Do you remember the series The Courtship of Eddie’s Father? It began in 1969 and ran for three seasons. Bill Bixby starred as Eddie’s father — a widowed magazine editor — and Brandon Cruz played his adorable young lad.
Among the many guest stars on the series was Cicely Tyson. In a first year episode from 50 years ago, titled, “Guess Who’s Coming to Lunch,” Tyson guested as a single mother of a friend of Eddie’s. She gets invited to dinner sight unseen by Bixby’s character, Tom. He is astonished to discover, as he greets her at the door of his apartment, that’s she is African American.
Tyson, astonishingly well preserved at 95, was at TCA Thursday as one of the stars of Cherish the Day. The OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network series hails from busy executive producer Ava DuVernay. Xosha Roquemore and Alano Miller star as a young couple in love; Tyson stars as Roquemore’s character’s suspicious mother.
Not wanting to try the patience of the room, I waited till after the session to ask about Eddie’s Father. Tyson was heading to electronic press sessions conducted elsewhere in the press tour hotel. She still walks under her own steam, albeit escorted Thursday by two young men.
She literally took a step back when I asked if she remembered shooting the classic Eddie episode.
“Yes!” she said. The creator of that series, who also co-starred on the series as quirky magazine photographer Norman Tinker, was James Komack. Tyson remembered that she was working on a play in New York when Komack came calling. She was surprised that he wanted her enough at the time to fly her out to Los Angeles just to shoot the one episode.
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The inter-racial dating element of the episode was ground-breaking on a broadcast network sitcom at the time. Just a year or so earlier, some States would not air an episode of Star Trek where Kirk kisses Uhura.
Tyson’s reaction when she was told her character would be on a date opposite Bill Bixby was, “But he’s white!”
Tyson is best remembered for her award-winning performances in “Sounder” (1972) and “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (1974) as well as Roots. Her IMDb credits date almost to the dawn of broadcast television, starting with something called Frontiers of Faith in 1951. Shortly after shooting her Courtship episode, in 1970, she guested on the generally forgotten (but still pretty interesting, despite everything) The Bill Cosby Show (1969-71). Gunsmoke and Mission: Impossible were two other, mainstream, early ’70s credits. Recently, she’s appeared in Madam Secretary, How to Get Away with Murder and House of Cards.
Astonishing, really, to not only live and thrive for that long, but to have a television career that spans eight decades. As DuVernay said during the session, “Look at her!”
Cherish the Day premieres next month on OWN.
