Just as I Am: A Memoir

by Cicely Tyson

  The true Everest of the evening came when my beloved students, the sensational choir from my school, paid tribute to me by singing—what else?—“Blessed Assurance.” CeCe Winans and Terence Blanchard led the selection as I, with one hand over my heart and another raised skyward, wept like a newborn. The delightful Kerry Washington, gifted as she is gracious, added magic to the affair with her spirited introduction of me. She’d been just as generous when, in 2010, she’d introduced me as I received the Spingarn Medal—the most distinguished honor the NAACP bestows. Thank you, my dear Kerry. Thank you, NAACP.

  Several months after the Kennedy Center high note, I received yet another shock. “Ms. Tyson,” said a woman’s voice on the line, “I am calling you at the request of President Obama.” She paused for a moment, perhaps waiting for a reply, but all I could do was sit there thinking, Is this a joke?

  “Who is this?” I asked. She gave me her name, which I now cannot remember.

  “The President has asked me to call and let you know that he is awarding you with the Medal of Freedom”—as in the highest civilian award in the land.

  “Oh please,” I said laughing, feeling sure it was a prankster talking some foolishness. “How did you even get this number?” She tried to persuade me that her declaration was true, but I wouldn’t hear of it.

  “But the president wants you to have the award,” she went on. Finally, just as I was about to hang up on that poor woman, she blurted out, “I’ll tell him you said yes.” Click.

  Years earlier in 1996, I’d looked on in admiration as President Bill Clinton draped the Medal of Freedom around the neck of Rosa Parks. She was and is an icon, one whose remarkable courage served as a lightning rod during the Civil Rights Movement. Though I’m proud of the work I’ve done, I certainly did not put myself in Rosa’s category. Such a monumental honor was surely reserved for the nation’s most esteemed trailblazers, the Dr. Kings of the world. That’s what had me so convinced this had to be a hoax. But just in case it wasn’t, I called a friend who’d once worked on President Obama’s campaign. When I told her the name of the woman who rang me, she started laughing. “Yes, I know exactly who she is!” she said. “She definitely works in the White House.” “Come on,” I said. “No way.” “Congratulations, Ms. Tyson,” she told me. “You’ve earned the award. The only thing left to do is graciously accept it”—a reminder we could all use in this life. My manager, of course, immediately got the White House on the phone and confirmed my attendance at the celebration.

  On the day of the ceremony, President Obama stood at the podium and gave some kind remarks about me, most of which I don’t recall. That is because there’s one line he spoke that I still haven’t gotten over. Near the end of his speech, with his stunning wife, Michelle, sitting right there opposite him in the audience, he smiled broadly as he said of me, “And she’s just gorgeous!” I nearly fainted. Lord, have mercy! After the ceremony, someone said to me, “Do you realize you were the last person he put that medal on during his presidency?” I hadn’t—and upon hearing it, I beamed. Just when I think God has outdone himself, he surprises me. The lesson, I know now, is to relish the ride.

  24

  When Great Trees Fall

  MY FEAST of blessings continued in fall 2018, when Robert Endara, who works alongside my manager, Larry, called me. “I have some good news,” he said. My ears perked up. I assumed I’d been nominated for an Emmy for a segment in How to Get Away with Murder. I’d been nominated four times. I guess they’re going to go ahead and give me one, I thought upon hearing from Robert. “I have someone on the line who wants to speak to you,” he told me. Before I could respond, I heard another male voice. “Ms. Tyson, this is John Bailey,” he said, “and I am the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It gives me great joy to tell you that yesterday, the Board of Governors, all fifty-four of them, decided to give you an honorary Oscar.”

  Well, child, I went to water. For a full thirty seconds I could not utter a single word as Niagara gushed from my eyes. “Really?” I finally managed to get out. “Yes,” he said, chuckling. I was so overcome with emotion that after I got off the phone, I realized I hadn’t even thanked the gentleman. I later heard that it was my longtime friend Whoopi Goldberg, herself an “EGOT”—Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony—winner, who’d submitted my name for consideration. God bless that child.

  For the next week, I wandered around Manhattan in a happiness high, dazed and bewildered at the news, wondering whether I’d dreamed it during my sleep rather than experiencing it wide awake. I had my Tony. My three Emmys. My Drama Desk Awards. My Oscar nomination. My life’s Christmas tree, tall and mighty, had already been fully decorated, its branches heavy with accolades. The pair of glistening stars on top, I reckoned, had been the Kennedy Center Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And back in 1972, after I’d been nominated for an Oscar for Sounder, I’d truly made peace with the fact that the current of my career had swept me more forcefully toward stage and television than it had the big screen. Though like most actors, I yearned for an Oscar, I never expected to get one. And yet here I was, at age ninety-three, on the verge of receiving the industry’s most cherished prize. My name would also be carved into Academy history as the first African-American actor to be chosen for an honorary Oscar. I could cry right now.

  That September soon after I heard the news, I stopped by to visit my lifelong friend Arthur Mitchell. He of course once escorted me to the Academy Awards, and I wanted to ask him to do the honor again—this time with me receiving the golden statue. He wasn’t there, so I later rang him and left a message, sharing my good news on his voice mail, reminding him of his prediction four and a half decades earlier. “This time,” I said into the receiver, “I have the Oscar—and this time, I am asking you to repeat your performance and escort me to accept the incredible honor.” Arthur did not answer, which puzzled me, because it was very unlike him not to immediately return my calls. I rang again, and then once more, until a family member at last picked up his phone. “Arthur’s not well,” she said slowly, with sadness between each word. “He’s in the hospital.” My heart stopped.

  “What’s the matter with him?” I asked.

  She paused. “No diagnosis has been given,” she told me. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  For the previous two years, on and off, Arthur had been undergoing kidney dialysis. Through that ordeal, I’d been at his bedside, squeezing his hand, and at no point had we ever lost touch. I reasoned that this hospitalization must somehow be connected to his kidney condition, and I pressed his loved ones to share his location with me. Strangely, they would not. I called his family over and over, urging them to at least give me a number where I could reach him directly. My request went unmet.

  A few days later, just after midnight, my dear friend passed on. “Call Cicely,” he’d whispered to his family during his last moments, when he knew he was fading. “We can’t call her at this hour,” his family told him. “We’ll ring her tomorrow.” Shortly after, he breathed his last breath. He’d never heard my voice message. By the time I called, he’d already been on his way home.

  Oh, how I wept at Arthur’s passing, howling in disbelief that I hadn’t been able to share his final days. I now know that Arthur, weak and emaciated from kidney failure, hadn’t wanted anyone, especially me, to see him in such a frail state. He knew it would break me, and indeed it may have, though not being able to speak to or see him has, in its own way, shattered me. He was such a gentleman to the end, my beloved Arthur, as proud as he was generous. If that man had just one hair left in his nostrils, he’d give it away. He strode through this world with the posture of a king, and he loved with the soul of a lamb. Even in his last weeks, he thought more of how his deterioration might impact me than he did of himself. At his most vulnerable, he remained intent on protecting me, of serving as my steady shoulder, just as he’d been all those years ago when he escorted me, proud and beaming, to the front row of the Oscar
ceremony. He’d been the one to direct his family not to share his hospital phone number or exact whereabouts. His family knew how close he and I were, and they considered overriding his instruction. But feeling caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, they ultimately honored his request.

  I moved through that fall with a heavy heart, even as I made preparations for the ceremony. B Michael, of course, got right to work on my dress, and boy did he outdo himself, with a showpiece worthy of his designation as the first African American to design a gown for an Oscar winner. He created a dazzling haute couture two-piece gown ensemble in vintage silk brocade. The gown, with its cropped bolero and single bias train, was constructed using ninety-two pattern pieces. He completed the look with silver metallic leather gloves. When I entered the ceremony, donning his work of art, I didn’t know whether I was there to claim my statue or model as one. That dress stole my breath.

  Much of Hollywood, it seemed, showed up. Oprah flew in all the way from South Africa, where she’d been visiting her school. Quincy Jones and Shonda Rhimes were there, seated at my table. Ava DuVernay and Kerry Washington blessed me with tributes I will always hold close. “She is the seed for so many of us,” said Ava, “the rose that we adore.” Tyler Perry spoke glowingly of me as well, as did Quincy, all while I sat there feeling sheepish. Grateful as I am for their kind words, there comes a point when you start thinking, Now who in the world are they talking about? Even here during this last stretch of my life and career, I still feel like the child at my mother’s kitchen table, sucking her thumb and quietly absorbing the world. That such a girl ended up in a silver ball gown, with folks carrying on about her work upon a stage, is a conundrum to me. I felt the same when, earlier that year, I appeared on the cover of TIME magazine. Ava guest-edited the issue, one all about optimism, and Lord knows I must have plenty to still be here.

  At last, it was my turn to take the podium. “Forty-five years ago, I was offered a movie entitled Sounder—it was the first major movie that I would have done in my career,” I began. I recounted the story of the spring afternoon in 1971 when I’d stopped by to share my news with Arthur, who’d predicted I’d be nominated for an Oscar. “I was nominated,” I went on, “and he flew out to be my escort.” With the agony of his loss still fresh, I revealed how, just two days after I’d left him a voice mail, telling him I’d finally receive an Oscar, he had passed. “Arthur,” I said, clutching my prize, “wherever you are, this is what you were promising me—and I want to thank you.” I concluded as I’d began, with my heart in my throat and tears in my eyes. “Next month,” I said, “I will be ninety-four. And I don’t know that I would cherish a better gift than this.” In Arthur’s memory, I relish my treasure, and whenever I glance at it atop my mantel, I pause and think of him. For fifty-eight years, we stood together in this life. For infinity, our bond remains.

  * * *

  I am the sole remaining member of my immediate family. After my parents went on home, my brother, Melrose, who developed a blood cancer like my father’s, passed in 1991. Emily, who was also stricken with cancer, followed in 1999. Both died near my birthday. Each year when I celebrate my birth, I likewise commemorate their lives.

  My season of harvest runs parallel to one of tremendous loss. On many days, I feel as if I have no space left in my heart for another grief, no holding pen for the overflow of tears. So many of my loved ones have left here. Maya Angelou and Ruby Dee both passed in 2014. Diahann Carroll went home in 2019, just before many of us gathered at the opening of Tyler’s new studio. My sixth sense told me she was near the end. “You know, I’m worried about Diahann,” I kept telling my daughter. “I need to go out and see her.”

  Around that time, my work on Cherish the Day, the series created by Ava DuVernay and produced by Oprah’s network, took me to California. I decided to stop in and see my friend, and I called her daughter, Suzanne, to arrange it. “Please tell me when I can come,” I said. “Come now,” she told me. When I arrived that afternoon, Diahann was asleep. I sat in the living room and caught up with Suzanne, whom I hadn’t seen for years. When Diahann awakened, Suzanne propped her up and made her comfortable so we could connect. I wasn’t sure she’d still know who I was, given how fragile she appeared, but a light of recognition filled her eyes when I entered the room. “Hi, Cic,” she said in a whisper that was hardly audible. I sat on the edge of the bed and began telling stories of those years when she and I bicycled all over New York, cracking ourselves up along the path. She smiled and nodded but did not speak. It took all the energy she could muster just to sit up. When I left there, I knew she didn’t have long. Two days later, she was gone.

  A year before I lost Diahann, Aretha went to be with Jesus after a battle with pancreatic cancer. In a televised homegoing service that felt like a Baptist revival, the world united in grief at her passing. Aretha and I go so far back that I can hardly recall a time when I did not know her. “If I ever do a movie of my life,” she’d say every time she saw me, “you’re going to play my mother.” Her plans to star in her own biopic sadly never came together, and yet her music, her extraordinary body of work, is a heritage in itself.

  When I received word of her passing, I began making plans to attend the memorial, held at Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple—the church where Aretha sang at Rosa Park’s funeral in 2005. My dress was a simple black sheath that I would adorn with a strand of pearls. But B Michael had an idea for a bold accessory. “Try this on,” he said, handing me a black hat—one with a brim the circumference of the equator. I stared at him, and then at the hat, and then back at him. “I can’t wear this,” I said, laughing. “Nobody behind me will be able to see!” My daughter, who was with me that day, urged me on. “Just try it, Mom!” she said. I reluctantly did so, and somehow or another, I let those two devils persuade me to wear it to the service.

  Well honey, you would’ve thought that hat had worn me! For weeks after that service, when folks would recount their memories of Aretha, many would end with, “And did you see Cicely’s hat?” That stunner stole the show. In fact, it was so enormous that Oprah later had a custom box made for me to store it in. During the service, I took to that podium, with that brim flapping all over the place, and delivered a tribute to my friend—an adaptation of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “When Malindy Sings.” I called it “When Aretha Sings,” because oh, when that sister blessed us with her voice, the soul of the world fell open. As with Miles, her agony lived in every note. What a gem that Aretha was.

  Several years before Maya went home to heaven, she penned the poem popularly known as “When Great Trees Fall,” but properly titled “Ailey, Baldwin, Floyd, Killens, and Mayfield,” a lyrical ode she ends this way:

  And when great souls die,

  after a period peace blooms,

  slowly and always

  irregularly. . . .

  Our senses, restored, never

  to be the same, whisper to us.

  They existed. They existed.

  We can be. Be and be

  better. For they existed.

  Her sentiments, so often repeated, powerfully sum up what loss does to the human heart, how it lowers our heads and deepens our sorrows, and yet how, in the end, it miraculously restores us. When great trees fall, we weep in unity with the forest—and we rejoice at the legacy that lingers.

  25

  Just as I Am

  I NEVER leave home without my cayenne pepper. I either stash a bottle of the liquid extract in my pocketbook, or I stick it in the shopping cart I pull around with me all over Manhattan. When it comes to staying right-side up in this world, a Black woman needs at least three things. The first is a quiet spot of her own, a place away from the nonsense. The second is a stash of money, like the cash my mother kept hidden in the slit of her mattress. The last is several drops of cayenne pepper, always at the ready. Sprinkle that on your food before you eat it, and it’ll kill any lurking bacteria. The powder does the trick as well, but I prefer the liquid because it
hits the bloodstream quickly. Particularly when eating out, I won’t touch a morsel to my lips ’til it’s speckled with cayenne.

  That’s just one way I take care of my temple. Aside from preparing my daily greens, certain other habits have carried me toward the century mark. First thing I do every morning is drink four glasses of water. People think this water business is a joke, but I’m here to tell you that it’s not. I’ve known two elderly people who died of dehydration, one of whom fell from his bed in the middle of the night and couldn’t stand up because he was so parched. Following my water, I drink eight ounces of fresh celery juice, blended in my Vitamix. The juice cleanses the system and reduces inflammation. My biggest meal is my first one: oatmeal. I soak my oats overnight so that when I get up, all I have to do is turn on the burner. Sometimes I enjoy them with warm almond milk. Other times, I add grated almonds and berries, put the mixture in my tumbler, and shake it until it’s so smooth I can drink it. In any form, oats do the heart good.

  Throughout the day, I eat sweet potatoes (which are filled with fiber), beets (sprinkled with a little olive oil), and vegetables of every variety. I also still enjoy plenty of salad, though I stopped adding so many carrots. Too much sugar. But I will do celery, cucumbers, seaweed grass, and other greens. God’s fresh bounty doesn’t need a lot of dressing up, which is why I usually eat my salad plain. From time to time, I do drizzle it with garlic oil. I love the taste. I also love lychee nuts. I put them in the freezer so that when I bite into them, cold juice comes flooding out. As terrific as they are, I buy them only once in a while. I recently bit into an especially sweet one, and then I stuck it right back in the freezer. Not today, Suze-ay, I said to myself. Full of glucose. I try never to eat late, and certainly not after 9 p.m. Our organs need a chance to rest. And before bed, of course, I have a final glass of water. I don’t mess around with my hydration.