Ruby Dee, the actress best known for her roles in such classics as A Raisin in the Sun (1961), Do the Right Thing (1989) and American Gangster (2007), died on Wednesday in New Rochelle, N.Y. at the age of 91.
In addition to her work in film, Dee was also a stage actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter and journalist. She was the recipient of a Grammy, Emmy, Obie, Drama Desk, Screen Actors Guild Award and Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dee married actor Ossie Davis in 1948. The two became prominent civil rights activists during the 1960s and were close friends with both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In 2005, the year of Davis’ death, the pair were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Freedom Award for their activism.
Dee’s first big screen role was as Jackie Robinson’s wife in 1950’s The Jackie Robinson Story. Eleven years later, she and Sidney Poitier brought their Broadway hit A Raisin In The Sun to the big screen. Now regarded as a classic, the film was selected for preservation in the United States of America National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2005 as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”;
Dee continued to work until 2013. Her final film credits include the Eddie Murphy comedy A Thousand Words and American Gangster, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She was the second oldest person in history to be nominated for the award. (Gloria Stewart was five years older when she was nominated for Titanic).
