15 Of Our Favorite Photos Of Ossie Davis And Ruby Dee
Married for 56 years, they shared an enduring love story. See their journey through a collection of heartfelt images, capturing the timeless bond they had.
WATCH | Black Love in Two Minutes: Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee
Married for 56 years, the couple shared an enduring love story.
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You know we love a Black love story, and what better one than that of late actors and activists Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee? The couple met in 1946 when they were both cast in the Broadway play Jeb. Initially, Dee was not impressed. “I really didn’t like him. I thought he was a very peculiar looking person,” she told Angela Davis during a sit-down conversation the couple took part in for PBS’ An Evening With Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee in 2002. “He was as big as a string bean and had this Adam’s apple that sort of stuck out. He was strictly from the country.”
It wasn’t until she really saw him at work, that she began to look at her co-star differently. “But I do remember one day, he was on stage and he played the part of a returning soldier…and he at one point was slowly and deliberately tying his tie in his soldier’s uniform. And I remember sitting in the audience and looking up at him and something very peculiar happened,” she said. “I hadn’t been thinking about him in a particular way and I had no romantic notions about him. But as I watched him I felt something like a bolt of lightning.” Two years later, the pair were married.
They welcomed three children over the course of their years together, which were 1948-2005, when Davis passed away. Fifty-six years. When asked by the great Susan L. Taylor for ESSENCE’s October 2005 issue what it meant to her to be loved so deeply and for so long by him, Dee said, “I have an incredible feeling of thanksgiving. When I feel like complaining, I remember how blessed I am to have been married to Ossie. I miss him incredibly, especially in the mornings. He would get up early and read the papers and discuss it all with me over breakfast. At night he’d wait for me to come to bed and sometimes I’d be messing around, doing this and that, and by the time I got to bed, he’d be asleep. I’m so sorry I didn’t hurry up. We just loved being together. When I wasn’t working, I started going to work with him. I’d visit the set, and it was great being in hotels together. It was like our little honeymoon.”
Davis had a similar gratitude, as a few years before his death, he shared this gem about what he’d taken away from their time together.
“Fifty years of being married, and what have I learned from it all? I say to my fellow husbands — whose eyeballs may be covered with lust — that the way to possess all women is to love one woman well,” he said. “Marriage is the place which love calls home.”
Enjoy a few photos of their love, over 56 years, below. And learn more about their love story in our Black Love in Two Minutes video above.
01
01
1962
02
02
1965
CANADA – JULY 01: Ossie Davis with Ruby Dee (Photo by Barry Philp/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
03
03
1973
African American actor Ossie Davis receives an award with his wife Ruby Dee, 1973. (Photo by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)
04
04
1976
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee attend the opening of the play “I Have a Dream” in New York City on September 20, 1976. (Photo by Lynn Karlin/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images)
05
05
1980
Portrait of Ossie Davis, actor, and Ruby Dee, actress, husband and wife, 1980. (Photo by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)
06
06
1985
Portrait of married American actors and Civil Rights activists Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis (1917 – 2005) as they pose against a white background, New York, New York, 1980s. (Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)
07
07
1993
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee during 45th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards Pre-Technical Emmys at Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California, United States. (Photo by Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
08
08
1994
Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis during 48th Annual Tony Awards at Marriot Marquis Hotel in New York City, New York, United States. (Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
09
09
1995
Portrait of married American actors and Civil Rights activists Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis (1917 – 2005) in a recording studio, New York, New York, 1990s. (Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)
10
10
2000
Portrait of married American actors and Civil Rights activists Ruby Dee (1922 – 2014) and Ossie Davis (1917 – 2005) as they pose outdoors, late 1990s or early 2000s. (Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)
11
11
2001
LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES: (FILES): This 11 March 2001 file photo shoed US actors Ossie Davis (L) and Ruby Dee (R), his wife, accepting the Life Achievement Award at the 7th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, in Los Angeles, CA. Davis was found dead in 04 February 2005 his hotel room in Miami, police said. He was 87. Davis’s 65-year career included credits as an actor, producer, director and writer for both stage and screen. His film debut, in 1950’s “No Way Out,” starred Sidney Poitier and also featured his wife, Ruby Dee. Some of his best known roles included “The Joe Louis Story” (1953) and “Gone Are the Days” (1963), a film that he adapted from his own play, “Purlie Victorious.” He also appeared in three Spike Lee movies — “School Daze” (1988), “Do the Right Thing” (1989) and Jungle Fever (1991). In addition to his entertainment career, Davis was an eloquent and prominent figure in the civil rights movement. He was a featured speaker at the funerals of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. AFP PHOTO/FILES/Lucy Nicholson (Photo credit should read LUCY NICHOLSON/AFP via Getty Images)
12
12
2002
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee at the 3rd Annual Directors Guild Of America Honors at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. June 9, 2002. Photo: Evan Agostini/ImageDirect
13
13
2003
NEW YORK – MAY 7: (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER OUT) Actor Ozzie Davis and his wife actress Ruby Dee attend the Black Filmmaker Foundation 25th Anniversary Party at the Tribeca Film Festival May 7, 2003 in New York City. (Photo by Myrna Suarez/Getty Images)
14
14
2004
(EXCLUSIVE, Premium Rates Apply) Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)
15
15
2004
WASHINGTON – DECEMBER 4: Honorees writers, producers and actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee arrive at the 27th Annual Kennedy Center Honors at U.S. Department of State, December 4, 2004 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images)
