Tony Award-nominated actor Earle Hyman, a driving force in the history of black theatre in America, died November 17 at the age of 91.
Mr. Hyman lived at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey. His death was confirmed by a representative for The Actors Fund.
A year after his 1980 Tony nomination for his work in Edward Albee’s The Lady from Dubuque, Mr. Hyman took on one of the greatest roles in American theatre, the towering James Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, which Joseph Papp brought to the Public Theater. In 1987, he succeeded Morgan Freeman as Hoke Coleburn in Alfred Uhry's Off Broadway success, Driving Miss Daisy,
However, it was his recurring television role as Bill Cosby’s father on NBC’s long-running series The Cosby Show that introduced his work to audiences across the country.
