Ossie Davis, an actor, writer, and director whose dignified bearing and commanding voice made him a force both in the arts and within the civil-rights movement, died in Miami Beach, Fla. He was 87.
Davis, who was feted in December with his wife Ruby Dee at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, had been shooting a film titled Retirement. Calling Davis "an icon in the American theatre," Actors' Equity President Patrick Quinn and Executive Director Alan Eisenberg wrote in a statement: "He was a great humanist and an outspoken activist for human rights and for the arts. He made significant contributions to the cultural life of our nation and helped to pave the road for the next generation of African-American actors."
In 1989, Davis and Dee were named to the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame.
Davis received Emmy nominations for acting in Teacher, Teacher (1969), King (1978), and Miss Evers' Boys (1997). In 2001 he received a Daytime Emmy for outstanding performance in a children's special for his role in Finding Buck McHenry. That year Davis and Dee were honored with Screen Actors Guild's Life Achievement Award.
More recently, Davis played a guest role as the father of two of the characters on the Showtime series The L Word. He appeared in one episode in the first season and returned for three episodes in Season Two, which premieres this month.
"We knew that we were working with a powerful, important actor," L Word executive producer Ilene Chaiken said Feb. 4. "Ruby Dee sat with me and watched as he filmed [a] death scene. It was extraordinary."
From the beginning of his career as an actor, in 1939, when he joined the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem, Davis came to know such black leaders and performers as W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Jackie Robinson, and Paul Robeson.
By the 1960s, he assumed a prominent role in the civil-rights movement. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington and delivered a eulogy at the funeral of Malcolm X. He was nationally identifiable for the voiceover he did for the United Negro College Fund: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."
An accomplished actor who made his Broadway debut in 1946 in Jeb, a play about a soldier returning from World War II, Davis had a distinguished stage career, performing in such productions as No Time for Sergeants, I'm Not Rappaport, and Anna Lucasta. He starred with Dee on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun. Davis directed Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), an edgy action comedy about two black New York cops, which he co-wrote. On television, he performed a supporting role on Evening Shade (1990–94). He previously had recurring roles on B.L. Stryker and The Client.
"Since the loss of my father, no man has come closer to represent the kind of man I hope to be some day," said Burt Reynolds, Davis' Evening Shade co-star. "I know he's sitting next to God now, and I know God envies that voice."
In film, his recent credits include Doctor Dolittle and Baadasssss! Davis has appeared in many Spike Lee films: School Daze, Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, and last year's She Hate Me.
In 1976, Davis and Dee produced the first U.S. feature film to be shot entirely in Africa by black professionals, Countdown at Kusani, which he directed. During the 1970s, Davis also directed Black Girl and Gordon's War. During that period he also founded the Third World Cinema production company to assist black filmmakers.
His honors are numerous. In 1995, Davis and Dee received the U.S. National Medal for the Arts and were hailed as "national treasures." Along with Dee, Davis also received the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle Award in 1994. The couple was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame and also received Image Awards in 1999 for the CBS series Promised Land.
Davis was born Raiford Chatman Davis Dec. 18, 1917, in Cogdell, Ga. According to The New York Times, "R.C." became "Ossie" when the courthouse clerk filling out Davis' birth certificate misheard his mother.
After graduating from high school, Davis hitchhiked to Washington to live with an aunt. He had received a National Youth Administration scholarship and enrolled at Howard University. However, Davis dreamed of becoming an actor, and after graduation he ventured to New York. After working many menial jobs, as well as serving in the Army during World War II, Davis gradually broke onto Broadway in 1946.
In his debut play, Jeb, he met Dee, who co-starred. The couple married two years later in 1948, and in 1998 they celebrated their 50th anniversary with the publication of a dual autobiography, With Ossie & Ruby: In This Life Together. "Ruby and I have been regarded as successful actors working continually in the entertainment industry for over 50 years, and many assumptions about us—some quite incorrect—are based on that longevity," Davis wrote in the memoir. "We have survived, of course, and that counted for much of the attention; but we are not 'stars,' nor are we 'celebrities'…. Neither of us has appeared in a 'breakthrough' role, or series of roles that finally elevated us to the ultimate heights of stardom…. We simply called ourselves laborers in the fields of the arts."
The couple also used their 50th anniversary celebration as an occasion to raise money for 12 small theatres, including the National Black Theatre and the Pan-Asian Repertory.
"We always knew that we had to pay attention and make sure that the seedbed, the place from which we came, would be there for another generation," Davis said in 1999. "The American Dream is to make it from where you are to up there; it is not turning around and giving back. But somebody's gotta look back. So while we welcomed whatever opportunities there were, and took full advantage of them, we never cut the umbilical, we never burned the bridge. We've always tried to come back."
In 1950, Davis made his movie debut in No Way Out, which starred Sidney Poitier and co-starred Dee. His play, Purlie Victorious, was adapted into the 1963 film Gone Are the Days! in which he starred opposite Dee. During the decade that followed, Davis appeared in The Cardinal and Shock Treatment. While continuing to perform in films and on television, Davis also shifted into directing with 1970's Cotton Comes to Harlem.
Davis' film credits also include Hot Stuff, Avenging Angel, Route One USA, Joe Versus the Volcano, and Grumpy Old Men. He was the voice of a lemur in Disney's Dinosaur.
In Retirement, the film on which he was working at his death, Davis was starring opposite Jack Warden, Peter Falk, and George Segal.
"He was a wonderful man, a great actor, and we are deeply saddened for the family and deeply honored to have had the opportunity to work with him," the film's writer-producer, Michael Pietrzak, said. The production expects to recast the part.
Borys Kit, the Associated Press, and Back Stage West contributed to this report.