|
Born in New York City a few days before Christmas 1924,
Cicely Tyson's first real memory was of a place, one where
her parents fought, physically and verbally, over her
father's infidelities. She was sensitive to everything she
heard in the next room as she and her brother and sister
slept on a pull-out couch, and she recalled times when she
tried to stop the brawling.
She was a good church-going girl then, and while her mother
had ideas for Tyson's future, young Cicely knew she wanted a
life that was different than that of her mother. Though she
loved "the arts." she decided to become a hairdresser but
before she could graduate from high school, Tyson became
pregnant and was made to marry the baby's father.
Later divorced, she was working downtown when someone
approached her on her lunchtime, asking her if she was a
model. When she said, "no," he told her that she should
be one. Almost like in the movies, that led Tyson to a
friend of a friend who signed her to an agency and there,
she was spotted by someone else who knew of a movie director
who hired her for her first role. He instructed Tyson to
shave ten years off her age.
"Six decades would go by," she said, "before I let the
public in on what was frankly never any of their business."
And that line should give you most of the encouragement you
need to want to read "Just As I Am." Nobody could ever
accuse the late actor Cicely Tyson of being shy.
Even so, she wrote (with Michelle Burford) that she was
initially a quiet child, and this, framed by a childhood
tainted by Jim Crow racism and a stormy relationship with
her mother, make up the bulk of the first half of the book.
Tyson also wrote of a dangerous innocence that led to early
motherhood; on that, she declines to call her daughter by
name, which is an interesting aspect that differs from the
usual Hollywood memoir.
One other way that Just As I Am stands out from the
usual: while Tyson name-drops here, it comes across less
showy and more familiar, which is refreshing. Her lengthy –
and carefully-managed, award-winning career – makes up the
latter half of this book, as do tales of her loves,
including the red-hot, on-again/off-again, frustrating
romance with musician Miles Davis.
For fans of Cicely Tyson's work on stage and screen, this is
a thorough look at more than just that career. Biography
lovers will also want to know that if you're ready for your
next book, Just As I Am is the one to pick.
|
