Tyson, who has died aged 96, was the talk of Broadway in 2013 when she was in The Trip to Bountiful. Her co-star pays tribute to a calming mentor with an uproarious sense of humour
I grew up watching Cicely Tyson on TV in my parents’ bedroom. Her strength inspired me to become an actor. So when I got the chance to work with her I was nervous about meeting this legendary figure. It was a TV movie in 1990, The Kid Who Loved Christmas; she played a social worker and my character was trying to adopt. Cicely was petite but had a very strong presence. I did one take of our scene and she looked at me. Take a deep breath, she said. Settle down and focus. She knew I could do better and was calming and grounding me. You got this, she was saying.
Cicely became a true mentor. We were in the movie Hoodlum, about “Bumpy” Johnson, where she played a kingpin in Harlem. Then in 2013 we were on Broadway together in The Trip to Bountiful, written by Horton Foote and directed by the phenomenal Michael Wilson. She had wanted to do the play for decades and Carrie Watts was a spectacular role for her. I played her daughter-in-law, who is shrill, impatient and uncomfortable with having to live in her mother-in-law’s home. The tension was high.
