name | Ossie Davis |
---|---|
birthname | Raiford Chatman Davis |
birth date | December 18, 1917 |
birth place | Cogdell, Clinch County, Georgia,United States |
death date | February 04, 2005 |
death place | Miami Beach, Florida,United States |
spouse | Ruby Dee (1948-2005; his death) |
yearsactive | 1939–2005 |
occupation | Actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, activist }} |
In addition to acting, Davis, along with Melvin Van Peebles, and Gordon Parks was one of the notable African American directors of his generation: he directed movies like Gordon's War, Black Girl and the far famed action film Cotton Comes to Harlem . Along with Bill Cosby and Poitier, Davis was one of a handful of African American actors able to find commercial success while avoiding stereotypical roles prior to 1970, which also included a significant role in the 1965 movie The Hill alongside Sean Connery plus roles in The Cardinal and The Scalphunters. However, Davis never had the tremendous commercial or critical success that Cosby and Poitier enjoyed. As a playwright, Davis wrote Paul Robeson: All-American, which is frequently performed in theatre programs for young audiences.
Davis found recognition late in his life by working in several of director Spike Lee's films, including Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever, She Hate Me and Get on the Bus. He also found work as a commercial voice-over artist and served as the narrator of the early-1990s CBS sitcom Evening Shade, starring Burt Reynolds, where he also played one of the residents of a small southern town.
In 1995, Davis and wife Ruby Dee were awarded the National Medal of Arts. They were also recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. They were also named to the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame in 1989.
His last role was a several episode guest role on the groundbreaking Showtime drama series The L Word, as a father struggling with the acceptance of his daughter Bette (Jennifer Beals) parenting a child with her lesbian partner. In his final episodes, his character was taken ill and died. His wife Ruby Dee was present during the filming of his own death scene. That episode, which aired shortly after Davis's own death, aired with a dedication to the actor.
In 2003, both Ossie Davis and his wife Ruby Dee starred and narrated in the HBO film Unchained Memories, a tribute to the WPA slave narratives.
At the 49th Grammy Awards in 2007, he and his wife were tied winners in the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album with former President Jimmy Carter.
They were well-known as civil rights activists, and were close personal friends of Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr. and other icons of the era. Davis and Dee's deep involvement in the movement is characterized by how instrumental they were in organizing the 1963 civil rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, even to the point of serving as emcee. Davis, alongside Ahmed Osman, delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Malcolm X. He re-read part of this eulogy at the end of Spike Lee's film Malcolm X. He also delivered a stirring tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, at a memorial in New York's Central Park the day after King was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee.
Category:1917 births Category:2005 deaths Category:African American actors Category:African American film directors Category:African Americans' rights activists Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Daytime Emmy Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Howard University alumni Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:People from Waycross, Georgia Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients
de:Ossie Davis fr:Ossie Davis it:Ossie Davis ja:オジー・デイヴィス no:Ossie Davis pl:Ossie Davis pt:Ossie Davis ru:Дэвис, Осси sh:Ossie Davis fi:Ossie Davis sv:Ossie Davis yo:Ossie DavisThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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