NEW YORK (AP) — Ruby Dee, an acclaimed actress and civil
rights activist whose versatile career spanned stage, radio television
and film, has died at age 91, according to her daughter.
Nora
Davis Day told The Associated Press on Thursday that her mother died at
home in New Rochelle on Wednesday night of "natural causes."
Dee, who frequently acted alongside her husband of 56 years, Ossie Davis, was with loved ones, she added.

"We
have had her for so long and we loved her so much," Day said. "She took
her final bow last night at home surrounded by her children and
grandchildren."
Day added: "We gave her our permission to set sail. She opened her eyes, closed her eyes and away
she went."
Her
long career brought her an Oscar nomination at age 83 for best
supporting actress for her maternal role in the 2007 film "American
Gangster." She also won an Emmy and was nominated for several others.
Age didn’t slow her down.
"I think you mustn’t tell your body, you
mustn’t tell your soul, ‘I’m going to retire,’" Dee told The Associated
Press in 2001. "You may be changing your life emphasis, but there’s
still things that you have in mind to do that now seems the right time
to do. I really don’t believe in retiring as long as you can breathe."
She
and her late husband were frequent collaborators. Their partnership
rivaled the achievements of other celebrated acting couples. But they
were more than performers; they were also activists who fought for civil
rights, particularly for blacks.
"We used the arts as part of our
struggle," she said in 2006. "Ossie said he knew he had to conduct
himself differently with skill and thought."
In 1998, the pair
celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and an even longer association
in show business with the publication of a dual autobiography, "With
Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together."
Davis died in February
2005. Among those who mourned at his funeral included former President
Bill Clinton, Harry Belafonte and Spike Lee.
Davis and Dee met in
1945 when she auditioned for the Broadway play "Jeb," starring Davis
(both were cast in it). In December 1948, on a day off from rehearsals
from another play, Davis and Dee took a bus to New Jersey to get
married. They already were so close that "it felt almost like an
appointment we finally got around to keeping," Dee wrote in "In This
Life Together."
They shared billing in 11 stage productions and
five movies during long parallel careers. Dee’s fifth film, "No Way Out"
with Sidney Poitier in 1950, was her husband’s first. Along with film,
stage and television, their richly honored careers extended to a radio
show, "The Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee Story Hour," that featured a mix of
black themes. Davis directed one of their joint film appearances,
"Countdown at Kusini" (1976).
Both were active in civil rights
issues and efforts to promote the cause of blacks in the entertainment
industry and elsewhere. Dee and Davis served as masters of ceremonies
for the historic 1963 March on Washington and she spoke at both the
funerals for Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X.
The couple’s
battle in that arena was lifelong: In 1999, the couple was arrested
while protesting the shooting death of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African
immigrant, by New York City police.
Among her best-known films
was "A Raisin in the Sun," in 1961, based on the classic play that
explored racial discrimination and black frustration (she was also in
the 1959 stage version). On television, she was on the soap operas such
in the 1950s and ’60s, a rare sight for a black actress in the 1950s and
60s.
As she aged, she continued to reach new career heights. Dee
was the voice of wisdom and reason as Mother Sister in Spike Lee’s 1989
film, "Do the Right Thing," alongside her husband. She won an Emmy as
supporting actress in a miniseries or special for 1990’s "Decoration
Day."
She won a National Medal of the Arts in 1995 and a Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2000. In 2004, she and
Davis received Kennedy Center Honors. In 2007, Davis and Dee’s book won
a Grammy for best spoken word album.
Born Ruby Ann Wallace in
Cleveland, Dee was an infant when her family moved to Harlem, New York.
She graduated from a highly competitive high school and enrolled in
college but longed for show business.
"I wanted to be an actor but the chances for success did not look promising," she wrote in
their joint autobiography.
But
in 1940 she got a part in a Harlem production of a new play, "On
Strivers Row," which she later called "one giant step" to becoming a
person and a performer.
In 1965, she became the first black woman
to play lead roles at the American Shakespeare Festival. She won an Obie
Award for the title role in Athol Fugard’s "Boesman and Lena" and a
Drama Desk Award for her role in "Wedding Band."
Most recently,
Dee performed her one-woman stage show, "My One Good Nerve: A Visit With
Ruby Dee," in theaters across the country. The show was a compilation
of some of the short stories, humor and poetry in her book of the same
title.
She is survived by three children: Nora, Hasna and Guy, and seven grandchildren.
Day said funeral services will be private but a public memorial is planned.
___
Former Associated Press writer Richard Pyle contributed to this report.
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