Cicely Tyson^†

Before Sounder made her a household name, she'd already spent years turning down work. She became the first Black actress with a recurring role in a dramatic series on East Side/West Side in 1963, and used that standing to be selective. She refused roles she found demeaning, went long stretches without working, and didn't apologize for it. In 1972, her performance in Sounder earned an Oscar nomination. Two years later, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman gave her a 110-year-old character spanning slavery to the civil rights era, a two-Emmy performance that made the career bet she'd been placing since 1963 look like a sure thing.

A Tony Award for The Trip to Bountiful at 88 is the kind of capstone that most careers never reach. She beat out younger actors, and that win came 40 years after her Oscar nomination. An Honorary Academy Award followed in 2018. She narrated her memoir, Just As I Am, as an audiobook and completed it before she died in January 2021. The book came out two days before her death. She spent a career refusing to coast, and the record shows.

Her profile was on the cover of Miles Davis' Sorcerer album, which gives you some idea of how deep the connection ran. They dated in the late 1960s, split over his drug use and infidelity, then she returned a decade later when addiction had left him unable to play his trumpet. She helped stabilize him, they married in 1981, but a note from another woman ended it in 1989. He died two years after the divorce. She told Gayle King he was the love of her life. He reportedly said 'Tell Cicely I'm sorry' before he died.

Her memoir, Just As I Am, debuted January 26, 2021, two days before she died. A private memorial at Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church drew Tyler Perry and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Lenny Kravitz read a letter; Bebe Winans sang 'Stand,' a song she'd requested before her death. Barack Obama released a statement calling her 'one of the many giants upon whose shoulders we stood.'