JackieRobinsonStory Ruby Dee Princeton '09 Honorary

1740   10 years ago
toster09 | 0 subscribers
1740   10 years ago
www.princeton.edu...Ruby Dee Davis' career has spanned many roles, including actor, author, activist and producer. Born in Cleveland but a self-proclaimed product of Harlem, the stage and screen legend who became known as "Ms. Dee" first attracted national attention in 1950 for her performance in "The Jackie Robinson Story" and broke ground in 1965 as the first black woman to play lead roles at the American Shakespeare Festival. In 1988, Dee was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame, honored for a host of award-winning performances in plays including "Purlie Victorious," "A Raisin in the Sun" and "A Long Day's Journey Into Night." For her work on television, Dee has been nominated seven times for Emmy Awards and was a winner in 1991 for "Decoration Day." In 2007, she was an Academy Award nominee for the film "American Gangster." Her latest film, "Steam," premiered earlier this year at the Women's International Film Festival in Miami.
Dee was the 2006 recipient of the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Civil Rights Museum for more than 50 years of supporting civil rights causes and creating opportunities for African Americans. As close friends of Martin Luther King Jr., she and her husband, Ossie Davis, served as masters of ceremonies for the historic 1963 March on Washington. Earlier, they risked their careers resisting McCarthyism. In 2000, they were presented with the Screen Actors Guild's highest honor, the Life Achievement Award./nA pioneer of stage and screen, an author and a producer, she transformed the worlds of 20th-century theater and film into humanitarian activist art. With lush, powerful and rolling eloquence, she moved us from the "dream deferred" era of "A Raisin in the Sun" to "Do the Right Thing." With her husband, the late, great Ossie Davis, she has dedicated more than half a century to providing cultural fuel for the civil rights movement. From Shakespearean tragedy to "American Gangster" tragedy, she has turned each performance into a testimony celebrating the three-dimensional personhood of African American women.
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