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Collection Data
- Description
- Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were African American actors, directors, writers, and activists whose careers spanned the mediums of theatre, television, radio, film, and print. Their papers date from 1932 to 2015, and chronicle the couple's artistic careers as performers and authors, as well as their work as civil rights activists. The collection consists of materials generated by Davis and Dee over a lifetime of performing arts work and activism, and in their personal lives together.
- Names
- Davis, Ossie (Creator)
- Dee, Ruby (Creator)
- Foner, Moe, 1915- (Contributor)
- Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930-1965 (Contributor)
- Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967 (Contributor)
- Lee, Spike (Contributor)
- Local 1199 Drug, Hospital, and Health Care Employees Union (New York, N.Y.) (Contributor)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1932 - 2015
- Library locations
- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
- Shelf locator: Sc MG 305
- Topics
- X, Malcolm, 1925-1965
- Actors
- Actresses
- African American actors
- Motion picture producers and directors
- African American actresses
- African American motion picture actors and actresses
- African American motion picture producers and directors
- African American political activists
- African Americans in television broadcasting
- African Americans in the performing arts
- Civil rights workers -- United States
- Genres
- Ephemera
- Correspondence
- Photographs
- Scrapbooks
- Screenplays
- Sound recordings
- Video recordings
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: Ossie Davis (1917-2005) and Ruby Dee (1922-2014) were African American performing artists, writers, and activists. They worked collaboratively and independently throughout their careers as actors, authors, directors, playwrights, producers, and voice-over narrators. Their work spanned the mediums of film, television, radio, and theatre. Together they also published collections of poetry and essays, a joint memoir, articles, books for children, plays, and speeches.
Ossie Davis (born Raiford Chatman Davis) was born in 1917 in Cogdell, Georgia. He left Georgia in 1935 to attend Howard University, where he studied English and drama, then moved to Harlem with the intent of establishing a stage career as a playwright. In Harlem, Davis joined the Rose McClendon Players and studied acting with Lloyd Richards. He made his stage debut in a 1939 production of Joy Exceeding Glory.
Dee was born Ruby Ann Wallace in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1922. Her family moved to Harlem soon after she was born. Dee earned a Bachelor's degree from Hunter College in New York City, where she studied French and Spanish. Between 1940 and 1945, she apprenticed with the American Negro Theatre (ANT) which occupied the basement stage of the 135th Street, Harlem Branch of the New York Public Library. She studied radio techniques at the American Theatre Wing, and appeared on a number of radio shows. Dee made her stage debut in a production of Abram Hill's On Strivers Row in 1940. The following year she married the blues singer, Frankie Dee, retaining his name after they divorced in 1945.
Dee and Davis were cast together in the Broadway production of Jeb, which was Davis' Broadway debut, and launched his professional theatre career. In 1946, Davis and Dee were cast together again in the American Negro Theatre's production of Philip Yordan's Anna Lucasta. Dee replaced Hilda Sims in the lead, and remained in the starring role when the play moved to Broadway. On December 9, 1948, the couple was married during a single-day break in their work on a production of Smile of the World.
Dee was cast in the role of the Defending Angel in the 1953 Broadway production of The World of Sholom Aleichem. The production, which was stage managed by Davis, marked one of the first times that a black actor appeared on Broadway in a role not specifically written for a black character. Five years later, in 1958, Davis and Dee were called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as a result of their perceived communist sympathies. Although they were not officially blacklisted, they were surveilled by the FBI. During this period, as a means of generating work, they performed readings, dramatizations, short works, and gave talks at schools, churches, colleges, and other community spaces.
In 1959, Dee was cast opposite Sidney Poitier in the lead role of Ruth Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, which was the first play by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. Davis assumed the part of Walter Lee after Poitier left the production, and Dee reprised her role opposite Poitier for the film version in 1961. Four years later, Dee became the first black woman to play a lead role at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut, where she was cast in the role of Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Davis continued to act in theater productions as well as write for the stage. Among Davis' many playwriting credits, his most widely known work is Purlie Victorious (1961), which satirized racial stereotypes in the American South. Davis and Dee played the lead roles in the theatrical production, which Davis then adapted for the screen in 1963's Gone are the Days. Davis also directed a number of films throughout the 1970s including Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) Kongi's Harvest (1970) Black Girl (1972), Gordon's War (1973), and Countdown at Kusini (1976).
Dee's writing debut came in 1979, with Take it from the Top, which was directed by Davis, and featured music by the couple's son, Guy Davis. Dee's other writing credits include, John Boscoe and the Devil (1981), Zora is my Name (1983), Aunt Zurletha (1985), The Disappearance (1993), and My One Good Nerve (1996).
Davis and Dee began hosting a weekly radio show, The Ossie Davis Ruby Dee Story Hour, in 1975. Five years later, along with their three children, they formed Emmalyn Productions, also referred to as Emmalyn II Productions, and Emmalyn Enterprises. Among their various projects was the Davis and Dee hosted television show, With Ossie and Ruby (1981-1982, 1985). In 1997, the couple published a joint autobiography With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together to commemorate their 50th Anniversary.
Davis and Dee were activists throughout their lives, and prominent in the civil rights movement. The couple was close to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and were instrumental in fundraising and publicizing his work and that of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Davis and Dee were also founding members of the Association of Artists for Freedom. They were organizers and fundraisers for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Davis was responsible for the entertainment programming, and served as emcee of the morning's proceedings. From the mid 1950s onwards, they were closely involved with the labor union Local 1199 and beginning in the late 1970s, with their cultural program "Bread and Roses," which was created by Moe Foner. Additionally, Davis and Dee raised money for the Freedom Riders, were decades-long supporters of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of New York, and friends with Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz. Davis eulogized Malcolm X at his funeral in 1965, and famously re-created the eulogy as a voice-over in Spike Lee's 1992 film, Malcolm X.
Davis and Dee garnered a number of prestigious awards acknowledging their contributions to the American stage, film, television, and for their activism. This includes the NAACP Image Awards, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Silver City Award, and the lifetime achievement award of the Screen Actors' Guild. Additionally, Dee was awarded two Emmys, an Obie, a Drama Desk Award, and an Oscar nomination for her performance in American Gangster. Davis earned a Emmy nominations for his work in Teacher, Teacher; King; and Miss Evers' Boys, and was awarded a Daytime Emmy for his role in the children's special Finding Buck McHenry (2001).
Davis died on February 4, 2005, while filming Retirement in Florida. Dee was in New Zealand working on Naming No.2 at the time. She died on June 11, 2014, at home in New Rochelle, New York.
- Content: The Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee papers date from 1932 to 2015 and trace the couple's professional lives as writers, directors, actors, and activists. Portions of the couple's papers were progressively selected and arranged into numbered binders beginning in 1997, to assist in the creation of their joint memoir. These binders have their own internal organization and have been maintained in this collection as a series. The remaining files have been grouped into the following series: Writings and Projects; Materials by Others; Administrative Files; Activism and Politics; Playbills and Programs; and Audio and Moving Image. The collection details Davis and Dee's collaborative and solo artistic processes and decades long creative output in the mediums of theatre, film, television, radio, and publishing, while tracing their life-long work for civil rights and social justice.
- Physical Description
- Extent: 73.67 linear feet (179 boxes)
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Identifiers
- Other local Identifier: Sc MG 305
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b22052065
- MSS Unit ID: 24595
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 51df2350-edbb-013b-97ea-0242ac110003
