Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 14, 1995 TAG: 9502150001
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
Credit her passionate, indelible film and television portrayals for that perception. Because it's not, Tyson says, the ways things really are.
``I want to tell you something,'' she says. ``It was six years between `The Heart is a Lonely Hunter' and `Sounder.' And it was two years between `Sounder' and `The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,' and an additional two years between `Pittman' and `A Woman Called Moses.'
``I think what gives people that impression is the fact I fortunately have selected roles that have an impact - such an impact that it seems I'm there all the time.''
The powerful women she's played include Harriet Tubman in ``A Woman Called Moses,'' Coretta Scott King in ``King'' and the fictional former slave Castalia in ``Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.''
It's the performance as well as the role that counts, of course, and Tyson is often recognized for the quality of hers. She has received three Emmy Awards (including last year for ``Confederate Widow'') and was an Oscar nominee for ``Sounder.''
Now, thanks to the NBC series ``Sweet Justice'' (Saturdays at 9 p.m. on WSLS-Channel 10), audiences can enjoy Tyson on a regular basis.
Starring opposite Melissa Gilbert (``Little House on the Prairie''), Tyson plays Carrie Grace Battle, a civil rights crusader who heads a Southern law firm housing an unconventional band of attorneys.
It's Tyson's first TV series in 30 years, since she appeared in ``East Side, West Side'' in 1963-64.
``This one was written specifically for myself and Melissa,'' Tyson says. ``We had done a movie the previous year [`House of Secrets'] and the chemistry was so good they thought we would do well in a series together.
``We were both enthusiastic. She has a young child and wanted to find something that would keep her in Los Angeles for now. And I wanted a 9-to-5 job that would ensure me getting up and going to work every day and getting a paycheck at the end of the week.''
Tyson and her character seem to share the same determined nature. ``I would not have survived as long as I have in this business if I weren't,'' she says with a laugh.
How determined? She became an actress despite a strict church upbringing that kept her out of theaters as a child.
And Tyson pursued an acting career although her mother, who came from a musical family, envisioned her as a pianist.
``I remember the last concert I gave I played a piece entitled `Poet and Peasant,' which is 15 pages long,'' she says. ``And when I got up from that piano I said, `I'm never going to do this again.'''
And she meant it. When Tyson was married to jazz great Miles Davis (they divorced before his death in 1991), she passed up the opportunity to play with the trumpeter.
``Which he objected to,'' she says. ``But I said I'm never going to touch the piano again - and I didn't.''
Unsurprisingly, the strong-willed Tyson is not daunted by the burden of a weekly series, which can demand 12-hour shooting days.
``I remember when I said to Bill Cosby I was going to do a series and he said `Oh, what is it going to be?' I said it's an hour drama and he said, `Oh, God, that's so much work.'
``But I've never been one to shirk work,'' Tyson says.
Besides, Carrie Battle's character and the social issues the series addresses represent the most hopeful reasons Tyson became an actress: to help people understand her and the experience of black Americans.
She didn't discover the need to reach across a racial gap until later in life, Tyson says. Although she grew up in a New York ghetto, a sheltered childhood left her unaware of racist ignorance.
``I was stunned by it,'' she says. ``I thought of myself as being very sophisticated, but I suddenly realized in between the East Coast and West Coast there were people who had no idea who I was and what I was and why I am.
``I made a very conscious decision because of that kind of exposure that I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. I felt I had a few things I wanted to say, and I used my profession as my platform.''
Not her only platform. In addition to work on behalf of abused women and children, Tyson is active with UNICEF and the NAACP.
``I don't see how one can live in this world and be aware of the kinds of suffering that are fostered on innocent children and not be involved in some way of trying to end it,'' Tyson says.
A solution could be easier than it appears, the actress suggests.
``If we just apply the golden rule, as simple as it may be,'' she says. ``And that's what the problem is: It's so simple we believe it doesn't have any value. If we would just consider doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, I think three-fourths of the problems in the world among people would be nonexistent.''
by CNB