Just as I Am: A Memoir

by Cicely Tyson

  A few years before King’s death, life sent me another hard lesson in surviving as a Black actress. I received a call from Elia Kazan, a renowned Greek-American theater director. He and Robert Whitehead cofounded the Repertory Theater at Lincoln Center, which, in 1964, opened in its temporary home in Greenwich Village, while its permanent home, the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, was being constructed. Even before Elia called me, I’d heard that he and Robert were casting for their upcoming productions. I’d also heard that some of the industry’s Black organizations had been pressuring Elia to cast at least one African-American actor. He’d relented by bringing in two light-skinned performers, men so pale you had to squint to even know they were Black. “Can’t you find a Black female actress?” Elia had been asked. He claimed he didn’t know any—which is when he was given my number. He rang and invited me to come by his office.

  The meeting started out pleasantly enough. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you,” he said, smiling. “Tell me more about yourself.” I explained how I’d gotten into the business, where I’d studied, and what I’d enjoyed most about my work in The Blacks. The conversation flowed easily, and before we knew it, an hour had gone by. “I find you very interesting,” he said, “but unfortunately, I have to leave for an appointment. Can we meet again tomorrow?” I agreed and returned the next afternoon for another equally delightful chat. “You know something?” I said near the close of our meeting. “I’d like to ask you a question.” He nodded and sat up at his desk. “Why aren’t there any Black women in the company?” I asked. “Cicely,” he said bluntly, “I have to tell you this: when a Black woman walks across the stage, the audience’s mind turns to sex.”

  I stared at him, absolutely dumbstruck by what he’d told me. To this moment, I cannot believe that, even if he believed what he was saying, he’d be insensitive enough to actually say it to a Black woman. And not only did he say it. He uttered it casually, without even a hint of self-consciousness. This man was considered the foremost director of his time, and he was admitting—openly professing—that he’d deprive me of a job because of a long-held stereotype. Well you know something? I got up from my chair, I walked out of that man’s office, and I never returned. I later heard that the company eventually brought in Ethel Ayler, the talented and gorgeous Black actress who’d once replaced Abbey Lincoln in The Blacks. I can only imagine what that poor woman endured. Elia was eventually fired from his post and replaced, amid rumors that he’d clandestinely blacklisted actors during the communist Red Scare of the 1950s.

  Three years later, in 1967, I auditioned for a role in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, a beautiful film about a deaf-mute man, a story based on Carson McCullers’s novel. Alan Arkin was to play the lead. I read for the role of Portia, daughter of a physician who is disappointed that his well-educated child has chosen to work as a domestic. For the audition, I was asked to put on a Hoover apron, the kind my mother used to wear around the house. I did so and began reading. Afterward, the producer, Thomas Ryan, stared at me, and then over at a colleague. “No one’s gonna believe she’s a maid,” he said. “She looks like a model.” Here we go again with this nonsense, I thought. What is this fool talking about? With my petite figure, I didn’t fit the well-worn trope of the buxom mammy, so I was constantly told I wasn’t quite right. Why even call me in for the part?, I’d stand there thinking as the casting crew members murmured among themselves. Before I got here, you knew what I looked like—which, as I saw it, had little to do with whether I could convincingly portray a character. “Can we put her in a different costume?” Thomas called out to someone on his team. I’m playing a maid and this is my body, I said to myself. What more do you want from me? He obviously got over the misgivings because I eventually landed the part.

  I was on set filming when the country suffered yet another body blow. A lone gunman shot Robert F. Kennedy, then running for president. The world gasped in unison, as it did a day later when he died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. Only two short months before, we’d lost King. Most Black folks in the country saw RFK as the remaining hope: a candidate intent on extending King’s quest for civil rights. Here was a man who promised to end a deeply controversial war overseas in Vietnam and who promoted equality for Black Americans, who had not yet been granted first-class citizenship here. (This was precisely Muhammad Ali’s point when he refused, in 1967, to serve in the war and said, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.”) King’s murder had been devastating on its own. But when Bobby was assassinated, that devastation morphed into delirium. There was a sense, as there is in our times now, that the country had come undone.

  In July 1968, right after that one-two punch, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter premiered in New York. Miles and I showed up on the red carpet together. An image of us, yellowed by time but forever stashed in my box of memories, brings to mind the feeling of that era. Miles’s arms are folded across his body, his eyes covered with sunglasses. I, wearing a simple sleeveless dress, stand near him, with one hand clutching my pocketbook, the other resting on his hand. A pair of silver chandelier earrings swirl from my lobes toward my shoulders, like two large teardrops. We both peer blankly into the camera lens, our bodies present in the room, our spirits far away. When I look at that photo now, it reminds me of the stillness of those months following Dr. King’s and RFK’s murders, of the quiet and the questioning that befall you once a casket has been lowered into the ground. We were there to celebrate the opening of a film, and still, we were inwardly weeping.

  A few weeks after the premiere, Miles gave me yet another reason to grieve. One afternoon I was relaxing in his living room on the ground floor while he was upstairs in the bedroom. The doorbell rang. When I opened the door, there stood a light-skinned young Black woman, with straight hair cascading down her back. She stared at me. This is the woman, I thought. I immediately recognized her as the lady I’d seen in my vision months before—the one who sat at Miles’s side as he sped up Seventh Avenue in his white Ferrari. Before I could speak, Miles, who’d heard the bell, came down the stairs and to the door. He looked at her, and then at me, and then back at her. He pushed past me, ushered the woman away from the entrance, and shut the door behind him. I stood there, jaw on the ground, scrambling to make sense of what had just occurred.

  I’d heard the talk that Miles was fooling with some woman by the name of Betty Mabry, a model and musician nineteen years younger than he was. The circle of Black entertainers was tiny in those days, and even smaller in the world of Casdulan, our parlor. Two seconds after juice had slipped from someone’s lips, that OJ had slid its way out the door and across town. I’d never seen the woman, but both Finney and Frenchie had spotted her. She’d had the nerve to start having her hair done at Casdulan, and on several occasions, she and Miles had been seen sniggling and giggling as they left there together. “She struts in here acting like she’s Mrs. Miles Davis,” I’d heard. I never asked Miles about the rumors, in part because I did not want to believe they were true, and in part because I loved Miles so. But I never forget a face, and once Betty stood across from me in Miles’s doorway, one truth was irrefutable: this was the woman I’d foreseen.

  I stood there for only a moment. Miles and this woman were hardly down the block by the time I stormed from his place and back to my own a few streets away. Once home, I pulled out a large suitcase, lifted it onto my bed, and opened it. I packed up everything Miles had ever given me: the dresses, the shoes, the jewelry, the mink coat, the items reeking of the guilt that had prompted their purchase. An hour later, I hailed a taxi and loaded the suitcase in the trunk. “Please take me around the corner to 312 West Seventy-Seventh,” I told the driver. Upon arrival, I hauled that suitcase to Miles’s door and rang the bell. I didn’t know whether he’d be back home and I did not care; either way, I had a message to deliver. He opened the door. I pushed past him and hurled the suitcase into the air. It landed, with a thud, a few feet from Betty, who stood there looking dumbfounded, like
she’d just witnessed the Second Coming. Before either of them could speak, I bolted off.

  The next week at the salon, word of our split had of course made its way to Frenchie. He’d heard that after I’d thrown that suitcase and marched away, Miles had gone absolutely berserk. Betty, upset that Miles had been giving me lavish gifts while secretly courting her, told her friends that she’d never seen Miles more angry. Angry? If anyone had a right to fury, it was me. Miles had been strutting all over town with this woman, obviously with no care about mortifying me, and plainly with no fear of reprisal. As much as I cared for Miles, as deeply as I understood the hurt-filled past that plagued him, I would not allow him to blatantly disrespect me. Still, in those days after I discovered his affair, I felt more numb than indignant, more wounded than furious, more somber than upset. If he wanted this woman, then he could have her. But he could not have us both at once. And clearly he did want her. Because soon after our debacle, and around the time Miles’s divorce from Frances became final, he married Betty in the autumn of 1968.

  Yes, Jesus loves me, because he sent me an exit ramp out of the country. That fall, with my emotions still raw, I landed a small recurring role in a Canadian television series. I don’t recall the show’s name, only that it became a lifeline for me. I packed my sorrows alongside my toiletries and flew to Toronto, channeling my sadness into my role, soothing myself the way I had during my childhood, over the keys of a piano. For most of autumn, I was away. Away from the salon chatter. Away from the misery swirling around the situation. Away from Miles, whom I did not speak to after I flung that suitcase into his world. Years later we’d again cross paths for Act Two of our story.

  * * *

  When the clock struck midnight into 1969, the country exhaled. The agony of 1968, one of the most turbulent years in US history, was at last behind us, even if our collective anguish lingered. For me, the new year marked a time to move onward even as I continued healing. Back from Canada, I dove into more work. That April, Trumpets of the Lord, a show I’d played in during 1963 (and a musical based on James Weldon Johnson’s book of poems titled God’s Trombones), returned to Broadway. I reprised my role as Reverend Marion Alexander.

  Following The Blacks, I’d played in a string of such productions, some of which have now fallen from memory, others of which bring a smile or a grimace. People are always telling me that I’ve had an illustrious career, but when I look back at some of the show titles, I think, Did I even play in half of these? Apparently, I portrayed an upstanding maid opposite a spiteful snob (The Blue Boy in Black, 1963); performed poetry and song as part of an ensemble cast curated by Roscoe Lee Browne in his directorial debut (A Hand Is on the Gate, 1966); and played Myrna Jessup in Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights (1968), the first—and only—play directed by Sidney Poitier. Not only was the latter a flop, but it also marked the first time I was fired. The story centered on a guilt-ridden liberal Jewish man who insisted on becoming a slave to a Black law student, as penance for whites’ mistreatment of Blacks. During rehearsals, and frankly away from them, I don’t say anything unless I have some reason to say it, and when I do so, I tend never to shout. Well, the other actors kept complaining that they couldn’t hear me, which is one reason I ended up getting fired. The other is that I didn’t get along with one of the actors, though I don’t recall what the nonsense was all about. Someone on the production crew, but not Sidney, sent me on my way, and Sidney and I never spoke about it or let it get in the way of our friendship. I don’t remember who took my place, but it didn’t matter. The show lasted mere days before the curtains crashed down.

  Trumpets of the Lord, the 1969 show I played in as I still mourned Miles, didn’t fare any better. It ended after only seven performances. Seven! Sidney, who could certainly sympathize, took me out for a drink after the final show. “I’m finished,” I told him. “This is it. I can’t do this anymore.’” I of course was not done with acting but was just expressing the angst we artists feel when a show ends so abruptly. You work, you carry a child for nine months, and then your baby miscarries. “I’m just going to leave this business,” I told Sidney. He stared at me for the longest time, with that arresting gaze only Sidney can give, and he said to me, “And do what, Cicely?”

  I forged ahead, ever clinging to the wisdom my mother had once passed on to me sometime in the early sixties. I’d auditioned for a role I truly wanted but did not get, and around that time, I went by to see my mom. I was sure I’d wiped the disappointment from my face, but she spotted it. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked as soon as I walked in the door.

  “Nothing,” I told her.

  “Don’t tell me ‘nothing,’” she said. “Sit down here and let me talk to you.” I took a seat at her kitchen table, and she repeated her question.

  “I didn’t get the job,” I admitted in a mumble. She stared at me intently and then leaned toward me.

  “Let me tell you something, girl,” she said. “What’s for you in this life, you will get. And what is not for you, you will never get. Do you hear me?” I nodded, the whole time thinking she’d gone mad. But as the years wore on, her words carried me through some things. My mother understood what I didn’t yet at the time, that there’s a path in this life with your name on it. What God means for you to have, no one can take away from you. It’s already yours. Our mission, as God’s children, is to surrender to what he has ordained—and to freely let all else just pass us by.

  What God had in mind for me was a new chapter. In 1968, I’d suffered another devastation when Warren Coleman died suddenly. He’d always had a major ambition to build a thriving Black film company, which is what had led him to direct Carib Gold. Once that effort floundered, he moved back to his hometown of Boston where his brother, Ralf, was directing the Negro Federal Theater of Massachusetts. He worked alongside Ralf even as he applied for an endowment to fund his own dream. When he opened the envelope and read that he’d received the substantial endowment he’d requested, he found the news so astonishing, so unbelievable for a Black man during that era, that he suffered a massive heart attack. While still reeling from that stunning tragedy, I found another agent but didn’t take to her too well (she was always cutting me off in meetings). I moved on quickly. Somehow or another I found my way to Bill Haber, whom I call Haber for short. Haber was based in California, the place where my path next carried me.

  Jimmy Komack, the actor and producer, asked me, through Haber, to star in an episode of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, an ABC sitcom Jimmy created. The episode, titled “Guess Who’s Coming for Lunch,” involved a setup between my character, Betty, and Tom, a Latino character played by Brandon Cruz. Jimmy flew me to Los Angeles for filming. I stayed with Haber and his wife, Carole, in the Hollywood Hills. Each morning, he rose early and slid the call sheet under my door, and after a few days, I’d done what I had to do. On my last afternoon in town, I stopped by the ABC lot to thank Jimmy. He must have been impressed with me, because he said, “Don’t go. You don’t belong in New York City. You belong here.” He then mentioned that he’d seen a Black woman on the lot that day, “and that must mean they’re looking for a Black character,” he said. “Come with me.” He walked me to an adjacent studio, where he disappeared down the hall as I waited. A half-hour later, he returned with a director who was casting for the hospital drama Medical Center. The series’s first episode was to feature O. J. Simpson, and the director was looking for an actress to play O.J.’s wife for the one episode. I auditioned that very day and landed the part.

  Even before I could ring Haber with the news, Jimmy had already called him and persuaded him that I should remain in town. “But where will I stay?” I asked Haber when I returned to his place that evening. “You can stay here with us,” he said without hesitation. I didn’t know it at the time, but Haber hadn’t yet informed Carole, whose second son, Quinn, was still an infant. Haber walked me into the kitchen where Carole was feeding little Quinn in his high chair. “Carole, Cicely is go
ing to be staying here with us for a while,” he told her. She nodded and forced a half-smile, but she didn’t say much. And can you blame her? The nerve of Bill Haber to march me in there without first talking to his wife! Haber showed me to my space downstairs in their multilevel home. I’d have a private floor with its own entrance, he explained. I thanked him profusely.

  Haber’s invitation for me to stay for “a while” turned out to be nine years, on and off. I never gave up my apartment or life back East. New York will always be my home, my foundation, the place where I feel rooted by loved ones and community. But starting in 1969, I became bicoastal. I’d fly in to Los Angeles, do a role, and then fly back to New York City. The Habers became my second family. In fact, even when they moved to the Pacific Palisades during the 1970s, they asked me to move with them. Given the rumors that swirled during my time there, it’s a wonder they let me stay.

  While I was living with the Habers, the world seemed convinced that Haber and I were having an affair. I can assure you we were not. For one thing, the idea of it was just plain ludicrous. And for another, he wasn’t my type. I have always preferred Black men. Yet in those years, if I so much as breathed in the direction of any man, it was assumed I was seeing him. Even back when I was in The Blacks, folks seemed sure I was carrying on with Sidney Bernstein, one of the producers, though the two of us were just friends. One night when he was walking me home, he said, “You know, someone asked me whether we’re having an affair.” I screamed. Sidney was as old as Jesus then, probably around eighty. “Well what did you say, Sidney?” I asked him. “I said, ‘Of course!’ Do you think I’m going to say no?” I cracked up.

  A few years into my time with the Haber family, Bill took me to dinner. “Carole thinks we’re having an affair,” he said bluntly. I laughed, not just because I was amused by such foolishness, but also because they’d both witnessed the steady parade of suitors arriving at their home to take me out during that era. “That’s not true,” I said, smirking. He laughed and nodded. “And she says her girlfriend heard the three of us were having a ménage à trois.” I put down my fork and stared at him. “Oh Bill, stop the nonsense,” I finally said as we both burst into laughter.