Dee, Ruby (Ruby Ann Wallace)

Impact on the world

Trained with the American Negro Theatre after graduating from Hunter College in 1945, going on to originate a leading role in the landmark 1959 Broadway play and 1961 film 'A Raisin in the Sun,' becoming in 1965 the first Black woman to perform major roles at the American Shakespeare Festival, and the first Black actress to hold a feature role on primetime television with 1968's 'Peyton Place'; she received an Academy Award nomination decades later for 2007's 'American Gangster,' becoming, at 83, one of the oldest first-time Oscar nominees in the category's history, while sustaining a parallel, decades-long career as a civil rights organizer alongside her husband, actor Ossie Davis.

Life & background

Born Ruby Ann Wallace in Cleveland in 1922 to a Pullman porter father and schoolteacher mother, Dee grew up in Harlem and met fellow actor Ossie Davis on the set of the 1946 play 'Jeb,' marrying him in 1948 and beginning a creative and political partnership that lasted until his death nearly six decades later. The couple frequently appeared together on stage, film, and television, including the 1961 film adaptation of 'Purlie Victorious,' which Davis wrote, while building parallel reputations as committed civil rights activists; both were personal friends of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, with Davis delivering Malcolm X's eulogy at his 1965 funeral, and Dee held memberships in the NAACP, CORE, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The couple served together as master and mistress of ceremonies at the 1963 March on Washington, which they had helped organize, and Dee continued appearing in politically engaged films through the 1960s, including 'Gone Are the Days' and 'The Incident,' work later credited with helping open doors for younger Black filmmakers and actors. She received seven Emmy Award nominations across her career, winning in 1991 for the television film 'Decoration Day,' and was jointly awarded the National Medal of Arts with Davis in 1995 and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2004 recognizing their decades of combined artistic and activist partnership; she received a lifetime achievement award from Memphis's National Civil Rights Museum in 2005 and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2007 for playing the mother of a drug kingpin in 'American Gangster,' alongside Denzel Washington, already profiled in this collection. A member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, already profiled in this collection, and a breast cancer survivor for more than three decades, Dee died in 2014 at age 91, two years after publishing further written work in a career that spanned acting, poetry, and civil rights memoir.

Sources

1. Britannica (Ruby Dee); African American Registry; EBSCO Research Starters