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Before they met, they already had a common goal--to make their mark on the American theater. Davis' ambition was to be a playwright and he set out on foot from his hometown in rural Georgia to attend Howard University. He moved to New York before graduating and joined Harlem's Rose McClendon Players and studied acting with Lloyd Richards. He made his Broadway debut in 1946 in the title role of "Jeb." In the cast was the young Ruby Dee, a graduate of Hunter College who, like Davis, started her career in Harlem and was now also making her Broadway debut. Neither Davis nor Dee can remember the moment they met. The play only ran for nine performances and is now long forgotten, but the partnership it produced is a classic. Felicia R. Lee wrote in The New York Times, "Ms. Dee and Mr. Davis remain without peer in an industry not known for nurturing black people, older people or long marriages." Their illustrious partnership has been celebrated as a national treasure by the Academy of Television Arts and Science with a Silver Circle Award, by the American Theater with an induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame, and by the government of the United States with a National Medal of Arts.
Following their joint stage debut, the pair toured in a production of the American Negro Theatre's "Anna Lucasta" and married in 1948. They also made their film debuts together in Joseph L. Mankiewicz' acclaimed tale of racial hatred, "No Way Out," starring Sidney Poitier and Richard Widmark. Since then they have appeared together and separately in more than 50 films, perhaps most effectively in several by Spike Lee: "Jungle Fever," "Get on the Bus," "School Daze," "Malcolm X" (in which Davis--as he did in real life--delivers the moving eulogy at the funeral of the slain civil rights leader) and "Do the Right Thing," about which Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times: "Miss Dee and Mr. Davis are not only figures within the film but, they also seem to preside over it, as if ushering in a new era of black film making."
Their work, in fact, has always explored and celebrated the lessons of black history in the United States, making the couple an inspiration and iconic presence in contemporary African- American culture. In 1976, they produced and Davis directed "Countdown to Kusini," the first American feature to be shot entirely in Africa by black professionals. Through their company, Emmalyn Enterprises, they produced the 1986 PBS special "Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum."
Also for PBS, they created the 1980-82 series "With Ossie and Ruby," and produced "A Walk Through the Twentieth Century with Bill Moyers" in 1984. Both received the NAACP Image Awards for their 1996 CBS series "Promised Land," and delivered searing performances in "Roots: The Next Generation." Their joint autobiography published in 2000, With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together, recounts their work together, not only in the arts, but also as artists at the forefront of political activism, ranging from their vigorous opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy's Communist witch hunt to their tireless work on behalf of civil rights, voting rights and equal rights for all. "We need to make the changes, do the revolutions and make things right that will make it easier for our children and grandchildren," says Dee.
"Intensely committed they are to the idea that art and politics are inseparable. They both firmly believe that the arts have the capacity to make viewers more human and teach them, at least on some level, how to live." (Stagebill)
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