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Cicely Tyson: Miss Jane Pittman
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Award-winning actress Cicely Tyson will receive the Distinguished Career Achievement Award, recognizing a career that includes such films as The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Woman Called Moses and TNT's Heat Wave. And Laurence Fishburne, a nominee for his work this year in Akeelah & the Bee, will receive the Excellence in Arts Award.
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Tyson got her first real break in 1963, playing a secretary to George C. Scott on the TV series East Side/West Side, and in 1966 signed on with the daytime soap The Guiding Light. That same year, she made her credited screen debut starring opposite Sammy Davis Jr. in the drama A Man Called Adam (her first uncredited film role was in 1959's Odds Against Tomorrow). More film, television, and stage work followed, but Tyson did not truly become a star until her Oscar-nominated performance in the Depression drama Sounder (1972). An unusual beauty with delicate features, expressive black eyes, and a full, wide mouth, Tyson next hid her good looks beneath layers of old-age makeup to convincingly portray a 110-year-old former slave who tells her extraordinary life story in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974). A well-wrought effort, it won Tyson her first Emmy for her title role, which required her to age 91 years on the screen.
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Because she was committed to presenting only positive images of black women, Tyson did not have steady work in film and television. Her next notable role was as Rebecca Morgan in the popular and critically acclaimed film Sounder (1972), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for best actress. In 1974 she appeared in perhaps her best-known role, that of the title character in the television drama The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Her performance as the 110-year-old former slave whose life is depicted up through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s won Tyson two Emmy Awards. Later in her career, Tyson took on supporting roles in the television miniseries Roots (1977) and The Women of Brewster Place (1989) and ... in the film Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). She had a starring role in Hoodlum (1997).
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It isn't every day that even journalists get to meet a talent like Cicely Tyson. As the woman who immortalized so many classic African-American characters, Tyson's career- and her life- has been marked by diversity and ambition; "Sounder" and "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" still resonate with the same importance they did when they first appeared on television more than 30 years ago. Appropriately, Tyson's latest character is one who has lived a life full of challenges and rewards; in "Because of Winn-Dixie" she plays a blind woman who finds a couple of new friends in a cheerful little girl and her dog. Tyson recently sat down with blackfilm.com to discuss the project, her collaboration with stars past, present, and future, and her legacy as an actress who has left a mark as much in real life as on the silver screen.
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The critical acclaim over Sounder had not yet died away when Tyson turned in another world-class performance in the title role of the television drama The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. This fictional account, adapted from the novel by Ernest J. Gaines, follows the life of a 110-year-old woman from her childhood in slavery to her old age, when she becomes an active participant in the civil rights movement. The role required Tyson to age some 90 years. An astounding make-up job helped her to achieve this feat, but it could not have been successful without her masterful acting skills. She showed her dedication to the project by enduring as much as six hours of make-up application, then working for up to seven hours in front of the cameras.
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