Beloved movie star Cicely Tyson has died, aged 96.
Her longtime manager, Larry Thompson, confirmed the sad news on Thursday - two days after the release of her memoir, Just As I Am - with a statement.
"I have managed Miss Tyson's career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing," it read.
"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," Thompson mourned.
The multi-Emmy winner's credits included The Help, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, in which she played a woman born into slavery, and Sounder, in which she portrayed a member of a Depression-era sharecropper family.
She also starred in TV drama How to Get Away with Murder, playing the mother of Viola Davis' character, Annalise Harkness.
Cicely began her career as a model and landed her first acting role on the U.S. TV series Frontiers of Faith in 1951.
She was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and she received an Honorary Oscar in 2018.
