Ruby Dee: Actress, Poet, Playwright, Screenwriter, Journalist, and Activist. This blog is dedicated to a phenomenal woman who has been a mover and shaker in the arts, civil rights movements, and activism. She is Ruby Dee, born Ruby Ann Wallace.
"Ms. Ruby Dee has been one of the most prolific actors over the past 50 years. She's done everything from soap operas to Shakespeare, and she brings brightness and strength to every role she performs"
"She has set a standard for actors that we all try to live up to and there is never a false note to her performances"
"Ruby Dee brings intelligence and integrity to everything she does, and will continue to be an inspiration to generations of actors and activists to come"
Tribute and performances by Angelique Kidjo and Ziggy Marley for Ruby, directed by Jonathan X.
Racism destroys self-confidence, it stomps on daring, and that's what it does to our children. It shortens our reach because we begin to believe everything that is said about us, we buy into it. Not everybody does, some young people are stronger than that.
Ruby on the Tavis Smiley show discussing how racism impacted her early career in acting, and also diversity in Hollywood today.
Ruby Ann Wallace was married to Frankie Dee Brown (blues singer) from 1941 but later divorced in 1945. In 1946, she got her first Broadway role in Jeb, a drama about a returning Black American war hero. There she met Ossie Davis (who played Jeb), and became close friends. They married on December 9, 1948.
Ruby and Ossie collaborated on several projects designed to promote Black heritage, especially Black artists. In 1974, they produced The Ruby Dee/Ossie Davis Story Hour for the National Black Network. In 1981, they produced the series With Ossie and Ruby for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).
They have three children. Their son, Guy Davis, is a blues musician and former actor. They have two daughters, Nora Day and Hasna Muhammad.
Ruby and Ossie were involved in and supported several other civil rights protests and causes, includingMartin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington. In 1970, the National Urban League honored them with the Frederick Douglass Award for distinguished leadership toward equal opportunity.
We would bring the whole family because...we couldn't hire babysitters and they had to have dinner. We just brought them all along but I can't say that people were always glad to see us and all our children...I grew up in a traditional way. It took me a long time to get it out of my head that my job was to stay home, look after the kids, and if money had to be made, I expected him to go out and get a job at the post office or do something - Ruby
In 1999, Ruby and Ossie were arrested for protesting the fatal shooting of an unarmed West African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, by White police officers of the New York City Police Department.
Together, Ruby and Ossie wrote an autobiography, Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together, in which they discuss their political activism, careers, family, marriage, etc.
On March 11, 2001, Ruby and Ossie received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild.
In November 2005, Ruby and Ossie were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Freedom Award, presented by the National Civil Rights Museum located in Memphis, TN.
Ruby Dee was born in Cleveland (OH) but her family moved to Harlem (NY) when she was a baby with her two siststers, brother, and parents (Marshall and Emma Wallace). In the evening, Ruby and her siblings would read aloud to each other from the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Wordsworth, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. As a teenager, she submitted poetry to the New York Amsterdam News, a Black weekly newspaper.
Ruby has admitted that during her younger years she was a shy girl and always felt a burning desire to express herself.
Ruby's love of English and poetry motivated her to study the arts. She attended Hunter High School, one of New York's first-rate schools that had the brightest girls. While in high school, she decided to pursue acting. In her undergraduate years at Hunter College, she took a class in radio training offered through the American Theater Wing. This training led to a part in the radio serial Nora Drake.
After college, Ruby worked as a French and Spanish translator. However, she knew that the theater was to be her destiny.
Ruby has established the Ruby Dee Scholarship in Dramatic Art. This scholarship is awarded to talented young Black women who want to become established in the acting profession.
Spouse:
Frankie Dee Brown (1941-1945; divorced)
Ossie Davis (1948-2005; till death)
Children:
Guy Davis (blues musician); Nora Day; Hasna Muhammad
Health:
Breast cancer survivor for more than 30 years
Awards:
Grammy (2007; Best Spoken Word Album); Emmy (won 1 in 1990, nominated 8 times); Obie; Drama Desk; Screen Actors Guild (2007, Best Supporting Actress); Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award; Recipient of the National Medal of Arts; Recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors (2004); Academy Award nomination (2007; Best Supporting Actress); Lifetime Achievement Freedom Award (2005 by the National Civil Rights Museum); Westchester County Women's Hall of Fame (2007); Honorary Degree (Princeton University).
Membership:
American Negro Theatre; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Theater:
South Pacific; Cleopatra; Anna Lucasta; Jeb; A Long Way From Home; The Smile of the World; A Raisin in the Sun; Purlie Victorius; Checkmates; The Glass Menagerie
Films:
That Man of Mine (1946; 1st); A Raisin in the Sun; The Jackson Robinson Story; Edge of the City; American Gangster; Gone Are the Days; The Incident; Decoration Day; Jungle Fever; Do the Right Thing; Black Girl; Baby Geniuses; The Unfinished Journey (narrator); Lorraine Hansberry: The Black Experience in the Creation of Drama; The Torture of Mothers; The New Neighbors (narrator); A Thousand Words (2012).
Documentaries:
King: A Film Record...Montgomery to Memphis (1970); Color Adjustment (1992; narrator); A Time to Dance: The Life and Work of Norma Canner (1998; narrator); Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives (2003; narrator); Beach: A Black Woman Speaks (2003); Lockdown, USA (2006; narrator); A Place Out of Time: The Bordentown School (2009; narrator); Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age (2012)
Television:
The First Year; The Fugitive; Guiding Light; Roots: The Next Generations; Ossie and Ruby!; Their Eyes Were Watching God; Golden Girls' (guest appearance); Mr. and Mrs. Loving; Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years; China Beach (guest appearance)
Autobiography: Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together (2000)
Ruby Dee was born in Cleveland (OH) but her family moved to Harlem (NY) when she was a baby with her two siststers, brother, and parents (Marshall and Emma Wallace). In the evening, Ruby and her siblings would read aloud to each other from the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Wordsworth, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. As a teenager, she submitted poetry to the New York Amsterdam News, a Black weekly newspaper.
Ruby's love of English and poetry motivated her to study the arts. She attended Hunter High School, one of New York's first-rate schools that had the brightest girls. While in high school, she decided to pursue acting. In her undergraduate years at Hunter College, she took a class in radio training offered through the American Theater Wing. This training led to a part in the radio serial Nora Drake. 
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