American-born actor and civil rights activist in Cogdell, Georgia, USA, whose career spans more than half a century, breaking down barriers for black actors in television, theater and film and building a solid reputation as an actor. Graduated from Howard University (1938), he began to act professionally as part of the Rose McClendon Players, in Harlem (1939).
He began filming in the middle of the last century making his debut in Sidney Poitier's No Way Out (1950), but his first credited film was Fourteen Hours (1951). He has appeared as an actor in more than eighty works and has been successful in films such as Do the Right Thing (1989) and Jungle Fever (1991), both directed by Spike Lee, and in TV miniseries such as "Ossie and Ruby!" (1980) and The Ernest Green Story (1993).
As an activist he spoke at the funerals of his personal friends Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and voiced the famous United Negro College Fund's slogan: It is a terrible thing to waste your mind. He was married (1948) to actress Ruby Dee, and the couple had three children. The inseparable couple entered the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame (1989) and received the Kennedy Center Honors (2004) and used to appear together in movies.
They also wrote a biography With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together (1999), in which they talk about their history of human rights activism, as well as their 50 years together. He suffered from heart disease and was 87 years old when he was found dead at the Shore Club hotel in Miami Beach.
He was working on Retirement, a film with him, Peter Falk, George Segal and Rip Torn, where they played four surly retirees who leave Florida to take a car trip to Las Vegas, in order to prevent one of their daughters from marrying the guy wrong. Among other more recent productions, Grumpy Old Men (1993), The Stand (1994), 12 Angry Men (1997), Bubba Ho-Tep (2002), Baadasssss! (2003) and she She Hate Me (2004).
Picture copied from YAHOO NEWS (photo: Shaun Heasley):
http://br.news.yahoo.com/
Source: http://www.dec.ufcg.edu.br/biografias/
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