An Interview With Cicely Tyson, Part 2

Charles Michael Smith: Do you feel you've grown intellectually or emotionally as a result of the roles you've played?
Cicely Tyson: There's the question in my mind that I have which is the result of all the research I do when I'm getting ready to do a role. That always results in what I call "fringe benefits." I was talking to someone earlier today and they mentioned Jane Pittman and Sounder and Coretta King and I spoke of incidents that occurred in the process of my research which I would normally not have had if I did not delve into the lives of the people that I'm getting ready to project. Working with "Jane" was being able to talk to women who range anywhere from the ages of 97 to 105. If you want to know what living in America as a woman who happens to be born black is like, believe me, you find somebody in that age range and talk to them and they'll tell you what it's all about. That's something you can't buy. Those are things that enlarge one spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and every other way.

CMS: How have you been able to balance marriage and an acting career?
CT: In the course of one's life, you come to different levels and different stages. At [one] time I felt very strongly that I could not share myself or involve another person in my life at that time because I was quite saturated with my career. I think that anything that you want in this life you have to work on and work toward and marriage is no different. At the time I decided to get married, I felt that I had [reached] the point in my life and in my career where I could involve another person in my life. So I made the decision to get married based on that. [She is married to jazz trumpeter Miles Davis.]

CMS: Would you encourage anyone to go into show business?
CT: I wouldn't encourage anybody to go into show business but I wouldn't discourage them either. If one really wants to do something, no one can discourage you. I would not encourage anyone to go into the theatre because it's a very difficult profession, especially if your color is black.

CMS: Are you planning to start your own production company?
CT: That's a possibility. [However, funding for such a project] is very, very difficult. We, as a race of people, are highly successful in many other areas. But I don't think we're acclimated enough to having money to risk putting it in ventures such as producing our own plays. But we better start doing it because otherwise we don't have it. We can't wait for The Man to do it because he's doing exactly what he feels will be profitable to him. If he says blacks aren't selling except in musicals, well, that's what he'll do, he'll do musicals. Not straight plays. And why? We're a powerful race of people. We underestimate our power. We don't know our own strength. Why do we need to wait for somebody to hand us a crutch? We don't need that.

CMS: What is the responsibility of the audience to the artist?
CT: It's to support. Elizabeth Taylor, as bad as her reviews are, her theatre was always filled.

This is the continuation of an interview that was originally published on the Inquiry Page of USA Today in 1983. Part one was posted on October 7, 2013. The interview with Cicely Tyson was done via telephone. At the time of the interview, she was playing the role of Miss Moffat, a schoolteacher in 19th-century Wales, on Broadway, in the play The Corn is Green.