'BOUNTIFUL's Cicely Tyson Wins Best Lead Actress, Play

Cicely Tyson has won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role in a play for her portrayal of Carrie Watts in THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL.

Tyson is one of the most celebrated actresses of the last 50 years, returns to Broadway for the first time in 30 years of making film and television history. Ms. Tyson became both the first African American to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress and the only actress to receive an unprecedented two Emmy Awards for the same role as Jane in "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" (1974). She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1972 feature film Sounder.

Ms. Tyson's first professional stage performance, in the highly acclaimed, long running stage production of Jean Genet's The Blacks, along with her performance as Mavis in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, earned her the coveted off-Broadway Vernon Rice Award. Her last stage appearance was in the Broadway revival of The Corn is Green in 1983. Other Broadway credits include Trumpets of the Lord (1969), A Hand Is On The Gate (1966), Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright (1963), The Cool World (1960), and Jolly's Progress (1959), in which she understudied Eartha Kitt.

She received an additional Emmy Award for "The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All" and was also nominated for her performances in "Roots," "King" (portraying Coretta Scott King), "Sweet Justice," "The Marva Collins Story," "A Lesson Before Dying," and "Relative Stranger." Other television credits include "The Road to Galveston." Her many film credits include The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Fried Green Tomatoes, Because of Winn-Dixie, Hoodlum, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea's Family Reunion, The Help, which garnered five awards and, most recently, Alex Cross.

Ms. Tyson is among the elite number of entertainers honored with a star on the world famous Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame. In 2010 Ms. Tyson became the 95th recipient of the NAACP's highest honor, the prestigious Spingarn Medal, in addition to being the recipient of a record number of NAACP Image Awards. The Cicely L. Tyson Community School of Performing and Fine Arts in East Orange NJ was opened in 2009 where she generously shares her time and talent.