Cathy Tyson

She won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2022 for her performance in the film Help.

• Name — Cathy Tyson • Birth Name — Catherine Tyson • Born — 12 June 1965 • Birthplace — Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, England • Occupation — Actress • Years Active — 1984–present • Children — 1

Tyson was born in Kingston-upon-Thames on 12 June 1965, the daughter of an English social worker mother and a Trinidadian barrister father. She grew up in Liverpool, having moved there with her parents when she was two years old. She was a pupil at St Winifred's School in Toxteth, Liverpool. She attended Liverpool's Everyman Youth Theatre in her teens, and dropped out of college at 17 to pursue an acting career there.

Tyson joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984, taking the lead role in their performance of Golden Girls. 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, a performance which brought her critical acclaim. Her other films include Business as Usual (1987), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), The Lost Language of Cranes (1991), Priest (1994) and The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2001). 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. She completed a degree in English and Drama at Brunel University in 2013. In 2018 Tyson played DI Siobhan Clarke in the stage play Rebus: Long Shadows, written by Rona Munro and Ian Rankin. In 2020, Tyson was cast as the second titular character in the CBeebies series JoJo & Gran Gran. In 2021, she guest starred in an episode of TV drama McDonald & Dodds. In 2021, Tyson also appeared in Channel 4 film Help playing Poll, an elderly resident of a care home during the COVID-19 pandemic; the following year she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. She directed and acted in a short film, Lilian (2022) about the WAAF Lilian Bader. In 2023 she appeared as Maureen in the film Bank of Dave. She also produced the short The Consequence. In 2024 she played Sam in Luna Carmoon's debut feature Hoard, and Mother Superior Raquella Berto-Anirul in Dune: Prophecy. She also played one of the Furies, Alecto, in the TV series Kaos. Over Christmas 2024 she performed as Mrs Higgins in My Fair Lady at the Curve Theatre, Leicester. In 2025 Cathy appears in the third series of BBC drama Blue Lights.

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.

Tyson married actor and comedian Craig Charles in 1984. They divorced in 1989.