Ruby Dee

Acting

Ruby Dee

Born 1922-10-27 · Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Ruby Dee (October 27, 1922 – June 11, 2014) was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist. She originated the role of "Ruth Younger" in the stage and film versions of A Raisin in the Sun. Her other notable film roles include The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), Do the Right Thing (1989) and American Gangster (2007).

Acting credits

American Gangster poster
7.6

Loosely based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina, who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by Newark Detective Richie Roberts.

American Gangster

2007

Do the Right Thing poster
7.8

Sal is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin' Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise.

Do the Right Thing

1989

Cat People poster
6.0

After years of separation, Irena Gallier and her minister brother, Paul, reunite in New Orleans. When zoologists capture a wild panther, Irena is drawn to the cat – and zoo curator Oliver to her. Soon, Paul will have to reveal the family secret: that when sexually aroused, they revert into predatory jungle cats.

Cat People

1982

A Thousand Words poster
6.1

Jack McCall is a fast-talking literary agent, who can close any deal, any time, any way. He has set his sights on New Age guru Dr. Sinja for his own selfish purposes. But Dr. Sinja is on to him, and Jack’s life comes unglued after a magical Bodhi tree mysteriously appears in his backyard. With every word Jack speaks, a leaf falls from the tree and he realizes that when the last leaf falls, both he and the tree are toast. Words have never failed Jack McCall, but now he’s got to stop talking and conjure up some outrageous ways to communicate or he’s a goner.

A Thousand Words

2012

Uptight poster
6.8

Set against the backdrop of a community mourning the recent MLK assassination, Black militants building up an arsenal of weapons in preparation for a race war are betrayed by one of their own.

Uptight

1968

A Raisin in the Sun poster
7.7

Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall.

A Raisin in the Sun

1961

Just Cause poster
6.3

A Harvard professor is lured back into the courtroom after twenty-five years to take the case of a young black man condemned to death for the horrific murder of a child.

Just Cause

1995

Jungle Fever poster
6.4

A successful and married black man contemplates having an affair with a white girl from work. He's quite rightly worried that the racial difference would make an already taboo relationship even worse.

Jungle Fever

1991

A Storm in Summer poster
6.4

Set in 1969, Abel Shaddick, a crotchety deli owner, has a grudge against virtually everyone in his upstate New York town of Fairview, particularly against his slacker nephew Stanley who lives behind the shop. Without telling his uncle, Stanley agrees to put up a needy city kid for the summer as part of a charity program run by rich debutante Gloria. Abel immediately vetoes the plan, but it is too late. The kid, young Herman Washington, is already on his way...

A Storm in Summer

2000

Cop & ½ poster
4.6

When a pint-sized 8-year-old kid witnesses a murder he offers to help the police, if they make him a cop, too. Saddled with this streetwise sidekick, a hardboiled cop is forced to take his new partner seriously as they race the clock to bring the bad guys to justice.

Cop & ½

1993

A Simple Wish poster
5.5

Murray is a male fairy godmother, and he is trying to help 8-year-old Anabel to fulfil her "simple wish" - that her father Oliver, who is a cab driver, would win the leading role in a Broadway musical. Unfortunately, Murray's magic wand is broken and the fairies convention is threatened by evil witches Claudia and Boots.

A Simple Wish

1997

Baby Geniuses poster
4.1

BabyCo is the world's leading manufacturer in baby products. However, what the public doesn't know, is that Drs Kinder and Heep, two of its most brilliant scientists, are tirelessly working in complete secrecy to crack the indecipherable code to 'baby talk': a highly sophisticated language, and the key to the secrets of the universe. Before long, problems arise when mischievous Sly, the smartest of the toddlers, escapes confinement, bent on uniting all babies to free those trapped in the laboratory. Now, Kinder and Heep must find Sly before it is too late.

Baby Geniuses

1999

Their Eyes Were Watching God poster
5.7

A drama set in the 1920s, where free-spirited Janie Crawford's search for happiness leads her through several different marriages, challenging the morals of her small town. Based on the novel by Zora Neale Hurston.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

2005

America poster
3.5

In "America," Dr. Maureen Brennan, a psychiatrist at a youth treatment center, encounters her newest patient, a bi-racial boy named America. Through their sessions, Dr. Brennan helps America come to terms with his roller-coaster life, which began when he was taken by authorities from his crack-addicted mother, and placed into foster care as an infant. The short time of stability in his life occurred when America lived with Mrs. Harper, the elderly nanny to one of his foster families. Later reunited with his mother, she soon abandons America and he is again placed into foster care. Lagging behind in school and full of anger, America retreats further away from society after years of sexual abuse. After attempting suicide, America is placed in a treatment center where Dr. Brennan helps him open up about his painful past and discover the support and courage he needs to get his life back on track.

America

2009

St. Louis Blues poster
7.7

Will Handy grows up in Memphis with his preacher father and his Aunt Hagar. His father intends for him to use his musical gifts only in church, but he can't stay away from the music of the streets and workers. After he writes a theme song for a local politician, Gogo, a speakeasy singer, convinces Will to be her accompanist. Will is estranged from his father for many years while he writes and publishes many blues songs. At last the family is reunited when Gogo brings them to New York to see Will's music played by a symphony orchestra.

St. Louis Blues

1958

The Incident poster
7.4

Two hoodlums terrorize the passengers of a late-night New York City subway train.

The Incident

1967

Buck and the Preacher poster
6.3

A wagon master and a con-man preacher help freed slaves dogged by cheap-labor agents out West.

Buck and the Preacher

1972

The Sheriff poster
6.0

A rape case opens racial divisions in a small town. A black sheriff and his white deputy investigate allegations that a wealthy white businessman raped a black college student.

The Sheriff

1971

Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee poster
1.5

In this open-letter style documentary, Ruby Dee & Ossie Davis' rich lives guide their grandson on his personal quest to master lasting love, conscious art, and undying activism.

Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee

2014

Feast of All Saints poster
4.8

Set in nineteenth-century New Orleans, the story depicts the gens de couleur libre, or the Free People of Colour, a dazzling yet damned class caught between the world of white privilege and black oppression.

Feast of All Saints

2001

No artwork available
NR

The Robinson's like to see themselves as liberals. So when their new black neighbours the Kingsbury's move into their apartment block they are invited for drinks but things don't quite go as they imagined it would.

Neighbours

1966

King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis poster
7.3

A presentation of key events in the life of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. Beginning with the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, MLK is followed through major steps in his struggle to promote racial equality. Including footage of King's stirring speeches, it is a fitting tribute to his legacy, and features clips narrated by a wide range of celebrities, including Harry Belafonte, Paul Newman Charlton Heston, Ruby Dee, Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn, Walter Matthau, Ben Gazzara, Clarence Williams III, Joanne Woodward, and James Earl Jones.

King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis

1970

Edge of the City poster
7.2

A male army deserter and a black male dock worker join forces against a corrupt manager, in a corrupt environment, and as their connection blossoms they must face the oppressive and morally decaying city they live in.

Edge of the City

1957

No artwork available
6.9

The Behind-the-Scenes documentary of the dramatic comedy Do the Right Thing.

Making 'Do the Right Thing'

1989

Behind the camera