Famed African American actor Ossie Davis dies

Burning Spear · (#1 (**permalink**))

Actor Ossie Davis Found Dead in Hotel

By HILLEL ITALIE, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Ossie Davis, an actor distinguished for roles dealing with racial injustice on stage, screen and in real life — and perhaps best known as the husband and partner of actress Ruby Dee — has died at the age of 87.

Davis was found dead on Friday in his hotel room in Miami, where he was making a film called "Retirement," according to Arminda Thomas, who works in his office in New Rochelle, N.Y.

Davis, who wrote, acted, directed and produced for the theater and Hollywood, was a central figure among black performers of the last five decades. He and Dee celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1998 with the publication of a dual autobiography, "In This Life Together."

Their partnership called to mind other performing couples, such as the Lunts, or Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. Davis and Dee first appeared together in the plays "Jeb," in 1946, and "Anna Lucasta," in 1946-47. Davis' first film, "No Way Out" in 1950, was Dee's fifth. They shared billing in 11 stage productions and five movies during long parallel careers.

Both had key roles in the television series "Roots: The Next Generation" (1978), "Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum" (1986) and "The Stand" (1994). Davis appeared in three Spike Lee films, including "School Daze," "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever." Dee also appeared in the latter two; among her best-known films was "A Raisin in the Sun," in 1961.

In 2004, he and Dee were among the artists selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors.

When not on stage or on camera, Davis and Dee were deeply involved in civil rights issues and efforts to promote the cause of blacks in the entertainment industry. They nearly ran afoul of the anti-Communist witch-hunts of the early 1950s, but were never openly accused of any wrongdoing.

Davis, the oldest of five children of a self-taught railroad builder and herb doctor in tiny Cogdell, Ga., grew up in nearby Waycross and Valdosta. He left home in 1935, hitchhiking to Washington to enter Howard University, where he studied drama, intending to be a playwright.

His career as an actor began in 1939 with the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem, then the center of black culture in America. There, the young Davis met or mingled with some of the most influential figures of the time, including the preacher Father Divine, W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Langston Hughes and Richard Wright (news).

He also had what he described in the book as a "flirtation with the Young Communist League," which he said essentially ended with the onset of World War II. Davis spent nearly four years in service, mainly as a surgical technician in an Army hospital in Liberia (news - web sites), serving both wounded troops and local inhabitants.

Back in New York in 1946, Davis debuted on Broadway in "Jeb," a play about a returning soldier. His co-star was Ruby Dee, whose budding stage career had paralleled his own. They had even appeared in different productions of the same play, "On Strivers Row," in 1940.

It marked the beginning of a collaboration on and off the stage.

In December 1948, on a day off from rehearsals from another play, "The Smile of the World," Davis and Dee took a bus to New Jersey to get married. They already were so close that "it felt almost like an appointment we finally got around to keeping," Dee writes in "In This Life Together."

As black performers, they found themselves caught up in the social unrest fomented by the then-new Cold War and the growing debate over social and racial justice in the United States.

"We young ones in the theater, trying to fathom even as we followed, were pulled this way and that by the swirling currents of these new dimensions of the Struggle," Davis wrote in the joint autobiography. "Black revolutionaries fighting, just like the Russians, to liberate the workers and save the world, against the black bourgeoisie fighting, at the behest of rich white folks, to defeat the Communist menace and save the world."

Davis says he "had no trouble identifying which side I was on." He lined up with black socialist reformer DuBois and singer Paul Robeson, remaining fiercely loyal to the singer even after Robeson was denounced by other black political, sports and show business figures for his openly communist and pro-Soviet sympathies.

While Hollywood and, to a lesser extent, the New York theater world became engulfed in McCarthyism and red-baiting controversies, Davis and Dee _despite their leftist activism in causes ranging from labor rallies to saving the accused atom spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg — emerged from the anti-communist fervor unscathed and, in Davis' view, justifiably so.

"We've never been, to our knowledge, guilty of anything — other than being black — that might upset anybody," he wrote.

They were friends with baseball star Jackie Robinson and his wife, Rachel — Dee played her, opposite Robinson himself, in the 1950 movie, "The Jackie Robinson Story" — and with Malcolm X.

In the book, Davis told how a prior commitment caused them to miss the Harlem rally where Malcolm was assassinated. But Davis delivered the eulogy at Malcolm's funeral, and reprised it in a voice-over for the 1992 Spike Lee film, "Malcolm X."

Along with film, stage and television, their careers extended to a radio show, "The Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee Story Hour," that ran on 65 stations for four years in the mid-1970s, featuring a mix of black themes.

Both wrote plays and screenplays, and Davis directed several films, most notably "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970) and "Countdown at Kusini" (1976), in which he also appeared with Dee.

Other films in which Davis appeared include "The Cardinal" (1963), "The Hill" (1965), "Grumpy Old Men" (1993), "The Client" (1994) and "I'm Not Rappaport" (1996), a reprise of his stage role 10 years earlier.

On television, he appeared in "The Emperor Jones" (1955), "Freedom Road" (1979), "Miss Evers' Boys" (1997) and "Twelve Angry Men" (1997). He was a cast member on "The Defenders" from 1963-65, and "Evening Shade" from 1990-94, among other shows.

Both Davis and Dee made numerous guest appearances on television shows.

jett Black · (#2 (**permalink**))

Legend!!!!

R.I.P Ossie

I feel for Ruby being left,they were together forever.

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This is so heartbreaking.

He was just honored recently with Ruby at the Kennedy center. They were a match made in Heaven. I loved all of his work especially his roles in the various Spike Lee Films. The stand-out for me was his character in Get on The Bus which was about a group of brothers on their way tothe million man march.

He has left us with so many memories.

Good-bye Ossie.

MarcusGarveyLives · (#4 (**permalink**))

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[align=center]May He Find Peace with The Creator[/align]

Bengyblkm · (#5 (**permalink**))

Gone to join the ancestors and wont be coming back.

Memory of you lives.

Esu

COLTRANE · (#6 (**permalink**))

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By Gene Seymour
STAFF WRITER

February 4, 2005, 9:35 PM EST

Over the phone Friday, filmmaker Spike Lee sounded shaken, yet still marveling over his longtime friend and "spiritual adviser" Ossie Davis, the actor, activist, director and dramatist who was found dead in a Miami hotel room earlier in the day.

"I called Denzel this morning and we talked about it and he said, 'For an actor, if you got to go, that's the way to go out. Still working, still ready to go,'" Lee said.

Lee recalled writing a letter to Davis while a student in the late '70s at Atlanta's Morehouse College. The letter expressed hope that the Davis would someday work in the movies Lee hoped to make.

Davis eventually worked in several Lee films, beginning with Davis' brief, affectionately bombastic turn as the football coach in 1988's "School Daze," and continuing through 1989's "Do the Right Thing," 1991's "Jungle Fever," 1996's "Get on the Bus" and last year's "She Hate Me."

In the coda to Lee's "Malcolm X," Davis read the eulogy he delivered at the 1965 funeral of the slain Black Nationalist leader.

"I've just been talking all day with everybody I know who also knew Ossie," Lee said. "And I think John Turturro said it for all of us when he told me that as great an actor as he was, he was an even greater person. Everybody loved and respected Ossie. There was no way you couldn't love him.

"My heart's with Ruby right now," Lee added, referring to actress Ruby Dee, Davis' wife of 57 years and frequent artistic partner who was working in New Zealand.

Davis, along with Dee, was among the principal members of a generation of African-American performers who emerged after World War II determined to change the often dehumanizing depictions of black people, especially on film. They had three children, including actor Guy Davis.

Davis and Dee, whose stature as a performing couple is often mentioned in the same company as Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy or Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine, were honored together in December by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.They appeared together in 11 stage productions and five films, including "Do the Right Thing." She and Davis also co-starred on Broadway in "Purlie Victorious," Davis' 1963 satire of antebellum manners and mores. It was filmed and released that same year under the title, "Gone are the Days."

Davis also directed movies, notably "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970), "Black Girl" (1972), "Gordon's War" (1973) and "Countdown at Kusini" (1976).

But it was as an actor that he will be chiefly remembered and cherished by those generations who watched and appreciated his work. No matter what role he was playing, Davis put forth a magnetic field of warmth, dignity and tempered-steel strength. Lee said Davis was a seemingly inexhaustible fount of advice. Asked what advice he most coveted, the director said, "You know when his character, the Mayor, tells Mookie, 'Doctor, do the right thing.' He wasn't just speaking as that character. He was speaking as Ossie."

Hitman2005 · (#7 (**permalink**))

Truly sad news:

Friday February 4, 08:33 PM
Actor and civil rights activist Ossie Davis, whose career spanned more than half a century, has died in Miami while working on a new movie, his office said February 4, 2005. Davis was 87 and was found dead at his hotel, his office said. Davis, who was married to the actress Ruby Dee, spoke at the funerals of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and gave voice to the famous United Negro College Fund advertising slogan, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." Davis is pictured with Dee in this file picture dated December 4, 2004 in Washington. REUTERS/Mike Theiler

Hitman2005 · (#8 (**permalink**))

Truly sad news:

Friday February 4, 08:33 PM
Actor and civil rights activist Ossie Davis, whose career spanned more than half a century, has died in Miami while working on a new movie, his office said February 4, 2005. Davis was 87 and was found dead at his hotel, his office said. Davis, who was married to the actress Ruby Dee, spoke at the funerals of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and gave voice to the famous United Negro College Fund advertising slogan, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." Davis is pictured with Dee in this file picture dated December 4, 2004 in Washington. REUTERS/Mike Theiler

TahlibaBiko · (#9 (**permalink**))

ZNet | Activism

Ossie Davis - A Life of Commitment and Dedication

by CCDS; February 05, 2005

"If I had to fear any of the 'isms' that plague us
today, it would have to be classism. How much
suffering will make it necessary to liberate us
all?"
Ossie Davis,
Cornell University,
November 1, 1996

A statement of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

Actor Ossie Davis was found dead in his hotel room Friday morning in Miami where he was on location shooting a movie.

Alongside his wife of more than 50 years, actress Ruby Dee, Davis was an outstanding progressive movement activist. Throughout his adult life he was a central figure in the African American freedom movement, a stalwart participant in activities against war and for economic and social justice.

Throughout their careers Davis and Dee broke new ground in overcoming racial exclusion in the entertainment world and helped open new prospects for generations of African American actors and entertainers.

In 1963, Davis and Dee were masters of ceremonies at the landmark March on Washington. Later he delivered often- quoted eulogies at the funerals of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Davis strongly opposed the anti-Communist witchhunt in the 1950s and stood resolutely behind singer Paul Robeson and scholar-author Dr. W.E.B. Dubois when the two legendary African American activists came under attack for their leftist views and activities.

Davis was born in 1917 in Cogdell, Ga., and grew up in nearby Waycross and Valdosta. Raiford Chatman Davis (his name at birth) was the oldest of five children born to Laura Cooper and Kince Davis. As described by the African American Registry, "He picked up his nickname when friends and neighbors mistook his mother's articulation of his initials, 'R. C,' as 'Ossie'."

In 1935, Davis enrolled in predominantly African American Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he majored in drama under the tutelage of drama critic Alain Locke, the first black Rhodes Scholar, who also aided the careers of authors Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. "On April 16, 1939, I heard Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial because she had been barred from singing at Constitutional Hall in Washington, D.C.," Davis would say later. "I understood fully for the first time the importance of black song, black music, black arts. I was handed my spiritual assignment that night."

In 1939 he began his acting career in New York, appearing with the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem.

Davis served in the U.S. military four years during World War II. Last December, Davis told Washington Post writer Wil Haygood, "My experiences with New York are divided before I went to World War II and when I came back." He served in the Army with a Negro medical unit that eventually would send him to Liberia. "While in the Army, he read plenty of W.E.B. DuBois and honed his political mind," wrote Haygood.

The book "With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together,"
published in 1998, described their life together as entertainers and political activists. Together they received Kennedy Center Honors for their achievements in 2004.

A radio show, "The Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee Story Hour,"
ran on 65 stations for four years in the mid-1970s.

Over the course of his career, Davis acted, directed and produced movies and theater. His many and widely varied screen credits include the Spike Lee films "Jungle Fever" and "Do the Right Thing"; television work included "Roots: The Next Generation" taken from the novel by Alex Hailey, the comedy "Grumpy Old Men" with Jack Lemmon, "Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum" and "The Stand." He also earned acclaim for his roles in "A Raisin in the Sun" - both on stage and screen - and "The Joe Louis Story." Davis directed several films, including "Cotton Comes to Harlem." Other films include "The Cardinal," "The Client" and "I'm Not Rappaport."

On Broadway Davis had the title role in "Purlie Victorious." He wrote the script for the comedy and helped write a musical version of the play, "Purlie," a revival of which is slated for next season. His first movie role was in "No Way Out" in 1950, in which he co- starred with Dee. The pair had previously appeared together on stage in the 1940's in "Jeb" and "Anna Lucasta."

At the time of his passing, Davis was in Florida for the filming of "Retirement," in which he was co-starring with Peter Falk, George Segal and Rip Torn, together portraying four senior men who take off from their retirement homes to journey to Las Vegas in an effort to derail the marriage of one of their daughters to the wrong man.

Davis appeared in numerous television productions, including "The Emperor Jones," "Miss Evers' Boys" and "Twelve Angry Men" and was a member of the cast of the early 60s series "The Defenders." This year he will appear in three previously filmed episodes of the Showtime series "The L Word."

Davis authored three books for children: "Escape to Freedom," "Langston," about the life of Black author Langston Hughes, and "Just Like Martin," about Martin Luther King.

Davis received many honors, awards and citations, including the Hall of Fame Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement in 1989; the Theater Hall of Fame in 1994; the U.S. National Medal for the Arts in 1995; the New York Urban League Frederick Douglass Award and the NAACP Image Award.

Actors' Equity Association issued a statement Friday calling Davis "an icon in the American theater" and he and Dee "American treasures." House lights for Broadway marquees were to be dimmed Friday at curtain time.

"He's my hero," actor Alan Alda, who appeared in "Purlie Victorious," wrote in e-mail to the Associated Press. "I am sorry for his family and for all of us who have benefited from ... his art and from his service to his country."

Davis was a stanch supporter of the activities of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). "The progressive community in our country and the movement for peace, against racism, sexism, anti- Semitism and against exploitation and oppression throughout the world has lost a true hero, a person of tremendous talent, selfless dedication and commitment,"
said the Committee's National Co-Chair Charlene Mitchell. "His life, and that of Ruby, his lifelong companion and fellow-activist, will serve as a source of inspiration for generations to come."

Besides Dee, Davis is survived by three children - Nora, Hasna and Guy (a blues artist), and seven grandchildren.

A funeral is being planned for next week at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.

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