Actress Cicely Tyson, who specialised in portraying strong Black women caught up in life’s struggles during a 60-year career that earned her three Emmys and a Tony Award, died on Thursday at age 96, her manager said in a statement. No cause of death was given. Tyson had recently completed a memoir, Just As I Am, which was released just this week. Her most-lauded performances came in historical works such as the 1972 movie Sounder in which she played a Louisiana sharecropper’s wife. That film earned Tyson her only Academy Award nomination, but she received an honorary Oscar in November 2018.
