Cicely Tyson thought Miles Davies was haunting her after he died.
Cicely Tyson
The ‘How To Get Away with Murder’ actress – who passed away earlier this week aged 96 – found that whenever she stepped into a taxi or inside a department store for a year after her ex-husband passed away in 1991, she’d hear a snatch of his music.
Speaking in the final interview she gave before her death, Cicely said: “It was as though Miles was following me around.
“Everywhere I went, his music would be playing. I’d say to him, ‘OK, OK, I know you’re with me.’ ”
The former couple first met through a friend in 1965 and though Cicely initially rejected the jazz legend’s approaches to take her out, she eventually gave in because she found him so “fascinating”.
She recalled: “I have never met a man quite like him.
“He was fascinating. He would be standing in front of me talking, and then he would say something to me, and I thought to myself, ‘This man isn’t the same man I was talking to five minutes ago. It’s a different person.’ ”
The ‘Sounder’ actress believes Miles’ problems with drink and drugs stemmed from “insecurity”.
She explained: “He said to me, ‘What’s all the fuss about? I’m just playing a horn.’ I wanted him to understand why all of these people were raving about him and his music. I wanted him to know that it was real.
“But you know what I’ve learnt in life? People who are born with genius don’t understand what it is.”
And Cicely insisted Miles wasn’t the “bad man” he was portrayed to be.
Speaking in The Sunday Times Magazine, she said: “This bad man that everybody talks about wasn’t him at all. He was very vulnerable and he was trying to protect himself. What he showed me was the sensitivity of his being.”
After years of his infidelity, the actress eventually walked out on Miles in 1989 and he died two years later from respiratory failure, but Cicely doesn’t think it would have been different if she’d stayed.
Asked if she wondered if she could have done more to save him, she said: “That was beyond me. It’s an act of God, my dear.
“And I always recognise when I have done the best I can.”