FRIDAY
E-mail a friendRuby Dee
original airdate February 21, 2008
More than six decades after her stage debut, Ruby Dee continues to make her mark on the arts. She was the first Black woman to play lead roles at the American Shakespeare Festival and has won numerous awards and honors for her work, including an Emmy, a Grammy and, recently, a SAG award and first-time ever Oscar nod. She's also being honored at Essence magazine's "Black Women in Hollywood" luncheon. A breast cancer survivor of more than 30 years, Dee is a novelist, poet and longtime human rights activist.
Award-winning actress discusses how racism impacted her early career and diversity in Hollywood today. (3:50)
Ruby Dee
Tavis: I am pleased and honored, as I always am whenever Ruby Dee comes to see me. The legendary actress and activist turned in one of the most talked-about movie performances of the year in her Oscar-nominated role in "American Gangster." This is her first-ever Oscar nomination. She's also featured on the current cover of "Essence" magazine. There she is, with her gorgeous self.
She's receiving the "Essence" lifetime achievement award in L.A. this week. In fact, earlier today Ruby Dee -- first of all, congratulations on the "Essence" award, and it's nice to see you.
Ruby Dee: Yes, well, thank you, thank you, that was a pleasure. "Essence" is very close to my heart. And I'm so happy to see you, I can't tell you. Well, I see you every night, mostly. (Laughter.) When I'm home I see you, and (unintelligible) says "Ruby, you've got to get to bed earlier." Well I said, "Well, if I can get to bed after you're done, that's an early night for me."
Tavis: Well, I wish I could see you every night, because every time I see you I am empowered and I am enlightened, I am inspired by our conversation. I was teasing Ms. Dee when she walked out. When her people told me she was going to be in town and made me aware, I wanted to have her on the show but I almost passed on it.
And I say that because the last time we talked we were in New York, in your neck of the woods, and we are still getting phone calls and email. People stop me in airports and restaurants and tell me that the best conversation I have ever conducted was with you.
Dee: Oh, my goodness. Well I appreciate that, and I appreciate that because when I'm listening to you, there's a depth of investigation that you do with most everybody that heartens me. And I've loved these recent presidential talks you've had. And oh, so many things that I could go into.
Tavis: But your humanity just touches people, though. Your humanity in that conversation and everything you do just touches people. You and Ossie Davis for so many years just doing stuff that touches peoples' lives beyond the stage, even.
Dee: Yes. Well, I appreciate your saying that because we have realized for a long time, in a profound way, that we are each other. And one of the things even about being an actor is you're like a vessel, you're like a big tunnel through which impulses and people and circumstances and countries and languages and races and sexes and everything passes.
And it becomes the stuff of what you do, like a musician learns the notes and the dancer has the steps and the actor has all of those things, and it has occurred to both of us that that's really some of the stuff of life. We all are students of each other. We walk through each other, and our job is to relax and just open the door of ourselves and let things come through -- being careful that something comes through that's not going to damage the entrance. (Laughter.)
Tavis: Not through you. Not through you. We mentioned Ossie Davis three or four times already this quick in this conversation, and I've been dying to ask you when you heard about the nomination, how did you break the news to Ossie?
Dee: Well, he broke it to me, as a matter of fact, because I tell you, I'm going through all of these -- my thing is worrying. I worry. And he always used to say to me, "You say your prayers, don't you? You have some kind of religious allegiance, so you just can't' pray and worry -- they don't go together." (Laughter.)
He was very fond of saying that -- "They just don't go together." Or "You can't fix it, ain't found it, down it and get around it." (Unintelligible) Nipsey Russell. So I try to remember those things so when I'm on the verge of all those things that happen to us in this life, even matters that don't really concern us directly, they do. We find ourselves deeply affected by a story.
The people that come through -- especially, well, I love public television anyway, but so much -- and other channels, like that deal with the human condition, human beings in this profound way. They could be relatives. You're sitting there and you're not really thinking, it doesn't matter to you. Before you know it, these people that you never heard of before just grab you.
And I don't know what made me bring that up, but that's part of this award business, too. I can't say I deserve these awards, but there's a need for us to say -- we need to give each other the psychic hugs, because like you said, well, you have a need, you need some money or something, and you don't expect God to just open the sky and drop -- you pray for money.
Tavis: Somebody's got to help you.
Dee: Somebody has to write the check and give it. (Laughter.) So how we make ourselves manifest in each other's lives is the stuff of life.
Tavis: What do you make of this nomination at this point in your life?
Dee: Of the Oscars, you mean?
Tavis: Yeah, what do you make of it? You've already won the SAG, so congratulations on that.
Dee: (Unintelligible.)
Tavis: But what do you make of this Oscar, though?
Dee: -- AARP, and what do I make of it? You know what, Tavis, I have to tell you when I was young and first hearing about the Oscars, it was like I was with my nose against a bakery shop window looking in at all the goodies, knowing that I'm going to go in there and buy it.
But circumstances pounded it into me that I didn't have the right to go in there and buy something from that bakery. And so I could read the magazines and I finally realized I wasn't going to be a starlet in Hollywood, in the stable of young newcomers that came along from the big producing companies, so I let it go. But something else came in that our relatives and friends -- sometimes the ministers and the intellectuals, and people like you, who look into the human condition a lot understand this.
But a gate closes in yourself, so that you won't bang your head against any more store windows or bleed on any more iron fences, trying to climb. You just abandon -- it doesn't exist for you anymore. And so that's what happened to me.
Tavis: But it came on back around.
Dee: But it doesn't -- yes, but in a different sense. Because there's something about racism that racism destroys self-confidence. It stomps on daring. That's what it does to our children. It shortens our reach, because we begin to believe everything that's said about us. We buy into it. Not everybody does; some young people are stronger than that.
And although I thought I was tough and I was a street fighter and everything, but as I looked back I was all those things because I didn't know how to buck the rejection that I felt. So I moved out of -- backed away from Oscar and Hollywood until, of course, Hattie McDaniel, and then she wasn't allowed to come to -- as you've heard that story.
Tavis: Yeah, couldn't come, yeah.
Dee: To the ceremony. But now things are different in Hollywood. It's a part of the world that's growing in its concepts and its outreach and its look at fairness, and some of the most remarkable people I've known to help break down the barriers of racism (unintelligible) have been people like (Unintelligible) Lancaster and Jules Dassen -- the people like that. And so that we get all kinds of -- there's Spike Lee and there's many others.
Tavis: Every time you come on the program there are four or five jewels you drop. I end up just writing stuff down. So I like that -- racism stomps on daring. That's beautiful. It stomps on daring.
Dee: But not everybody. There's some people that will (unintelligible) through anyway. And I thought I would be one of them because I was tough, and I really wasn't.
Tavis: Everybody keeps saying the same thing, which is that it's a wonderful thing for you to be as chronologically gifted as you are. Here you are at this age, chronologically gifted, and now receiving an Academy Award. I said when we started the program, as everybody now knows, that if you are to win on Sunday night, you'll be the oldest actor to ever walk up on stage and accept an Academy Award.
Dee: You don't mean --
Tavis: Yeah, that's what I read. That's what they tell me, at least.
Dee: (Unintelligible.)
Tavis: That's what they tell me. I think that's true. But I raise that only because I want to ask you, Ruby, before my time runs out, I want to ask you of all the things that you have done -- I don't want to take anything away from your wonderful role in "American Gangster." You did your thing in this project. But is there a particular role in your life that you've played that you think was as Academy-worthy as what you did in "American Gangster?"
Dee: Well things are so relative. I see things for which I'm very proud.
Tavis: What are you really proud of?
Dee: You mean in film?
Tavis: In film, yeah.
Dee: Well, I'm proud of having been in Ossie's play "Purlie Victorious" and the humor, the satire in that. I'm proud of doing "Long Day's Journey Into Night," for which I won an ACE award. And then the three seasons that I worked with Ossie on public television are the most exciting years of my life, and I say that because they trusted us to do whatever we wanted to do.
We did adaptations, we wrote original material. For three seasons we had all kinds of guests on our shows. I'm trying desperately to bring some of those things back. And we also wrote material. It was the freest we've ever been to do whatever we wanted to do.
And although we were limited in budget, it also taught us how to do what you need to do without spending the money. So not because I'm sitting here, but that's one of the reasons I say about public television, one of the things. And I'm not making any commercials. I've done some pictures and things like that, but I frankly believe in the freedom, in the creative process that permits us really to exchange ideas without any barriers, without any holds barred. You understand.
Tavis: I understand. Not only do I understand, I'm sure the executives of PBS, although you didn't mean it as a commercial, will take that and cut it up, and it'll be used (unintelligible) spots somewhere in the not-too-distant future. I wish I had more time, but I'm always honored when she comes by to see me.
Her name, of course, Ruby Dee, and this Sunday we will all be watching the Academy Awards and I'm watching, with all due respect to everybody else, I'm watching for one reason above all else, and that is I hope to see Ruby Dee walk up on that stage, with all due respect, and accept the Academy Award for her wonderful portrayal in "American Gangster," out earlier this week now on DVD. I love you, and all the best on Sunday night.
Dee: Oh, bless your heart. (Laughs.)
Back to February 21, 2008