Ruby Dee Biography

American actress Ruby Dee has been in the acting business for an astonishing eight decades. Most recently, she has garnered attention and critical acclaim for her work in the well-received film American Gangster.

Ruby Ann Wallace, known popularly as Ruby Dee, was born October 27, 1924 in Cleveland, Ohio but was subsequently raised in Harlem, New York. Her parents were Gladys Hightower and porter, cook, and waiter Marshall Edward Nathaniel. Her mother left the family, however, and Dee’s father eventually remarried to schoolteacher Emma Amelia.

Obtaining her education at Hunter College, Dee graduated in 1945 with a double degree in Spanish and French.

She began her acting career onstage with several Broadway productions, and although she made her film debut in 1939 with What a Guy, she did not receive positive attention for her film work until The Jackie Robinson Story in 1950.

Working prolifically for the next decade, Dee’s first real critical acclaim came in 1961 opposite acting great Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun. She also found success in Gone Are the Days! with Alan Alda. The film was written and directed by Dee’s husband, Ossie Davis.

The two married on December 9, 1948, and they were together until Davis’ death on February 4, 2005. They had three children together, and they were noted for their “open marriage.” They discussed this at length in their autobiography With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together. The book also dealt with their political activism and their close relationship with both Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X.

On the professional front, in 1982, Dee took home the CableACE Award for Best Actress in a Dramatic Presentation for Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Her costar, Earle Hyman, won for Best Actor in a Dramatic Presentation.

She also appeared in the Spike Lee classic Do the Right Thing in 1989 with Danny Aiello, John Turturro, and Rosie Perez. Her next critically acclaimed role came in the form of Decoration Day in 1990. Sharing the screen with James Garner, Bill Cobbs, and Laurence Fishburne, Dee walked with her first Emmy Award.

She reunited with director Lee in his 1991 drama Jungle Fever starring Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra before appearing in the critically acclaimed Stories from the Edge.

Taking more visible roles after so many years in the business, Dee took the screen opposite Halle Berry and Michael Ealy in Their Eyes Were Watching God followed by No. 2.

But she won the most acclaim and attention in 2007 when she appeared in the Ridley Scott crime drama American Gangster with Hollywood power hitters Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. It co-starred Josh Brolin and Chiwetel Ejiofor. For her performance, Dee secured her first Oscar nomination.

Outside of acting, Dee suffered from breast cancer but has survived it for over thirty years. She is also a journalist, poet, and playwright.

She currently resides in New Rochelle, New York.