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Vanessa Williams is taking on the iconic role of Miranda Priestly, a fashion mogul and fierce editor-in-chief, in the highly anticipated musical adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada. At 61 years old, the former beauty queen is proving that anything is possible as she ages beautifully.

Vanessa Williams at the official party for ‘The Devil Wears Prada: The Musical’ world premiere | Neil Mockford/WireImage

Miss America 1984 has come a long way from her humble beginnings in Tarrytown, New York. A child of music teachers, Williams grew up in a musical household. This naturally prepared her for the beauty pageant circuit and Hollywood. Over 60 years later, the Ugly Betty actor celebrated the world premiere of The Devil Wears Prada: The Musical in London.

Vanessa Williams at London’s British Museum on December 1, 2024 | Neil Mockford/WireImage

Williams wore a stunning black gown by American fashion designer Pamella Roland alongside Chopard diamond hoops and a bracelet.

Geraldine Page found her calling at the age of 17 when she did her first play “Excuse My Dust” at her Chicago church youth group. “I always wanted to be good at something, to be somebody,” she wrote in the New Yorker. “The minute I got into my first play, which was called ‘Excuse My Dust,’ I knew that this was what I was looking for.” Read on as Gold Derby celebrates what would have been her 100th birthday.

Page, who was born on Nov. 22 a century ago in Kirksville, Mo. and grew up in Chicago, was more than good at acting. The influential, versatile actress won her Best Actress Oscar on her eighth and final nomination for 1985’s “The Trip to Bountiful,” and received four Tony nominations and two Emmy Awards. She once explained what makes a successful actor, saying, “The main thing is the ability to control your instrument,...

Late in filmmaker Gregory Nava’s harrowing 1983 immigration drama El Norte, Guatemalan refugee Rosa (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez) lays ailing in a Los Angeles hospital, ravaged by a fatal case of typhus acquired crawling through the rat-infested sewers underneath the Mexican-American border. Sadly resigned to her own death, she turns to her equally ill-fated brother Enrique (David Villalpando) to ask: “When will we find a home, Enrique? Maybe when we die?”–a blunt, heartbreaking moment among many.

But even setting aside the Guatemalan Civil War whose harsh realities provide El Norte its backdrop so too could Rosa’s mournful question could just as easily be asked in relation to the state of independent film in the Americas by the time of El Norte’s world premiere at the 1983 edition of the Telluride Film Festival.

After spending the bulk of the 1970s drinking and producing a series of increasingly unreleasable masterpieces, indie film pioneer John Cassavetes was,...

Welcome back to Oscars Playback, in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng revisit Oscar ceremonies and winners of yesteryear. This week, we cover the 58th Academy Awards in 1986, honoring the films of 1985.

“Out of Africa” and “The Color Purple” co-led with 11 nominations, but it was a tale of two fates for the epics. The former grabbed seven awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Sydney Pollack, while the latter, which already missed a director bid for Steven Spielberg, infamously went 0-11. But the dominance by “Out of Africa” isn’t exactly the same as the ones by predecessors “Amadeus,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Gandhi.”

See Oscars Playback: When ‘Amadeus’ hit the right notes and Hollywood (really) liked Sally Field

The Oscars were in a very sentimental mood this year as Geraldine Page finally won Best Actress for “The Trip to Bountiful” on her eighth...

The oldest surviving Oscar winner is turning 100 this year! Classy, smart and with a warmth that belies her cool blonde beauty, Eva Marie Saint made a name for herself on stage, radio, television and film, earning numerous accolades over a nearly eight-decade career, and appearing alongside some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed stars.

Saint was born on July 4, 1924, in New Jersey, and raised in New York, before becoming an NBC page. After steady work on radio and TV, Saint won an Outer Critics Circle Award for her role in the 1953 play “The Trip to Bountiful.”

The following year, Saint made her movie debut opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan‘s “On the Waterfront,” which garnered her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and launched an impressive film career. Over the next two decades, she co-starred alongside Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Angela Lansbury and...

Okay, all you Meryl Streep superfans out there. You may think you know everything there is to know about the acclaimed three-time Academy Award winner. But can you name which of her Oscar-nominated roles she claims she was not “sexy enough” for until she “stuffed” her bra with paper towels for the director? Streep has been nominated a whopping 21 times throughout her career, an academy record, so we’ll help you narrow it down by giving you a few hints.

Hint #1: The film is based on a 1937 memoir.

Hint #2: Streep portrays the memoir’s author.

Hint #3: The movie won seven Oscars, including Best Picture.

Have you figured it out yet, or has the lion got your tongue? If you guessed “Out of Africa” (1985), you are correct!

Streep’s role of Isak Dinesen (the pseudonym of author Karen von Blixen) earned her a fifth Best Actress Oscar nomination,...

Impact Network is rebranding from a faith and gospel-focused multiplatform channel to a family-friendly lifestyle entertainment channel focused on Black audiences.

Founded in 2010 by Bishop Wayne T. Jackson and wife Beverly Jackson, the 100% Black-owned independent network began as a channel airing sermons and religious talk shows. In 2022, with the appointment of Wayne and Beverly’s son Royal Jackson to chief creative officer, Impact Network moved into entertainment programming, including both scripted and unscripted titles with a strategic focus on religious content.

Now, Impact is shifting its lineup once more to encompass “family-friendly lifestyle entertainment, premium scripted and engaging non-scripted series in addition to programming initiatives around health/wellness/financial/cultural areas affecting Black communities.”

Among Impact’s new offerings are unscripted syndicated series licensed from Fox First Run, including “You Bet Your Life” with Jay Leno and Kevin Eubanks, “25 Words or Less” with Meredith Louise Vieira and “Divorce Court,...

Elton’s Prada has found its Devil: Vanessa Williams has been cast as Miranda Priestly in the upcoming West End production of the Elton John-Shaina Taub stage musical adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada.

“Don’t just sit there,” demands Williams, in character as the tyrannical magazine editor at the of a new teaser trailer. “Buy tickets. Or something.”

The long-anticipated The Devil Wears Prada opens October 24 at the Dominion Theatre in London.

Williams, who played the similarly chic Wilhelmina Slater in TV’s Ugly Betty, said in a statement, “Bringing Miranda Priestly to life in the West End is an absolute dream come true. Gird your loins, folks.”

No stranger to the stage, Williams made her West End debut in 2019 in a revival of City of Angels, and has appeared on Broadway in Into the Woods, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Sondheim on Sondheim, The Trip to Bountiful, After Midnight,...

Cicely Tyson is an Emmy Award-winning actress for “The Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All” in 1994 and 20 years earlier for “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.”

Tyson has worked steadily in film and television since the 1960s. Her Emmy nominations have come in a variety of categories and for some highly acclaimed television shows such as “Roots” and “King”.

Tyson has also had an acclaimed career on the Broadway stage. She appeared in a number of productions both on and off-Broadway throughout her life. In 2013 and at age 88, Tyson won the Tony as Best Actress in a Play for a revival of the Horton Foote play “The Trip to Bountiful.” (That was the same role that won Geraldine Page the Best Actress Oscar in 1985.)

She received an honorary Oscar for life achievement, induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame and the Kennedy Center Honors. But its her film career that...

As of this writing, based on the combined Oscar predictions of Gold Derby users, Fantasia Barrino is the front-runner to win Best Actress with 9/2 odds for playing Celie in “The Color Purple.” Currently in seventh place with 11/1 odds is Annette Bening for “Nyad.” Bening is long overdue for her first win. So could this be similar to 1985 when another overdue veteran beat an actress playing Celie in “The Color Purple?”

In “The Color Purple,” Barrino plays Celie Harris Johnson, an African-American woman struggling to live in the South during the early 1900s. In “Nyad,” Bening plays Diana Nyad, a real-life swimmer who, at age 60 and with the help of her best friend and coach (Jodie Foster), commits to achieving her life-long dream: a 110-mile open ocean swim from Cuba to Florida.

SEEOscar predictions: Fantasia Barrino (‘The Color Purple’) is the early favorite for historic Best Actress victory

During the 1985 season...

Carlin Glynn, who won a Tony Award in 1979 for originating the role of madam Mona Stangley in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” died July 13 at age 83. Her daughter, “Fried Green Tomatoes” actress Mary Stuart Masterson, announced the news on Instagram.

“On Thursday, July 13, my mother, Carlin Glynn Masterson, passed away. I was with her. I will always be grateful for those last moments, no matter how hard,” Masterson wrote on Sunday. She told the New York Times on Thursday that her mother had been battling lung cancer and dementia.

She remembered her mother as “strong, smart, silly, intuitive, kind, generous, passionate and a deep listener” who was devoted to her late husband, Peter Materson and “the enormous circle of students and collaborators who were considered her chosen family.”

Masterson shared a photo of Glynn from her 80th birthday party, “before the worst of dementia and cancer took their toll.

Carlin Glynn, who won a Tony Award for her performance as the madam Mona Stangley in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and had strong supporting turns in the films Sixteen Candles and The Trip to Bountiful, has died. She was 83.

Glynn died July 13, her daughter, actress Mary Stuart Masterson (Fried Green Tomatoes, Benny & Joon), announced in an Instagram post. She died in upstate New York, and the cause was lung cancer.

“My mother, Carlin Glynn Masterson, passed away. I was with her. I will always be grateful for those last moments, no matter how hard,” she wrote. “Death is like birth in the oddest way. From my first breath to her last. This thread is as fragile as it is strong.

“She was the most graceful clumsy person you would ever meet. Strong, smart, silly, intuitive, kind, generous, passionate and a deep listener. She was devoted to my father...

Carlin Glynn, the Tony-winning star of Broadway hit The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, died July 13 from complications of dementia and cancer. She was 83 and her death was confirmed by her daughter, actress Mary Stuart Masterson.

Masterson posted on Instagram about her mother.

“She was the most graceful clumsy person you would ever meet. Strong, smart, silly, intuitive, kind, generous, passionate, and a deep listener. She was devoted to my father and to the enormous circle of students and collaborators who were considered her chosen family.”

Born on February 19, 1940 in Cleveland, Glynn was raised in Houston. She moved to New York to study at The Actors Studio under Stella Adler and Wynn Handman before moving back to Houston, where she met local actor Peter Masterson while working with him.

They married and relocated to New York City so that Masterson could continue his acting career. Glynn left the business to raise the couple’s children.

Carlin Glynn, Tony-winning star of “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and mother of Mary Stuart Masterson, died after a bout of dementia and cancer on July 13. She was 83.

Glynn’s daughter, Mary Stuart Masterson, confirmed the news in an Instagram post.

“My mother, Carlin Glynn Masterson, passed away. I was with her. I will always be grateful for those last moments, no matter how hard,” Masterson wrote. “Death is like birth in the oddest way. From my first breath to her last. This thread is as fragile as it is strong. She was the most graceful clumsy person you would ever meet. Strong, smart, silly, intuitive, kind, generous, passionate and a deep listener. She was devoted to my father and to the enormous circle of students and collaborators who were considered her chosen family.”

Glynn was an accomplished actor and singer, earning a Tony award in 1979 for her Broadway...

In 1983, audiences watched Tom Cruise dance in his parents’ living room in Paul Brickman’s adolescent drama “Risky Business.” The film became a cultural touchstone — with Cruise’s dance often imitated but never duplicated — that has endured for 40 years. Cruise took that success and has now become the biggest, if not the last, global movie star. But when this author watches “Risky Business,” it’s the story of Lana, the teenage sex worker who propels Cruise’s Joel on his quest towards running a brothel, that sticks out.

Actress Rebecca De Mornay was in her early twenties when she made “Risky Business” and has never truly gotten her flowers for it. It’s even more frustrating to consider that the actress went on to star in hits in her own right, including the 1992 thriller “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” and Disney’s 1993 adaptation of “The Three Musketeers.” De Mornay...

Exclusive: Tony Award nominee Vanessa Williams has joined the lead producing team for the Broadway-aimed A Wonderful World, a bio-musical about jazz icon Louis Armstrong starring James Monroe Iglehart.

Williams’ involvement comes as producers announce the full cast for the musical: In addition to the previously announced Iglehart as Armstrong, the principal cast of A Wonderful World will feature Ta’Rea Campbell as Lucille Wilson, Jennie Harney-Fleming as Lil Hardin, Brennyn Lark as Alpha Smith and Khalifa White as Daisy Parker.

Following Armstrong’s musical path from New Orleans to Chicago, A Wonderful World will premiere this year at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans (October 1-8) before moving to the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago (October 11-29). Producers plan to move the show to Broadway, although dates and other details have not been announced.

According to our current combined predictions, Jodie Comer (“Prima Facie”) is the frontrunner to win Best Actress in a Play at this year’s Tony Awards with 12/5 odds. She already won an Olivier a couple of months ago for her work in the West End production. She would be the fifth Tony winner in this category for a one-woman performance.

In Suzie Miller‘s one-woman show, Comer plays Tessa, a barrister from working-class origins who must deal with an unexpected event that forces her to confront the patriarchal power and morality of the law.

When it comes to solo performances at the Tonys, four have prevailed in this category before. In 1977 Julie Harris won her fifth and final competitive accolade for her portrayal of Emily Dickinson in William Luce‘s “The Belle of Amherst.” In 1986 Lily Tomlin won for playing multiple characters in Jane Wagner‘s “The Search for Signs...

After Cicely Tyson’s performance in the two-part CBS drama “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All” earned her a spot in the very first Best TV Movie/Miniseries Actress SAG Award lineup, it took 26 years for another Black woman to be recognized by the organization for an actual miniseries. The subset started by Tyson in 1995 now includes five actresses, with the latest entrant being “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” cast member Niecy Nash-Betts. If she takes this year’s prize, Nash-Betts will be the fifth Black woman to ever prevail in this category and the first to be honored for a multi-part limited program.

Besides Tyson and Nash-Betts, the remaining three Black actresses who have been nominated by the Screen Actors Guild for their work on miniseries are Michaela Coel, Kerry Washington, and Cynthia Erivo. These five performances account for 24% of the 21 Black female ones ever recognized in this category,...

Actors doing the absolute most in commitment to their character have a long history in the film industry. To achieve his coyote-esque look in Dan Gilroy's 2014 neo-noir "Nightcrawler," Jake Gyllenhaal dropped 30 pounds, while Christian Bale's extreme weight loss to play a boxer dealing with drug addiction in 2010's "The Fighter" earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his troubles. A comedic scene in Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street" wasn't working until Jonah Hill took a real sock in the jaw from co-star Jon Bernthal. But men aren't the only ones unafraid of getting physical for their roles; for John Sturges' western classic "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," Jo Van Fleet requested help from her co-star, a pre-"Spartacus" Kirk Douglas, to galvanize her for a tense scene by hitting her across the face.

Sturges' 1957 U.S. Western stars Van Fleet as Kate Fisher, a...

Who knew when the year began that a sequel to a 36-year-old movie starring its 60-year-old actor who headlined the original would be the box office champ so far this year? But “Top Gun: Maverick” starring Tom Cruise, which was released Aug. 23 on digital formats while still flying high in theaters is not only the No. 1 film of the year with a staggering haul of 683.4 million domestically and 720 million overseas. And the acclaimed film didn’t even play in China or Russia. “Top Gun: Maverick” is also the biggest film of Cruise’s career which began in 1981 with Franco Zeffirelli’s “Endless Love.”

And with the digital release, let’s relive 1986, the year we first felt the need for speed and flew into the danger zone. The year the original “Top Gun” took our breath away.

Top 10 Box Office Hits

Top Gun (natch)

Crocodile Dundee

Platoon

The Karate Kid Part...

Throughout 2021, we have been updating our “In Memoriam” photo gallery (view above). Scroll through to remember 33 entertainers from film, television, theater and music. Many were winners at the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and/or Tonys. Here is a closer look at just a few of those we celebrate in our gallery:

Legendary composer Stephen Sondheim died on November 26 at age 91. He was a seven-time Tony Award winner for “Company,” “Follies,” “A Little Night Music,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Into the Woods” and “Passion.” He received a lifetime achievement Tony in 2008. He was an Oscar winner for “Dick Tracy” and a seven-time Grammy winner. Other well-known shows were “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “Pacific Overtures,” Merrily We Roll Along,” “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Assassins” plus “West Side Story” and “Gypsy” as a lyricist. He was also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Kennedy Center Honors.

As predicted, Lois Smith won the Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Play for her moving turn in Matthew Lopez’s “The Inheritance.” Not only is this the veteran actress’ first career Tony win, but Smith has just become the oldest Tony winning actor in history. Talk about a victory being worth the wait!

Lois Smith is 90 years of age, having been born on November 3, 1930. This makes her two years older than the previous record holder for oldest Tony winning performer. That would be Cicely Tyson, who won a Tony for playing Carrie Watts in the 2018 revival of “The Trip To Bountiful” at age 88. That was Tyson’s only Tony nomination and win of her career, despite appearing in nine Broadway plays. Ironically, Smith also portrayed Carrie in a 2005 Off-Broadway revival of “Bountiful.” She won the Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Obie, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for that performance.

Our special In Memoriam photo gallery honoring the greats that have gone in 2021 has added another celebrated name. Five-time Emmy nominee Michael K. Williams, who is favored to win at the Emmy Awards later this month for “Lovecraft Country,” has died at age 54. You can also watch his recent acceptance speech when he won the 2021 Gold Derby TV Award.

Tour our gallery above featuring 26 celebrities from the entertainment worlds of music, film, television and Broadway. Here is a brief glance at some of those people being featured.

Michael Kenneth Williams died at age 54 on September 6. He was a four-time acting nominee at the Emmys for “Bessie,” “The Night Of,” “When They See Us” and “Lovecraft Country,” plus a producing nominee for “Vice.” He was well known for his TV role in “The Wire” and had film success in “Inherent Vice,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Gone Baby Gone” and “The Road.

Half a decade has passed since Lin-Manuel Miranda finished his Broadway run as the star of “Hamilton,” but the adulation for his work just keeps coming. The Tony-winning smash, which Miranda also wrote, experienced a surge in popularity after a filmed version featuring the entire original cast premiered on Disney+ last July. Miranda and six of his castmates have been recognized for their acting, which makes most of them part of an exclusive group of performers who have earned Tony and Emmy bids for the same role.

Just as they did at the 2016 Tonys, leading men Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. face each other directly in this year’s Best Movie/Limited Actor Emmy race. Nominated for their supporting turns are Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jonathan Groff, Anthony Ramos, and Phillipa Soo. Ramos is the only one to have not originally competed at the Tonys, as that slot was instead filled by Christopher Jackson.

By Susan King

Audra McDonald is the most lauded Broadway performer winning a whopping six Tony Awards in both musical and dramatic categories. And she may be receiving her seventh for the revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair du Lune” when the 74th annual Tonys take place Sept. 26th at the venerable Winter Garden Theatre.

Despite that record, it took a long time for Black artists to be acknowledged by the Tonys, which were first handed out in 1947. It wasn’t until 2004 that a Black actress won for a lead performance in a play: Phylicia Rashad broke this barrier with her win for a revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” Hansberry was the first Black artist to be nominated for Best Play in 1960 for the original production of “A Raisin in the Sun” as were its director Lloyd Richards and stars, Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil.

Antoine Fuqua will direct and produce a new film adaptation of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning look at greed, family, death and sexual repression.

The “Training Day” and “Magnificent Seven” director will join forces with producers Stephen C. Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey, who backed a 2008 revival of the show that made history with a sold-out 19-week run as the first all-African American production on Broadway. It was also the highest-grossing play during that season.

The show was directed by Debbie Allen and featured Terrence Howard, Anika Noni Rose, Phylicia Rashad and James Earl Jones. The original play centers on Brick, a former athlete turned alcoholic, his sexually frustrated wife Maggie and Big Daddy, the ailing and wealthy family patriarch.

The filmmakers say the movie “will combine elements of the play with new storylines and weave them together to bring the production to the big screen.

Among this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Supporting Actress is Glenn Close for her performance in “Hillbilly Elegy.” She has previously been nominated seven times before, but still has yet to win, making her the actress with the most losses and no victories in Oscar history. So will the eighth nomination be the charm for her?

In Netflix’s film adaptation of J.D. Vance‘s 2016 bestselling memoir, J.D. (Gabriel Basso) is studying law at Yale University when he receives an emergency phone call from his sister, Lindsay (Haley Bennett), who tells him their mother, Bev (Amy Adams), has overdosed, so he drives home overnight to once again deal with his family. Over the course of the story, he reminisces about his childhood, which includes memories of his grandmother, Mamaw (Close).

SEE17 best Glenn Close movies, ranked

Despite a lot of negative reviews for the latest from director Ron Howard,...

While longer Best Actress-nominated performances are rarer than ones contending for Best Actor, there has been a significant amount of them over 92 years. Indeed, 44 have surpassed 90 minutes of screen time, and the overall longest nominated performance of all time comes from this category. Here is a look at the 10 longest ever nominated for the award:

10. Rosalind Russell (“Auntie Mame”)

1 hour, 48 minutes, 23 seconds (75.59% of the film)

Over the course of 16 years, Russell competed for the Best Actress Oscar four times, and her final bid was for playing an eccentric socialite who is tasked with raising her nephew. All four of her nominations were for relatively long performances, averaging one hour, 30 minutes, and 42 seconds and over 71%. She never won, and lost in 1959 to Susan Hayward, who was on her fifth and final nomination for her one-hour, 15-minute, and 26-second performance in “I Want to Live!”.

9. Isabelle Huppert (“Elle”)

1 hour, 49 minutes, 55 seconds (83.87% of...

Although Ned Beatty’s six-minute performance in “Network” is the shortest to ever be nominated for Best Supporting Actor, eight Best Supporting Actress nominees have boasted even lower screen times. While only 17 performances under 10 minutes have been recognized in the male category, there have been 36 on the female side, from the first ceremony to Laura Dern’s first supporting bid for “Wild” in 2015. Here is a list of the 10 shortest, which has remained unchanged since 1999 (and here are the 10 shortest winners):

10. Geraldine Page (“The Pope of Greenwich Village”)

6 minutes, 6 seconds (5.06% of the film)

Page’s seventh acting nomination and fourth in the supporting category came for her small role as Mrs. Ritter, the mother of a slain police officer. Though she created a memorable character, she lost to first-time nominee Peggy Ashcroft, whose performance in 1984’s “A Passage to India” clocks in at 32 minutes and 16 seconds. The loss made...

Veteran actress Cicely Tyson, whose career spanned almost seven decades, died Thursday.

She was 96.

“I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing,” Tyson’s manager, Larry Thompson, said in a statement to Variety.

“Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all the ornaments of her personal and professional life. Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree.”

A cause of death has not been revealed.

On TV screens, Tyson made history in 1963 with her role as secretary Jane Foster in on East Side/West Side, making her the first Black actress to co-star in a TV drama.

The actress went on to guest-star or recur in many series over the years, Guiding Light, The Outer Limits, Touched by an Angel, House of Cards, How to Get Away With Murder, and Madam Secretary.

Cicely Tyson, the trailblazing Hollywood icon whose nearly 70-year career spanned projects including “Sounder,” “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and the Tony-winning “The Trip to Bountiful,” died on Thursday at the age of 96.

In 2019, TheWrap interviewed Tyson about her work on ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder” (for which she received five Emmy nominations) and the legendary career that brought her to that point.

During the conversation, Tyson reflected on the serendipitous moment when her impressive “sashay” took her from model to lead actress overnight. She also recalled the moment that convinced her to use her platform as a Black woman in Hollywood to advocate for social change — a decision that nearly derailed her career.

Read the full interview with Cicely Tyson below.

If you’re nominated again, this would be your fourth nomination for “How to Get Away With Murder” at the Emmys. And last year you received that honorary Oscar.

Honorary Oscar winner Cicely Tyson passed today at the age of 96. During a career that spanned seven decades, Tyson appeared in dozens of films, TV series, telefilms and on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for The Trip to Bountiful in 2013. She might be best known to younger audiences for her role in the hit ABC drama How to Get Away with Murder, on which she recurred as Ophelia Harkness, mother of lead character Annalise Harkness (Viola Davis).

Tyson made her silver-screen debut in 1957’s Carib Gold and went on to appear in such films as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1967), George Cukor’s The Blue Bird (1976) — which also featured Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda and Ava Gardner — A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich (1978) and 1981 Richard Pryor comedy Bustin’ Loose, Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) and Madea’s Family Reunion (2006) and Best Picture...

The world suffered a great loss when Cicely Tyson died on Thursday. The Emmy- and Tony-winning actress's manager, Larry Thompson, announced her death in a statement to Variety that read: "I have managed Miss Tyson's career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing. Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all the ornaments of her personal and professional life. Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree." She was 96.

Cicely made her film debut with her role in 1957's Twelve Angry Men, and she starred in numerous TV shows and movies, including Sounder, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, The Help, and How to Get Away with Murder. She also appeared in several Broadway plays, such as The Trip to Bountiful and The Gin Game. In 2018, she made history by...

Cicely Tyson’s co-stars and admirers shared their remembrances of the late Emmy and Tony-winning actor, who died Thursday at 96.

Viola Davis, who starred opposite Tyson, playing mother and daughter for six seasons on “How to Get Away with Murder,” shared a lengthy tribute to the legend alongside a photo from the set.

“I’m devastated. My heart is just broken. I loved you so much!! You were everything to me! You made me feel loved and seen and valued in a world where there is still a cloak of invisibility for us dark chocolate girls. You gave me permission to dream,” Davis wrote in her caption. “Because it was only in my dreams that I could see the possibilities in myself. I’m not ready for you to be my angel yet. But…I also understand that it’s only when the last person who has a memory of you dies,...

Cicely Tyson, the trailblazing actress died whose career spanned more than six decades, died Thursday afternoon, her manager Larry Thompson confirmed. She was 96.

From the start of her career, Tyson resolved to portray strong, positive, and realistic images of black women onscreen, and for many, she represented an enduring strength. Tyson received an Oscar nomination in 1973 for Martin Ritt’s drama Sounder (and was finally given an honorary Oscar in 2018), and became famous to a wider audience for her starring role in the 1974 TV movie The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,...

Groundbreaking actress Cicely Tyson is dead at age 96. Her representatives reported the news that Tyson died on January 28. She received many awards and honors during her career across film, television and Broadway, especially in later years.

Tyson was a nominee at the Academy Awards for Best Actress in the 1972 film “Sounder” and received an Honorary Oscar in 2018. She was a 16-time Emmy nominee and three-time winner for “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.” She was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2020. She won a Tony Award for “The Trip to Bountiful” in 2013 and received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015 and Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Gold Derby interviewed Tyson just this past summer about her fifth Emmy nomination for her guest starring role on “How to Get Away with Murder.” She played Ophelia Harkness, the mother of Annalise Keating (Viola Davis...

America doesn’t have a system of knights or dames, as Britain, Australia and New Zealand do. If there were such a system, Cicely Tyson would have undoubtedly been honored. But Tyson, who died on Thursday, a month after her 96th birthday, didn’t need any government-sanctioned titles: Admirers such as Ava DuVernay, Tyler Perry and Shonda Rhimes call her Queen Cicely, which was much more appropriate for her.

Her 70-year career was filled with landmark works, including the film “Sounder” (1972) and TV’s “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (1974), “Roots” (1977), “A Woman Called Moses”, and “The Trip to Bountiful” (2014), among many others. There was also her recurring role in “How to Get Away With Murder,” in which she was Emmy-nominated five times, most recently in 2020, for playing the mother of lead character Annalise Keating (Viola Davis).

In 2018, Whoopi Goldberg told Variety, “When you think about artistry and elegance in acting,...

Veteran actress Cicely Tyson, whose career in Hollywood spanned nearly seven decades, died Thursday. She was 96.

“I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing,” Tyson’s manager, Larry Thompson, said in a statement to our sister pub Variety. “Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all the ornaments of her personal and professional life. Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree.” (A cause of death has not been revealed.)

More from TVLineCloris Leachman, Legendary Comedic Actress and Emmy Winner,...

Cicely Tyson, the iconic and incomparable screen and stage actress and Black American trailblazer, died on Thursday. She was 96.

Tyson, whose acting career spanned more than six decades, broke ground as a Black actress who resolved only to portray strong, positive and realistic images of Black women on screen. Her convictions resulted in astonishing performances in projects such as the films “Sounder” and “The Help,” the TV movie “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” and the 2013 Broadway production of “The Trip to Bountiful,” for which she won the Tony.

Tyson earned an Academy Award best actress nomination for “Sounder” in 1973. The following year she won a best lead actress and a special outstanding actress of the year Emmy for “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” She later one an Emmy for the 1994 miniseries “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All,” and five more nominations, including one just last year for playing...

Emmy- and Tony-winning actress Cicely Tyson, who distinguished herself in theater, film and television, died on Thursday afternoon. She was 96.

“I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing,” her manager, Larry Thompson, said in a statement. “Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all the ornaments of her personal and professional life. Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree.”

Her memoir “Just As I Am” was published on Tuesday.

Tyson broke into movies with the 1959 Harry Belafonte film “Odds Against Tomorrow,” followed by “The Comedians,” “The Last Angry Man,” “A Man Called Adam” and “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.” Refusing to participate in the blaxploitation movies that became popular in the late ’60s, she waited until 1972 to return to the screen in the drama “Sounder,” which captured several...

This year’s crop of Drama Guest Actress nominees feature acting legends, returning Emmy favorites and a first time nominee. The guest acting categories frequently provide the biggest surprise winners each year, and those shockers often come down to a knockout episode submission. We have analyzed the submissions of each actress to give you the lowdown on which contenders might walk away with the trophy thanks to their smart episode selection. Who will win at the Creative Arts Emmys on Saturday, September 19? Follow the links below for each episode analysis.

See 2020 Emmy nominations complete list: All the nominees for the 72nd Emmy Awards

Alexis Bledel, “The Handmaid’s Tale”

This is Bledel’s third Emmy nomination for playing Ofglen/Emily on Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” She won for Guest Actress on her first try in 2017 before being bumped up to Supporting Actress in 2018. This year she has submitted the Season...

While Meryl Streep has been nominated a record number of times at the Oscars, she’s only won three times with bids #2, #4 and #17. That track record mean she has had to endure a staggering amount of losses at the Academy Awards. Surely, Streep was deserving of at least one other win from among these. After reviewing the roster of her thwarted bids for Oscar glory, be sure to vote in our poll as to which of these was the most egregious loss.

Streep lost her first Best Supporting Actress race for “The Deer Hunter” (1978) to Maggie Smith (“California Suite”; her third, for “Adaptation” (2002) to Catherine Zeta-Jones (“Chicago”); and her fourth (and most recent) for “Into the Woods” (2015) to Patricia Arquette (“Boyhood”).

Streep lost the first of her Best Actress bids back in 1981 to Katharine Hepburn. She was up for “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” but Hepburn won her record fourth Best...

Image Source: YouTube user Dola

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Many recognize Condola Rashad from her Tony-nominated performances in Saint Joan, A Doll's House, Part 2, The Trip to Bountiful, and Stick Fly or as Kate Stacker on Showtime's Billions, but few know her music alter ego Dola. However, that's all about to change. On July 22, the 33-year-old dropped her debut EP, Space Daughter, featuring five tracks titled "Blue," "Give Up the Gold," "Running in Place," "What I Said," and "Too Fire." Along with the songs, Rashad released accompanying music videos for each track, and they're all so visually stunning. Personally, my favorite is "Blue."

Ahead of the album's release, Popsugar chatted with Rashad about everything from how Space Daughter came into fruition to what she hopes fans take away from the EP. She also explained how her collaboration with Samsung has helped her stay inspired and connected during the pandemic.

Harry Clein, 82, co-founder of Hollywood PR agencies Clein + Feldman and Clein + White, died June 18 in Atlanta. He suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.

I first met Clein in Manhattan in 1978 when I worked in the United Artists publicity bullpen at 729 Seventh Ave. He represented Alan J. Pakula on the western “Comes a Horseman,” starring James Caan and Jane Fonda. He admired my Annie Hall vests and fedoras; we bonded over his encyclopedic knowledge of film and Broadway musicals, and remained friends as he founded bicoastal press agency Clein + Feldman in 1981 with Bruce Feldman. Their first client, Pakula’s “Sophie’s Choice,” won Meryl Streep her second acting Oscar.

When I first moved to Los Angeles as the West Coast Editor of Film Comment, Clein + Feldman hired me to be the unit publicist on what would turn out to be Sam Peckinpah’s last movie, “The Osterman Weekend” (1983), starring Rutger Hauer, Dennis Hopper,...

Harry Clein, 82, co-founder of Hollywood PR agencies Clein + Feldman and Clein + White, died June 18 in Atlanta. He suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.

I first met Clein in Manhattan in 1978 when I worked in the United Artists publicity bullpen at 729 Seventh Ave. He represented Alan J. Pakula on the western “Comes a Horseman,” starring James Caan and Jane Fonda. He admired my Annie Hall vests and fedoras; we bonded over his encyclopedic knowledge of film and Broadway musicals, and remained friends as he founded bicoastal press agency Clein + Feldman in 1981 with Bruce Feldman. Their first client, Pakula’s “Sophie’s Choice,” won Meryl Streep her second Best Actress Oscar.

When I first moved to Los Angeles as the West Coast Editor of Film Comment, Clein + Feldman hired me to be the unit publicist on what would turn out to be Sam Peckinpah’s last movie, “The Osterman Weekend” (1983), starring Rutger Hauer,...

Harry Clein, a veteran film publicist who wrote the original press notes for Star Wars and helped develop the innovative internet campaign for The Blair Witch Project, died June 18 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder in Atlanta. He was 82.

His death was announced by spokesperson Mark Pogachefsky.

Clein, along with Bruce Feldman, cofounded the Clein + Feldman agency in 1981. Their first client was director Alan J. Pakula and his film Sophie’s Choice.

With offices on both coasts and quickly developing a reputation as an innovative shop for independent distributors, producers and filmmakers, the agency became Clein + White in 1989, with the addition of Cara White as a partner and the departure of Feldman for a studio career. Clein + White closed in 2000, with Clein focusing on producing and marketing consultation. He also taught at the Los Angeles Film School.

Earlier in his career, Clein was a unit publicist on such films as All the President’s Men,...

Cicely Tyson, whose more than seven decades of work across stage, screen and TV includes iconic small-screen roles as Jane Pittman, Coretta Scott King and the mother of Rosa Parks, was unveiled Monday as the recipient of the Peabody Awards’ Career Achievement Award. The honor is bestowed on individuals whose work and commitment to broadcasting and digital media have left an indelible mark on the field and in American culture.

Tyson has been nominated for 13 Emmys in all and won two for 1974’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, the start of a run that included such iconic TV series as Roots (1977), King (1978), The Women of Brewster Place (1989), Always Outnumbered (1998), A Lesson Before Dying (1999), Jewel (2002) and The Rosa Parks Story (2002).

Her TV career began in 1951 and also included credits from Naked City, I Spy and Mission: Impossible to Gunsmoke and East Side/West Side. Most recently she has appeared in...

Cicely Tyson has been selected as this year's Peabody career achievement award recipient.

In recognizing the veteran actress, the Peabody Awards praised Tyson for "transforming how African Americans are considered on and off screen," calling her a "foundational figure in the advancement of meaningful programming and social change through her performances."

Appearing in 23 TV programs and series from 1951-70, Tyson has small-screen credits that include roles in East Side/West Side, Gunsmoke, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Roots, A Lesson Before Dying, The Trip to Bountiful, House of Cards, How to Get Away With ...

Cicely Tyson has been selected as this year's Peabody career achievement award recipient.

In recognizing the veteran actress, the Peabody Awards praised Tyson for "transforming how African Americans are considered on and off screen," calling her a "foundational figure in the advancement of meaningful programming and social change through her performances."

Appearing in 23 TV programs and series from 1951-70, Tyson has small-screen credits that include roles in East Side/West Side, Gunsmoke, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Roots, A Lesson Before Dying, The Trip to Bountiful, House of Cards, How to Get Away With ...

The Lifetime network has long had a reputation for mediocre films and dramas with a campy aesthetic.In recent years, it has made an effort to distance itself from that renown, investing in the kind of content that draws a larger, more mainstream audience — and hopefully awards — as well as overall industry esteem. One such project just might be the biopic, “The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel,” which premiered on April 11 to much fanfare, especially resonating most with one specific demo: black women. As a man who watched the film, and didn’t quite understand its appeal, instead of writing a critique of it, I asked black women viewers to share their thoughts on why it resounded so much.

To be sure, Lifetime hasn’t completely abandoned the kind of tabloidy women-in-peril stories that they once thrived on, but it has bolstered its efforts recently with Emmy-nominated films, from...