Stage and screen legend Ruby Dee, who personified grace, grit and progress at a time when African-American women were given little space in movies and on stage, died Wednesday in New Rochelle, New York. She was 91.The death was confirmed Thursday by a family member, who declined to answer any questions pending the release of a statement.
The Cleveland-born, New York-raised actress and activist — winner of an Emmy, a Grammy and a Screen Actors Guild award, among others — not only starred on Broadway ("Take It From the Top!," "Two Hah Hahs and a Homeboy"), film (Spike Lee's 'Do the Right Thing' and Jungle Fever), and TV (All God’s Children, Feast of All Saints), but, with her husband and collaborator Ossie Davis, was a major figure in the Civil Rights movement.
In 2005, Dee and Davis received the National Civil Rights Museum's Lifetime Achievement Freedom award. Davis died in February of that year.
Dee's first film role came in 1949, in the musical drama That Man of Mine. She played Rachel Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story in 1950, and co-starred opposite Nat King Cole, Eartha Kitt and Cab Calloway in St. Louis Blues in 1958.
In 1961, she recreated her stage triumph as Ruth Younger in "A Raisin in the Sun," opposite Sidney Poitier, her Broadway costar.
Dee's soap opera roles included "Alma Miles" in Peyton Place and "Martha Frazier" in The Guiding Light (opposite James Earl Jones).
She appeared in the 1979 TV movie Roots: The Next Generation, and costarred with Davis in their own short-lived 1980-81 show, Ossie and Ruby!
The two played contentious neighbors who embodied, and recaled, the social unrest of the '60s in Lee's Do the Right Thing in 1989. She earned her sole Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress, for American Gangster in 2007.
Her final film was the still-in-production crime drama King Dog, opposite Ice-T.
It would be great if PBS would show or post on their website, the Ossie and Ruby TV show from the 80s. I got a chance to see it when PBS aired it again in the mid 80s when I was old enough to enjoy their poetry and theater performances and I loved them instantly. Seeing them in addition to a few other theater performers and I would soon be on my way to a life long love affair with the theater.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great if PBS or PBS.org would re-air and/or stream those episodes because I am sure I didn't get to see most of the series and I think a new generation would also enjoy seeing them.
Ms. Ruby has gone on to join her Beloved Ossie. How wonderful it was to have her when we did.
Maya Angelou last week, Ruby Dee this week...my poetry and artistry seems to be leaving us awfully fast :(