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Legendary author Maya Angelou dies

feature Grand Forks,ND
Legendary author Maya Angelou dies
Grand Forks ND 2220 South Washington

Winston-Salem, NC (CNN) -- Maya Angelou, a renowned poet, novelist and actress whose work defied description under a simple label, has died, her literary agent, Helen Brann, said Wednesday.



She spent her early years studying dance and drama in San Francisco, but dropped out at age 14, instead becoming the city's first African-American female cable car conductor.

Angelou later returned to high school to finish her diploma and gave birth a few weeks after graduation. While the 17-year-old single mother waited tables to support her son, she acquired a passion for music and dance, and toured Europe in the mid-1950s in the opera production "Porgy and Bess." In 1957, she recorded her first album, "Calypso Lady."

In 1958, Angelou become a part of the Harlem Writers Guild in New York and also played a queen in "The Blacks," an off-Broadway production by French dramatist Jean Genet.


"I created myself," she has said. "I have taught myself so much."

Angelou was born April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. She grew up between St. Louis and the then-racially-segregated town of Stamps, Arkansas.



From the silence, a louder voice was born.

Her list of friends is as impressive as her illustrious career. Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey referred to her as "sister friend." She counted Martin Luther King Jr., with whom she worked during the Civil Rights movement, among her friends. King was assassinated on her birthday.

Angelou spoke at least six languages, and worked at one time as a newspaper editor in Egypt and Ghana. During that period, she wrote "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," launching the first in a series of autobiographical books.



Before making it big, the 6-foot-tall wordsmith also worked as a cook and sang with a traveling road show. "Look where we've all come from ... coming out of darkness, moving toward the light," she once said. "It is a long journey, but a sweet one, bittersweet."

CNN's Marlena Baldacci contributed to this report.