Cicely Tyson, the award-winning, trailblazing African American actor, died on Thursday, at the age of 96. Over her lifetime, she became an icon, known for personifying layered and complex Black women on the screen and the stage, notably starring as the wife of a jailed sharecropper family in 1972’s “Sounder,” for which she earned her first Oscar nomination; and as a former slave in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” in 1974, for which she won two Emmy awards, among other performances. But her impact extended well beyond her choice of roles.
© Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty Images
Portrait of American
![a close up of Cicely Tyson wearing glasses and smiling at the camera: Portrait of American actress Cicely Tyson holding a monocle to her eye during a visit to London, February 19th 1973. (Photo by Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty Images)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/cicely-tyson-championed-black-beauty-ideals/{"default":{"load":"default","w":"80","h":"45","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1ddoYk.img?h=450&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=479&y=249"},"size3column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"35","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1ddoYk.img?h=352&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=479&y=249"},"size2column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"35","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1ddoYk.img?h=352&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=479&y=249"}})