02/14/2021
Since meeting on Broadway (and falling in love) in the 1946 production of Jeb, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee have excelled as collaborators and as individuals (they married in 1948), and they often broke new ground for African Americans. They made their film debuts in 1950 in No Way Out with Sidney Poitier, then starred together on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun.
Young people may recognize Davis and Dee from their appearances in several Spike Lee films, including Malcolm X -- in which Davis played himself, having delivered the eloquent eulogy for the slain black leader in 1965 -- Jungle Fever, Do the Right Thing and Get on the Bus.
Dee first attracted national attention in 1950 for her performance in The Jackie Robinson Story and broke ground in 1965 as the first black woman to play lead roles at the American Shakespeare Festival.
In 1961, Davis wrote and starred with Dee in the acclaimed Purlie Victorious, a satire on the historical and psychological significance of In 1976, they produced the first American feature film to be shot entirely in Africa by black professionals, Countdown at Kusani, with Davis directing.
As close friends of Martin Luther King Jr., they served as masters of ceremonies for the historic 1963 March on Washington. Earlier, they risked their careers resisting McCarthyism. Davis' and Dee's activism has led to their arrest for protesting the killing in New York of a Guinean immigrant, their suing in federal court for black voting rights, and their speaking out for citizen involvement in democracy and in support of sickle cell disease research.
Davis and Dee were celebrated as "national treasures" when they receivingthe National Medal of Arts, Screen Actors Guild's Life Achievement Award. They received the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle Award in 1994 and are inductees in the Theater Hall of Fame and the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame.
They are co-authors of a joint autobiography, With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together.