Background and career
Ruby Dee (born Ruby Ann Wallace; October 27, 1922 – June 11, 2014) was an American actress. She was married to Ossie Davis, with whom she frequently performed until his death in 2005. She received numerous accolades, including an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Obie Award, and a Drama Desk Award, as well as a nomination for an Academy Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1995, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2000, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. Dee started her career with the American Negro Theatre. She met her future husband working together on the play Jeb (1946). She originated the Broadway roles of Ruth Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and reprised the role in the 1961 film and Lutiebell Gussie Mae Jenkins in the Ossie Davis play Purlie Victorious (1961) and reprised the role in the 1963 film. She made her film debut in That Man of Mine (1946) before landing leading roles in films such as The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), Edge of the City (1957), Take a Giant Step (1959), and Buck and the Preacher (1972). She also acted in the Ossie Davis film Black Girl (1972), and later in the Spike Lee films Do the Right Thing (1989) and Jungle Fever (1991). For her performance in American Gangster (2007), Dee was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Female Actor in a Supporting Role. Dee received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her roles in The Doctors and the Nurses (1964) and Decoration Day (1990). She was nominated for her other roles in Roots: The Next Generations (1979), Lincoln (1988), China Beach (1990), and Evening Shade (1993). She also acted in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979), Long Day's Journey into Night (1982), Go Tell It on the Mountain (1985), The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson (1990), and The Stand (1994). She voiced Alice the Great in the Nick Jr. series Little Bill from 1999 to 2004.
Dee was born Ruby Ann Wallace on October 27, 1922, in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Gladys (née Hightower) and Marshall Edward Nathaniel Wallace, a cook, waiter and porter. After her mother left the family, Dee's father remarried, to Emma Amelia Benson, a schoolteacher. Dee was raised in Harlem, New York. Prior to attending Hunter College High School, she studied at Public Schools 119 and 136. Then, she went on to graduate from Hunter College with a degree in Romance languages in 1945. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta.
Dee joined the American Negro Theatre as an apprentice, working with Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Hilda Simms. She made her Broadway debut portraying a Native in the play South Pacific (1943). She played the title role in the Eugene O'Neill play Anna Lucasta. She met her future husband Ossie Davis in the post-World War II play Jeb (1946). That same year she was in her first onscreen role in the musical That Man of Mine (1946). The following year she acted in the crime film The Fight Never Ends (1947). She received national recognition for her portrayal of Rachel Robinson in the sports drama film The Jackie Robinson Story (1950). Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised Dee's performance describing her as "the well restrained sweetheart". Also in 1950 she had an uncredited role in film noir No Way Out directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. She continued acting in films such as the historical crime film The Tall Target (1951), the sports film Go Man Go (1954), the music film St. Louis Blues (1958), and the British drama Virgin Island (1958). During this time she took a role in the film noir Edge of the City (1957) starring alongside John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier, and in the film Take a Giant Step (1959) starring with Johnny Nash and Estelle Hemsley.
Dee's career in acting crossed all major forms of media over a span of eight decades. In 1959, she gained prominence for originating the role of Ruth Younger, a suffering housewife in the projects, in Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun, which premiered on Broadway. She acted alongside Sidney Poitier and Louis Gossett Jr. The play was the first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway. She reprised the role opposite Poitier in the 1961 film of the same name. She returned to Broadway in the Ossie Davis satirical farce Purlie Victorious (1961) portraying Lutiebell Gussie Mae Jenkins. Howard Taubman of The New York Times wrote of Dee's performance, "[she] has been treated generously. As Lutiebell she has enough humor and charm to make one envy Purlie Victorious that she is eager disciple". She acted opposite her husband Ossie Davis and Alan Alda in his acting debut. They reprised their roles of the 1963 film entitled Gone Are the Days!, which was produced by Brock Peters and directed by Nicholas Webster. Her early television appearances included episodes of The Fugitive, The Defenders, and the soap opera Guiding Light. She received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her role on The Doctors and the Nurses (1964). In 1965, Dee performed in lead roles at the American Shakespeare Festival as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and Cordelia in King Lear, becoming the first black actress to portray a lead role in the festival. In 1963 she acted in the film The Balcony with Shelley Winters, Peter Falk, Lee Grant, and Leonard Nimoy. She then acted in the film noir The Incident (1967), the drama film Uptight (1968), and the documentary King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970).
In 1969, Dee appeared in 20 episodes of Peyton Place. She acted in Ossie Davis' films Black Girl (1972) and Countdown at Kusini (1976) and the Western film Buck and the Preacher (1972) with Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. She appeared as Cora Sanders, a Marxist college professor, in season 1, episode 14 of Police Woman, entitled "Target Black" which aired on Friday night, January 3, 1975. The character of Cora Sanders was obviously, but loosely, influenced by the real-life Angela Davis. She played Queen Haley in the miniseries Roots: The Next Generations (1979) for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. She acted in the CBS television film I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979) based on the Maya Angelou autobiography of the same name.
Dee starred in the television films portraying Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night (1982) and Mrs. Grimes in Go Tell It on the Mountain (1985). She appeared in the 1988 mini-series Lincoln, which gave her a Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special nomination for playing Elizabeth Keckley. She appeared in Spike Lee's 1989 film Do the Right Thing, and his 1991 film Jungle Fever. In 1990, she portrayed Zora Neale Hurston in Zora Is My Name! and played Jackie Robinson's mother in The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson. That same year, she earned her only Primetime Emmy Award for her role in the TV film Decoration Day (1990). She also guest-starred in The Golden Girls episode "Wham, Bam, Thank You, Mammy", and was nominated for an Emmy Award for her television guest appearance in the China Beach episode "Skylark". Her husband Ossie Davis (1917–2005) also appeared in the episode. She received another Emmy nomination for her appearance in the Evening Shade episode "They Can't Take That Away from Me", a show in which her husband was a regular. Dee returned to Broadway in the play Checkmates written by Ron Milner. She acted alongside Denzel Washington, Paul Winfield and Marsha Jackson. In 1993, Dee performed at the Crossroads Theater in her own adaptation of Rosa Guy's novel The Disappearance, calling the production not a play but "enhanced story telling". She also appeared in the comedy film Cop and a Half (1993) with Burt Reynolds.
