By Courtney Dentch
Davis died last week at age 87, but he and wife Ruby Dee left a lasting memento on one of their frequent visits to the Black Spectrum Theatre in St. Albans.”This is Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee,” chimes the couple on the theater's answering machine. “We want to welcome you to the Black Spectrum Theatre.”Davis was found dead Friday in a Miami hotel room, where he was staying while filming “Retirement.” While the cause of his death was still unknown earlier this week, Davis had a history of heart problems and had recently recovered from pneumonia, according to his family.Davis, along with his wife, Ruby Dee, helped pave the way for generations of black actors, filmmakers and performers, elevating minority roles from servants to a broader array of parts.The pair also carried their civil rights work onto the national stage, helping to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his often imitated “I Have a Dream Speech.” “It's conicidental that such a great man would die during Black History Month,” said Carl Clay, founder of the Black Spectrum Theatre and a Davis family friend. “Knowing him, though, it might have been by design in a strange kind of a way.”Clay went to Pace University with Davis' son, Guy, and recalled how Ossie Davis would drop his son off at the school each Sunday evening.”There's some history here,” Clay said of his relationship with the family.When Clay founded the Black Spectrum Theatre in 1970 and launched its first production, Davis was among the first to congratulate him, he said.”He wrote one of the first notes to the theater basically prasing one of the first shows we ever did,” Clay said.Davis was a strong supporter of black community theaters, and his relationship with Black Spectrum was no exception to that. Davis and Dee celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in the late 1990s with a benefit to boost Black Spectrum and six other minority and small theater companies in New York City, Clay said.”That was a huge evening,” he said. “They used that occasion, that grand occasion, to support the ideas that they believed in. Bill Cosby was there, President Bill Clinton sent a video message, everyone from stage, screen and society was there.”But it was after a visit to St. Albans to see a play Clay wrote to celebrate Kwanzaa when Davis and Dee left the message on the theater's outgoing message, Clay said. The pair came to introduce the play and were the last ones to leave the theater when Clay locked up that night, he recalled.”I remember Davis laughing his head off,” Clay said. “He really enjoyed this play about Kwanzaa. They stayed the whole evening. They made a tape that plays on our answering machine. It was very sweet.”Davis made his Broadway debut in 1946 and first appeared on-screen in “No Way Out” in 1950, supporting Sidney Poitier (also making his film debut). It was another 13 years before Davis reached the screen again, then in “Gone Are the Days” (1963), an adaptation of his own play “Purlie Victorious.” He acted in several films before directing “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” a fast-moving crime drama about two unorthodox black cops. Davis directed and starred in many more films after that, including an ironic role as a chauffer in “Joe vs. the Volcano.” He had a particularly fruitful relationship with director Spike Lee, appearing in “School Daze” (1988), “Do the Right Thing” (1989), and “Jungle Fever” (1991). In Lee's “Malcolm X” (1992) he reads the eulogy he had delivered in real life at the black leader's funeral.Davis also gave a eulogy at the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Davis had just started shooting “Retirement,” a romantic comedy about four grumpy old men who leave their quiet retired lives in Florida to stop one of their daughters from marrying the wrong guy in Las Vegas. The movie was due out next year, although the status of the project following Davis' death was unclear.”He was a role model, a Renaissance man, a man for the ages and he will sorely be missed,” Clay said. “We will make sure people in the theater world know about this great man.”Reach Assistant Managing Editor Courtney Dentch by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 139.
