids and leave Detroit to head down South. E...
The Blue Bird
1976
as Tylette
Peasant children Mytyl and Tyltyl are led on a magical quest for the fabulous Blue Bird of Happiness by the fairy Berylune. On their journey, they're ...
The River Niger
1976
as Mattie Williams
An intimate look at life in the ghetto: Johnny Williams is a house painter who moonlights as a poet, struggling to financially and emotionally support...
Everybody Rides the Carousel
1975
as Self - Introducer
Everybody Rides The Carousel invites the viewer along on eight "rides" through the different stages of life. Based on the work by Erik Erikson, one o...
Free to Be… You and Me
1974
as Self
Free to Be…You and Me, a project of the Ms. Foundation for Women, is a record album, and illustrated book first released in November 1972, featuring s...
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
1974
as Jane Pittman
In February, 1962, as the civil rights movement reaches Bayonne, Louisiana, a New York journalist arrives to interview Jane Pittman, who has just turn...
Sounder
1972
as Rebecca Morgan
The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for steali...
Neighbors
1971
Racial tensions come out of the woodwork when an upper-class white couple puts their suburban home on the market and the listing draws a pair of equal...
Marriage: Year One
1971
as Emma Teasley
A medical student marries a millionaire's daughter but insists they live on the money he earns.
To Be Young, Gifted and Black: The World of Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words
1969
Excerpts from the 1969 Off-Broadway production at the Cherry Lane Theater of To Be Young, Gifted and Black: The World of Lorraine Hansberry, adapted b...
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
1968
as Portia Copeland
Singer is a deaf-mute whose small world brings him in contact with a young girl, Mick, who cherishes a seemingly hopeless dream of becoming a concert ...
The Comedians
1967
as Marie Therese
American and British tourists get caught up in political unrest in Haiti.
A Man Called Adam
1966
as Claudia Ferguson
A famous jazz trumpeter finds himself unable to cope with the problems of everyday life.
A Morning For Jimmy
1960
as Sister
Tells the story of an African American youth named Jimmy who encounters racial discrimination in his search for employment. Although the boy's father ...
The Last Angry Man
1959
as Girl Left on Porch (uncredited)
Dr. Sam Abelman is a Jewish doctor contentedly spending his autumn years serving his own Brooklyn neighborhood. But when his nephew, would-be journali...
Odds Against Tomorrow
1959
as Jazz Club Bartender (uncredited)
An old-time crook plans a heist. When one of his two partners is found out to be a black man tensions flare.
Carib Gold
1956
as Dottie
The hard-working but struggling crew of a shrimp boat discover a sunken treasure. Trouble ensues in this dramatic black-cast production.