Council house girl who grew up to be toast of Broadway
I owe it all to my brave single mother, says UK actress who wins top US theatre prize
SHE was brought up by a struggling single mother in social housing.
But Cynthia Erivo had a raw singing talent – and her family were convinced that one day her name would be up in lights.
Yesterday the girl from South London proved them right when she found herself the toast of Broadway, picking up a prestigious Best Actress Tony for her role in The Color Purple.
Now the 29-year- old is destined for even greater stardom on the big screen after winning fans across Hollywood.
Miss Erivo has been quietly making a name for herself in the West End over the last few years with roles in Sister Act and I Can’t Sing! The X Factor Musical. But her big break came with the Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of The Color Purple where she played the lead role of Celie Harris.
When the production transferred to the US last year, Miss Erivo was the surprise choice to carry on. That move has seen her lauded by the great and good of America’s theatreland, who have called her a ‘force of nature’.
Director Steven Spielberg, whose 1985 film adaptation of the story by Alice Walker was Oscar-nominated, is among her fans as is Whoopi Goldberg who was cast in the part of poor and uneducated Celie by Spielberg.
Miss Erivo’s win on Sunday was a dream come true for her health visitor mother Edith, who predicted when her daughter was just two-years-old that she would be a star.
Miss Erivo has made no secret that the key to her success is the unwavering love and support of her mother who raised her and her sister Stephanie, 26, a physiotherapy student, single-handedly.
Recalling how Edith had a sixth sense she would grow up to entertain audiences, Miss Erivo said: ‘She had this baby book about me, and in it there was a section asking what she thought her child would be. At the age of two, she wrote that she thought I would be a singer and an actress. I don’t know why she wrote that down, but she said I hummed while I ate.’
She then started singing for friends and relatives at the age of five, and Miss Erivo added: ‘As far as I was concerned, whatever I was doing was making people happy. By making people happy, it made me feel happy. So I knew I wanted to continue feeling like that and making other people feel like that.’
Miss Erivo, who grew up in a housing co- operative flat in Stockwell, was then enrolled in a youth drama group at the age of 11, from which she said she ‘has not looked back’.
Praising the efforts of her mother in the past, Miss Erivo said she ‘did the job of many mothers and fathers combined’. She also credits her strong Catholic upbringing for her work ethic.
She said: ‘Watching mum work hard made me do the same. I’ve watched her since I was little and I’ve picked up on how hard she works, and the fire she has in her belly.’
The avid reader once dreamed of becoming a spinal surgeon before combining her interest in science and the arts to study music psychology at the University of East London.
So when she dropped out to apply for a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Miss Erivo was understandably concerned about her mother’s reaction. Yet when she told her she had been awarded a place on the course her mother was ‘over the moon’.
As well as her acting and singing talent, she is a self- confessed ‘fit fiend’ who posts videos of her muscle-building routines online. She needs a strict workout schedule to perform on Broadway up to eight times a week
The actress has been outspoken about the opportunities for black actors in America. She said last year: ‘The thing that disturbs me the most, being in England, is that on the screen we don’t see very many of us – there aren’t very many black girls. I don’t think it’s different to be a black girl in England than it is to be a black girl in America. We all collectively share in a pain of displacement and not feeling like we quite belong in places.’