THE magnificent ciely tyson

Cicely Tyson is one class act. The actress has brought dignity and strength to many of the characters she's portrayed over the years not limited to the 1977 TV miniseries Roots and the 1972 powerful film, Sounder. Two more TV movies, 1974's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and 1977's Wilma, both had a very powerful effect on me when I watched them when they first aired. Tyson has helped to influence the roles of African-American women in film and television away from predominantly stereotypical background characters to influential history-makers and strong women at the story's center.This is also true for Tyson's role as the central character in the 1997 made-for-TV movie, Ms. Scrooge. Here, Ebenita Scrooge is a successful banker who loves Christmas because people always over-spend and over-borrow money and she makes a profit from this. In a re-telling of Charles Dickens' classic tale, Scrooge is visited by her former boss Maude Marley (played by Katherine Helmond) who warns her about her greed