Ruby Dee Biography
Ruby Dee born as Ruby Ann Wallace was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist. She was born on October 27th, 1922 and Died on June 11th, 2014 at the age of 91.
She is maybe best known for beginning the job of “Ruth Younger” in the stage and film variants of A Raisin in the Sun (1961). Her other eminent film jobs incorporate The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) and Do the Right Thing (1989).
Dee was hitched to Ossie Davis, with whom she every now and again performed until his passing in 2005. For her exhibition as Mahalee Lucas in American Gangster (2007), Dee was named for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Female Actor in a Supporting Role.
Dee was a Grammy, Emmy, Obie, and Drama Desk champ. She was additionally a National Medal of Arts, Kennedy Center Honors and Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award beneficiary. Dee was conceived on October 27, 1922, in Cleveland, Ohio, the little girl of Gladys (née Hightower) and Marshall Edward Nathaniel Wallace, a cook, server and watchman. After her mom left the family, Dee’s dad remarried, to Emma Amelia Benson, a teacher.
Dee was brought up in Harlem, New York. Preceding going to Hunter College High School, she learned at Public Schools 119 and 136. At that point, she proceeded to move on from Hunter College with a degree in Romance dialects in 1945. She was an individual from Delta Sigma Theta.
Ruby Dee Age| Education
Dee was born on October 27th, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Died on June 11th, 2014 at the age of 91. Ruby was an American citizen by birth and had a place with African American ethnic gatherings. Nonetheless, she was primarily raised in Harlem, New York. Before graduating from Hunter College with a degree in Romance languages in 1945, she studied at Pubic Schools 119 and 136. What’s more, Dee was a member of Delta Sigma Theta. Dee was the daughter of Marshall Edward Nathaniel Wallace and Gladys Hightower.
Ruby Dee Husband|Who is Ossie Davis Married to?
Ruby Wallace wedded blues vocalist Frankie Dee Brown in 1941 and started utilizing his center name as her stage name. The couple separated in 1945. After three years she wedded entertainer Ossie Davis, whom she met while co-starring in Robert Ardrey’s 1946 Broadway play Jeb. Together, Dee and Davis composed a collection of memoirs wherein they talked about their political activism and their choice to have an open marriage (later changing their perspectives). Together they had three kids: child, blues performer Guy Davis, and two little girls, Nora Day and Hasna Muhammad.
Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis
Dee and Ossie were both personal friends of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. In 1970, Ruby Dee won the Frederick Douglass Award from the New York Urban League. Further, in 1999, Dee and Davis were arrested at 1 Police Plaza, the headquarter of the New York Police Department, protesting the police shooting of Amadou Diallo. Not only that but also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Freedom Award, presented by the National Civil Rights Museum located in Memphis in November 2005.
Ruby Dee Net Worth
Dee’s net worth was around 2.5 million dollars to 3 million dollars. She acquired her wealth through her professional careers, as an actress, playwright, screenwriter, and activist. Indeed, she won multiple awards. Dee appeared in numerous films, TV shows, theatre stage. Dee’s last role in a theatrically released film was in the Eddie Murphy comedy A Thousand Words, in which she starred the mother of Murphy.
Ruby Dee Death| When did Ruby Dee Die?
Dee kicked the bucket on June 11, 2014, at her home in New Rochelle, New York, from common causes at the time of 91. In an announcement, Gil Robertson IV of the African American Film Critics Association stated, “the individuals from the African American Film Critics Association are profoundly disheartened at the loss of on-screen character and helpful Ruby Dee. All through her seven-decade profession, Dee grasped diverse innovative stages with her different translations of dark womanhood and furthermore utilized her blessings to advocate for Human Rights. Her quality, fearlessness, and excellence will be enormously missed.”
“She all around calmly gave up”, said her little girl Nora Day. “We embraced her, we kissed her, we gave her our consent to go. She opened her eyes, took a gander at us. She shut her eyes, and she set sail.” Following her demise, the marquee on the Apollo Theater read: “A TRUE APOLLO LEGEND RUBY DEE 1922-2014”. Dee was incinerated, and her powder is held in a similar urn as that of Davis, with the engraving “In this thing together”. An open dedication festivity respecting Dee was hung on September 20, 2014, at the Riverside Church in Upper Manhattan. Their common urn was covered at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
Ruby Career
Dee joined the American Negro Theater as a student, working with Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Hilda Simms. She showed up on Broadway, for example, her first job in ANT’s 1946 creation of Anna Lucasta. Her first on-screen job was in That Man of Mine in 1946. She got national acknowledgment for her job in the 1950 film The Jackie Robinson Story. In 1965, Dee performed in lead jobs at the American Shakespeare Festival as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and Cordelia in King Lear, turning into the main dark on-screen character to depict a lead job in the celebration.
Her profession in acting crossed every significant type of media over a range of eight decades, including the movies A Raisin in the Sun, wherein she reproduced her stage job as an enduring housewife in the undertakings, and Edge of the City. She assumed the two jobs inverse, Poitier. During the 1960s, Dee showed up in Gone Are the Days! furthermore, The Incident. In 1969, Dee showed up in 20 scenes of Peyton Place. She showed up as Cora Sanders, a Marxist school educator, in the Season 1/Episode 14 of Police Woman, entitled “Target Black” which disclosed on Friday night, January 3, 1975.
The character of Cora Sanders was clearly, however approximately, impacted by the genuine Angela Y. Davis. She showed up in one scene of The Golden Girls’ 6th season. She played Queen Haley in Roots: The Next Generations, 1979 miniseries. Dee was selected for eight Emmy Awards, winning once for her job in the 1990 TV film Decoration Day. She was selected for her TV visitor appearance in the China Beach scene, “Skylark”. Her better half Ossie Davis (1917–2005) likewise showed up in the scene. She showed up in Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing, and his 1991 film Jungle Fever.
In 1995, she and Davis were granted the National Medal of Arts. They were likewise beneficiaries of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. In 2003, she portrayed a progression of WPA slave accounts in the HBO film Unchained Memories. In 2007 the victor of the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album was shared by Dee and Ossie Davis for With Ossie And Ruby: In This Life Together, and previous President Jimmy Carter.
Dee was selected for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2007 for her depiction of Mama Lucas in American Gangster. She won the Screen Actors Guild grant for a similar exhibition. At 83 years old, Dee is right now the second most established chosen one for Best Supporting Actress, behind Gloria Stuart who was 87 when named for her job in Titanic. This was Dee’s just Oscar designation.
On February 12, 2009, Dee joined the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College symphony and chorale, alongside the Riverside Inspirational Choir and NYC Labor Choir, regarding Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday celebration at the Riverside Church in New York City. Under the course of Maurice Peress, they performed Earl Robinson’s The Lonesome Train: A Music Legend for Actors, Folk Singers, Choirs, and Orchestra, in which Dee was the Narrator.
Dee’s last job in a dramatically discharged film was in the Eddie Murphy parody A Thousand Words, where she depicted the mother of Murphy’s hero. Maybe, her penultimate film job is in 1982, which debuted at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was discharged on home video on March 1, 2016. It is obscure whether her last job will ever be seen, as King Dog was underway at the season of her passing, and no discharge date has ever been declared.
Ruby Dee Movies And TV Shows
Movies
That Man of Mine
Easy to Get
The Fight Never Ends
What a Guy
The Jackie Robinson Story
No Way Out
The Tall Target
Go, Man, Go!
Edge of the City
St. Louis Blues
Virgin Island
Take a Giant Step
A Raisin in the Sun
The Balcony
Gone Are the Days!
The Incident
Up Tight!
King: A Filmed Record… Montgomery to Memphis
Buck and the Preacher
Black Girl
Wattstax
Countdown at Kusini
Cat People
Do the Right Thing
Love at Large
Jungle Fever
Color Adjustment
Cop and a Half
The Stand
Just Cause
Mr. & Mrs. Loving
A Simple Wish
A Time to Dance: The Life and Work of Norma Canner
Baby Geniuses
Beah: A Black Woman Speaks
No. 2
The Way Back Home
All About Us
American Gangster
Steam
The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll
Dream Street
Video Girl
Politics of Love
Red & Blue Marbles
Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey With Mumia
Abu-Jamal
A Thousand Words
Betty & Coretta
1982
Television
- The Bitter Cup (1961)
- Seven Times Monday (1962)
- The Fugitive (1963)
- Of Courtship and Marriage (1964)
- Guiding Light (cast member in 1967)
- Peyton Place (cast member from 1968–1969)
- Deadlock (1969)
- The Sheriff (1971)
- It’s Good to Be Alive (1974)
- Police Woman Season 1 / Episode 14 “Target Black” (1975)
- Roots: The Next Generations (1979) (miniseries)
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979)
- All God’s Children (1980)
- With Ossie and Ruby! (1980–1982)
- Long Day’s Journey into Night (1982)
- Go Tell It on the Mountain (1984)
- The Atlanta Child Murders (1985) (miniseries)
- Windmills of the Gods (1988)
- Gore Vidal’s Lincoln (1988)
- The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson (1990)
- Decoration Day (1990)
- Golden Girls (1990)
- Jazztime Tale (1991) (voice)
- Middle Ages (1992–1993)
- The Ernest Green Story (1993)
- The Stand (1994) (miniseries)
- Whitewash (1994) (voice)
- Mr. and Mrs. Loving (1996)
- Captive Heart: The James Mink Story (1996)
- The Wall (1998)
- Little Bill (1999 – 2004) (voice)
- Passing Glory (1999)
- Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years (1999)
- A Storm in Summer (2000)
- Finding Buck McHenry (2000)
- The Feast of All Saints (2001) (miniseries)
- Taking Back Our Town (2001)
- Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005)
- Meet Mary Pleasant (2008)
- America (2009)
Stage
- On Strivers Row (1940)
- Natural Man (1941)
- Starlight (1942)
- Three’s a Family (1943)
- South Pacific (1943)
- Walk Hard (1944)
- Jeb (1946)
- Anna Lucasta (1946) (replacement for Hilda Simms)
- Arsenic and Old Lace (1946)
- John Loves Mary (1946)
- A Long Way From Home (1948)
- The Smile of the World (1949)
- The World of Sholom Aleichem (1953)
- A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
- Purlie Victorious (1961)
- King Lear (1965)
- The Taming of the Shrew (1965)
- The Birds (1966)
- Oresteia (1966)
- Boesman and Lena (1970)
- The Imaginary Invalid (1971)
- The Wedding Band (1972)
- Hamlet (1975)
- Bus Stop (1979)
- Twin-Bit Gardens (1979)
- Zora is My Name! (1983)
- Checkmates (1988)
- The Glass Menagerie (1989)
- The Disappearance (1993)
- Flying West (1994)
- Two Hahs-Hahs and a Homeboy (1995)
- My One Good Nerve: A Visit with Ruby Dee (1996)
- The Last Dance for Sybil (2002)
- Saint Lucy’s Eyes (2003)
Ruby Dee Discography
- The Original Read-In for Peace in Vietnam (Folkways Records, 1967)
- The Poetry of Langston Hughes (with Ossie Davis. Caedmon Records, no date, TC 1272)
- Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (with George Grizzard. Caedmon Records, 1970, TC 1324)
- Tough Poems For Tough People (with Ossie Davis and Henry Braun. Caedmon Records, 1972, TC 1396)
- To Make A Poet Black: The best poems of Countee Cullen (with Ossie Davis. Caedmon Records, 1971, TC 1400
- To Be A Slave (with Ossie Davis. Caedmon Records, 1972, TC 2066)
- The Lost Zoo, (Caedmon Records, 1978, TC 1539)
- Why Mosquitoes Buzz In People’s Ears and Other Tales with Ossie Davis. Caedmon Records, 1978, TC 1592)
- What if I am a Woman?, Vol. 1: Black Women’s Speeches (Folkways, 1977)
- What if I am a Woman?, Vol. 2: Black Women’s Speeches (Folkways, 1977)
- Every Tone a Testimony (Smithsonian Folkways, 2001)
- American Short Stories, Vol 2: Various Artists(eav Lexington, no date, LE 7703)
- American Short Stories, Vol 3: Various Artists (eav Lexington, no date, LE 7704)
- I’ve got a name, Various Artists (Holt’s Impact, 1968, CSM 662)
- At your own risk, Various Artists (Holt’s Impact, 1968, CSM 663)
- Conflict, Various Artists (Holt’s Impact, 1969, CSM 816)
- Sight lines, Various Artists (Holt’s Impact, 1970, SBN 03-071525-3)
- Roses & Revolutions, Various Artist (D.S.T. Telecommunications, Inc., Production, 1975)
- New Dimensions in Music (with John Cullum. CBS Records, 1976, P 13161)
Dee Awards And Nominations
Awards
- 1961: National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress – A Raisin in the Sun
- 1971: Drama Desk Award Outstanding Performance – Boesman and Lena
- 1971: Obie Award for Best Performance by an Actress – Boesman and Lena
- 1973: Drama Desk Award Outstanding Performance – Wedding Band
- 1988: Induction into the American Theater Hall of Fame
- 1991: Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Decoration Day
- 1991: Women in Film Crystal Award
- 1995: National Medal of Arts
- 2000: Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award
- 2003: Women of Vision Award – Women in Film & Video-DC
- 2007: Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album – With Ossie And Ruby: In This Life Together (tied with Jimmy Carter)
- African–American Film Critics Best Supporting Actress – American Gangster(2008)
- 2008: Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role – American Gangster
- 2008: The Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal Award
- She was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP(2008)
Nominations
- 1964: Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role – The Doctors and the Nurses: Express Stop from Lenox Avenue
- 1979: Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special – Roots: The Next Generations
- 1988: Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special – Lincoln
- 1990: Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series – China Beach: Skylark
- 1993: Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series – Evening Shade: They Can’t Take That Away from Me
- 1995: Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program – Whitewash
- 2001: Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program – Little Bill
- 2002: Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Actress – Saint Lucy’s Eyes
- 2003: Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program – Little Bill
- Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role – American Gangster(2008)
- 2008: Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture – American Gangster
- 2008: Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture – American Gangster
- 2009: Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Performance by a Female Actress in a Television Movie or Miniseries – America
- 2010: Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Event – America
Actress Ruby dies at 91
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