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Ossie Davis

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Ossie Davis

6.24.04OssieDavisbyLuigiNovi.jpg

Davis at the New York City premiere of the Spike Lee film She Hate Me, 2004

Born

Raiford Chatman Davis

December 18, 1917

Cogdell, Clinch County, Georgia, U.S.

Died

February 4, 2005 (aged 87)

Miami Beach, Florida, U.S.

Occupation

Actor, director, poet, playwright, author, activist

Years active

1939–2005

Spouse(s)

Ruby Dee (1948–2005; his death; 3 children)

Children

Guy Davis (b. 1952)

Nora Davis Day

Hasna Muhammad

Ossie Davis (born Raiford Chatman Davis; December 18, 1917 – February 4, 2005) was an American film, television and Broadway actor, director, poet, playwright, author, and social activist.[1][2][3]

Contents [hide]

1 Early years

2 Career

3 Honors

4 Personal life

5 Death

6 Credits 6.1 Director

6.2 Film

6.3 Television

6.4 Stage

6.5 Discography

7 Bibliography

8 References

9 External links

Early years[edit]

Davis was born Raiford Chatman Davis in Cogdell, Clinch County, Georgia, a son of Kince Charles Davis, a railway construction engineer, and his wife Laura (née Cooper; July 9, 1898 – June 6, 2004).[4][5] The name Ossie came from a county clerk who misheard his mother's pronunciation of his initials "R.C." when he was born.[6] So he inadvertently became "Ossie" when his mother told the courthouse clerk in Clinch County, Ga., who was filing his birth certificate that his name was R.C. Davis. Davis experienced racism from an early age when the KKK threatened to shoot his father, whose job they felt was too advanced for a black man to have. Following the wishes of his parents, he attended Howard University but dropped out in 1939 to fulfill his acting career in New York; he later attended Columbia University School of General Studies. His acting career, which spanned eight decades, began in 1939 with the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem. During World War II, Davis served in the United States Army in the Medical Corps. He made his film debut in 1950 in the Sidney Poitier film No Way Out. He voiced Anansi the spider on the PBS children's television series Sesame Street in its animation segments.

Career[edit]

photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1951

When Davis wanted to pursue a career in acting, he ran into the usual roadblocks that blacks suffered at that time as they generally could only portray stereotypical characters such as Stepin Fetchit. Instead, he tried to follow the example of Sidney Poitier and play more distinguished characters. When he found it necessary to play a Pullman porter or a butler, he tried to portray the character seriously and not in a stereotypical manner.

In addition to acting, Davis, along with Melvin Van Peebles, and Gordon Parks was one of the notable African-American directors of his generation: he directed movies like Gordon's War, Black Girl and the far famed action film Cotton Comes to Harlem. Along with Bill Cosby and Poitier, Davis was one of a handful of African American actors able to find commercial success while avoiding stereotypical roles prior to 1970, which also included a significant role in the 1965 movie The Hill alongside Sean Connery plus roles in The Cardinal and The Scalphunters. However, Davis never had the tremendous commercial or critical success that Cosby and Poitier enjoyed. As a playwright, Davis wrote Paul Robeson: All-American, which is frequently performed in theatre

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