Ruby Dee

Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, an African-American girl in an America whose love for blonde, blue-eyed children can devastate all others, prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, people will notice her, and her world will be different. The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, the tragic heroine of Toni Morrison's haunting first novel, grew out of her memory of a girlhood friend who wanted blue eyes. Shunned by the town's...

"Lorraine Hansberry's immortal 'A raisin in the sun' was the first play by a black woman to be performed on Broadway. Two years later, the production came to the screen, directed by Daniel Petrie. The original stars, including Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, reprise their roles as members of an African American family living in a cramped Chacago apartment, in this deeply resonant tale of dreams deferred. The Youngers await a life insurance check they...

Mules and Men is a treasury of black America's folklore as collected by a famous storyteller and anthropologist who grew up hearing the songs and sermons, sayings and tall tales that have formed an oral history of the South since the time of slavery. Returning to her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, to gather material, Zora Neale Hurston recalls "a hilarious night with a pinch of everything social mixed with the storytelling." Set intimately within...

Intimate reflections on loving and living from an American treasure. My One Good Nerve is an exuberant collection of writings in the down-home tradition by that incomparable icon of the human spirit, Ruby Dee. Married for 50 years to fellow actor Ossie Davis, Dee has led an astonishingly full life. But she has never forgotten where she comes from as an African American woman. Fans who have admired and drawn strength over the years from Dee's outspoken...

Fast-talking Jack McCall says whatever it takes to close a deal. After stretching the truth with a spiritual guru, he suddenly finds his life depending on a magical tree with 1,000 leaves, one for every word he has left. Now Jack's got to stop talking and conjure up some outrageous ways to communicate or he's a goner.

It's the hottest day of the year in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Tensions are growing, with the only local businesses being a Korean grocery and Sal's Pizzeria. Mookie is Sal's delivery boy. Radio Raheem has the letters of love and hate written on his hands. He is defiant and together with a motivated Buggin Out, push Sal and his sons to their breaking point. The cops intervene, using force and brutality to apprehend the large...

Millions perish, and as small, isolated frightened bands unite, the answers to their perpetual questions to justify this end of civilization are bared in their dreams--revelations that urge some to embrace a path of virtue and others one of darkness. As the opposing forces separate into two camps, the noble elements try to shield themselves from their corrupt enemy.

A young black boy in the 1930's tries to win the respect of his stepfather.

CHAMPAGNE is the true story of a young teenage girl whose mother is incarcerated for murder. Living in a Catholic Children's home run by an order of nuns, she provides poignant commentary about her mother, her own situation, and her outlook for the future. Starring the voice of the real-life Champagne, this award-winning film shows how hope can spring forth even in the most challenging of times. Featuring the voices by Ruby Dee and Linda Lavin.

Set in 1919 Harlem, two girls (one white, one black) form a lifelong friendship through a chance encounter and the jazztime music of young "Fats"Waller. Narrated by Ruby Dee.