Veteran and Award-winning Chicago-born and Los Angeles-based Theatre Artist and Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago and Excaliber Shakespeare Company Los Angeles Archival Project Founder, Artistic Director, and Principal Actor Darryl Maximilian Robinson shares information and insights regarding his more than five decades of involvement in The Performing Arts.
Darryl Maximilian Robinson Remembers The Amazing Miss Cicely Tyson
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YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT IN THE THEATRE, DARRYL MAXIMILIAN ROBINSON OF THE EXCALIBER SHAKESPEARE COMPANY OF CHICAGO, BEGS YOUR INDULGENCE IN TAKING A MOMENT TO TRULY APPRECIATE A SUPERB BLACK AMERICAN ACTRESS FOR ALL SEASONS: MS. CICELY TYSON.
The amazingly versatile and gifted Ms.Tyson left us in 2021 at the age of 96. Prior to Ms. Tyson's journey home, she proved over six decades as a professional actress on stage, screen and television that she was not only one of the finest African-American actresses to appear before audiences in multiple mediums, but that she was one of the best actresses the world has ever seen... period.
She teased us when at the age of 88 she won Broadway's 2013 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress In A Play for her glorious performance in a revival of Horton Foote's "A Trip To Bountiful".
Her further national tour in "Bountiful" gave an entirely new generation of theatregoers an opportunity to watch an American master class in acting unfold.
And then she further tantilized us at the age of 92 when, in 2018, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences bestowed upon her A Special Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.
She left our view too soon. There were those among us who expected her to still be acting at the age of 100!
Happily, the wonderful Cicely Tyson has left her legions of fans a well-preserved and highly praised collection of dramatic performances that will live in perpetuity as a testament to her genius as an Artist.
She was a New York actress for some years at the beginning of her career around the late 1950s and early 1960s, appearing on stage in an off-Broadway revival of Jean Genet's "The Blacks" with James Earl Jones and Maya Angelou among others.
Ms. Tyson ( who would ultimately go on to receive 16 Emmy Award nominations for her work in television ) had a recurring role of an intelligent and well-spoken black secretary of a social worker on a prime time drama called "East Side West Side".
But it was not until the 1970s that Cicely Tyson's acting career began to soar! For her moving performance as a loving and committed mother of a black sharecropper family, Cicely Tyson won an Academy Award nomination for Best Leading Actress In A Motion Picture for the 1972 film "Sounder."
She would score a well-deserved Best Supporting Actress In A Miniseries Or TV Movie Emmy Award nomination for her portrayal of Kunta Kente's African mother in the acclaimed 1977 television event of all television events known as "Roots".
But, this lover of acting will always remember how, in 1974, CICELY TYSON WON TWO EMMY AWARDS IN THE SAME NIGHT FOR BEST ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE AND BEST TELEVISION ACTRESS OF THE YEAR FOR HER BRILLIANT AND MOVING PERFORMANCE AS THE 110-YEAR-OLD TITLE CHARACTER IN "THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN!"
THAT NIGHT, CICELY TYSON BECAME THE VERY FIRST BLACK ACTRESS TO WIN A COMPETITIVE PRIME TIME EMMY AWARD!
I guess I will aways remember Cicely Tyson as a trailblazer. And her many fans will always love her for that.
Here are some images of the late, great MISS CICELY TYSON.
And, One Last Thing...
Your Humble Servant In The Theatre, Darryl Maximilian Robinson, Is Pleased To Share A Link To A Television Masterpiece.
Winner of 9 Emmy Awards, including 2 for Best Actress CICELY TYSON.
HERE'S 1974'S "THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN".
Enjoy.
ON THE WEST COAST, theatregoers have seen veteran and award-winning Chicago-born and stage-trained actor Darryl Maximilian Robinson appear in numerous roles onstage during his 14 years as a City of Angels thespian. He has garnered critical praise for his performances as Major-General Stanley in "The Pirates of Penzance," District Attorney Flint in "Night of January 16th," Booker T. Washington in "Ragtime," Butler John Lawless in "The Happiest Millionaire" and Henry Albertson in "The Fantasticks." But usually he has performed his work in small and intimate venues. However, this past summer, he shared his talents in a somewhat larger forum. Darryl Maximilian Robinson, who received both a 1997 Chicago Joseph Jefferson Citation Award for Outstanding Actor In A Principal Role In A Play and a 1997 Chicago Black Theatre Alliance / Ira Aldridge Award nomination for Best Leading Actor In A Play for his critically-praised performance as Sam ...
DARRYL MAXIMILIAN ROBINSON SHARES A CLASSIC DYLAN THOMAS POEM BEFORE THE HISTORIC VISTA MOVIE THEATRE AT SUNSET AND HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD IN LOS ANGELES! Darryl Maximilian Robinson, a 51-year-long American stage performer whose local Los Angeles theatre award honors include a 2013 Kentwood Players' Marcom Masque Theatre Award nomination for Best Actor In A Major Supporting Role for his critically-praised performance as the historic Black educator and orator Booker T. Washington in a revival of the musical "Ragtime" at The Westchester Playhouse, a 2015 / 2016 Emmanuel Lutheran Actors Theatre Ensemble-ELATE Season Ticket Holder Best Actor Award nomination for his performance as the debonair, but aging leading man Ernest in Tad Mosel's classic one-act drama of Life In The Theatre "Impromptu" at The Lincoln Stegman Theatre in North Hollywood, California, and, most recently, a 2024 Broadwayworld Los Angeles Award nomination for Best Supporting Performer In A ...
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