TRIBUTE

Legendary Actress
and Activist

Ruby Dee

Joins her
Late Husband
Ossie Davis
B Y D . J A N E L L P E R RY

Acting and activism were inseparable and intertwined for the

late Ruby Dee.
The award-winning actress died peacefully on June 11th at
her New Rochelle, NY, home, according to her representative,
Michael Livingston. She was 91.
Dee, born Ruby Ann Wallace in Cleveland, moved to Harlem
with her family as an infant.
She began her activism career early as a child when she
attended her first protest; Dee joined the picket lines to rally
against discriminatory hiring practices.
Dee graduated from a highly competitive high school and
enrolled in college; however, she longed to act.
I wanted to be an actor, but the chances for success did not
look promising, she wrote in an autobiography based on her
and her late husband Ossie Davis experiences.
In 1940 she landed her first part in a Harlem production of a
new play,On Strivers Row, which she later called one giant
step to becoming not only a performer, but also a person.
In 1965, Dee also became the first black woman to play lead
roles during the American Shakespeare Festival.
On television, Dee held a leading cast member role on the soap
operas Guiding Light and Peyton Place, an unusual feat for a
black actress in the 1950s and 60s.
Dee earned multiple lead roles in movies and on Broadway,
but also devoted her life to fighting against injustice; she even
emceed the 1963 March on Washington and protested apartheid
in South Africa.
We are image makers. Why cant we image makers become
peacemakers, too? she asked after she and her husband, Ossie
Davis, accepted the Screen Actors Guild Award for Lifetime
Achievement in 2000.
Her legacy of entertaining and advocating change in
addition to the epic love affair with Davis made Dee a
beloved and inspirational figure in America and beyond.
Broadway theaters dimmed their lights in honor of her legacy.
Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald and new Tony winner

director Kenny Leon both thanked Dee at the podium during

the most recent Tony Awards ceremony, a testimony to her
impact on the industry.
She will be missed but never forgotten as she lives on in
many of us, Leon said in a statement, noting Dees death came
just weeks after that of Maya Angelou.Maya and Ruby leave
us only days apart those two women with four letter names
instructed us on how to live.
Dees lengthy career earned her an Emmy, a Grammy, two
Screen Actors Guild awards, the NAACP Image Award, Kennedy
Center Honors, the National Medal of Art and the National Civil
Rights Museums Lifetime Achievement Award. She was also an
Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress for her
role in the 2007 film American Gangster at age 83.
Dee made her first appearance on Broadway in the original
production of South Pacific. She also starred in the Broadway
premiere of A Raisin in the Sun opposite Sidney Poitier, which
focused on black frustration amid racial discrimination.
Davis and Dee met in 1945 when she auditioned for the
Broadway play Jeb, and they married on a day off from another
play in 1948. The couple shared billing in 11 stage productions
and five movies during each of their long parallel careers.
However, the pair was more than just a performing couple;
they were also activists who fought for civil rights, especially for
African-Americans.
We used the arts as part of our struggle, she said in 2006.
Exceeding her husband Davis, who passed in 2005, Dee is
survived by three children and seven grandchildren.
Her family and friends surrounded her during her final
moments, her daughter, Nora Davis Day said.
We have had her for so long and we loved her so much, Day
said.We gave her our permission to set sail. She opened her
eyes, closed her eyes and away she went.
Dee was also an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta
Sorority, Inc. S

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