Cathy Tyson

Early life

Born in Kingston-upon-Thames, London, the daughter of a Trinidadian barrister father and an English social worker mother, Tyson and her family moved to Liverpool when she was about two years old.

Career

Tyson attended the Everyman Youth Theatre in her teens. She dropped out of college at 17 to pursue an acting career at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre, before joining the RSC in 1984. Also in 1984, Tyson made an early TV appearance playing Joanna in Scully.

Tyson's film debut was in Mona Lisa (1986) as Simone, an elegant prostitute. Her other films include Priest and The Serpent and the Rainbow. Probably her best-known television appearance was also as a prostitute, Carol Johnson, in the ITV series Band of Gold.

In 2007, Tyson joined the cast of two long-running television series. She played headmistress Miss Gayle in the BBC One school drama Grange Hill, and featured in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale as single mother Andrea Hayworth.

Tyson played Herodia in BBC Three's Liverpool Nativity, a modern adaptation of the traditional Christmas story. Recorded as a live event in Liverpool city centre on 16 December 2007, it was broadcast several times over the Christmas period and repeated the following year.

In September 2009, Tyson enrolled at the adult learning centre City Lit on an access to higher education course in creative studies. A year later she began a degree in English and Drama at Brunel University.

Charity work

Tyson hosted a charity event for the Sick Children's Trust on 17 November 2007, and again on 1 November 2008. The event, organised by Friends of Eckersley House, a committee supporting the charity's Leeds house, was held at the Haven Golden Sands resort in Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire. She is also one of the Honorary Patrons of the London children's charity Scene & Heard.

Personal life

Tyson has one child, Jack (born June 1988), from her former marriage to actor and comedian Craig Charles.