Women's Dreams Visons & Voices

RUBY DEE’S BIO

As the first African American woman to appear in major roles at the American Shakespeare Festival, Actor Ruby Dee calls herself a “word worker.”   “Ideas too,” she says. “I love language and authors and music and how they can all interconnect. As an actor, I want to explore life and people rhythms and the sounds in the silences.”

Ms. Dee’s film career began in the 1950s, with the release of No Way Out and The Jackie Robinson Story. Since then, she has been featured in many other films, including St. Louis Blues, A Raisin in the Sun, The Balcony, The Incident, Buck and the Preacher, Cat People, Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Just Cause, and Tuesday Morning Ride.     Ms. Dee co-wrote the screenplay for and co-starred in Jules Dassin’s Up Tight, and co-produced the 1974 film Countdown at Kusini with her husband, Ossie Davis, and the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Ms. Dee made her Broadway debut in  the non musical South Pacific and has appeared in such plays as Jeb, Anna Lucasta, A Raisin in the Sun, Purlie Victorious, and Checkmates. Off-Broadway, in 1970 she received an Obie Award for her performance in Boesman and Lena, and a Drama Desk Award for Wedding Band in 1974.

She has made many television appearances and received Emmy nominations for her performances in The Nurses, Roots: The Next Generation, Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, China Beach, and Evening Shade, as well as two Daytime Emmy nominations for her recurring role as Alice the Great on Bill Cosby’s animated series, Little Bill. In 1991, she was awarded the Emmy for her performance in Decoration Day.

Married for more than 50 years to the late Ossie Davis, their work together on the American social scene began with strident opposition to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Communist witch-hunt in the 1950s and flowed into the civil rights movement a decade later. They served as masters of ceremonies for the 1963 March on Washington. They’ve sued in federal court to ensure black voting rights and they’ve been on the frontlines of latter-day efforts to protect equal rights for all.

Ms. Dee is also the author of two children’s books, Tower to Heaven and Two Ways to Count to Ten, and a book of poetry and short stories, My One Good Nerve, which she has adapted into a solo performance piece. In 1998, Ruby and Ossie authored their autobiography, With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together.

Ruby and Ossie were inducted into the NAACP Image Award Hall of Fame (1989), awarded the Silver Circle Award by the Academy of Television Arts and Science (1994), the National Medal of Arts Award (1995), and the Screen Actors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2001). In December 2004, Ms. Dee and Mr. Davis were recipients of the John F. Kennedy Center Honors.

A Mexican film and television actress and director. She has also been nominated for a Golden Globe, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Broadcast Film Critics Association and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is also a veteran actress of Televisa telenovelas. Barraza is the third Mexican actress to be nominated for an Academy Award, in a year when ten Mexicans were nominated at the 79th Academy Awards.

In 1985, Barraza moved to Mexico City, to work as a theater director. Since 1985, Barraza has guest starred and directed the Mexican television show Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real, alongside host Silvia Pinal. She has also been a part of the telenovela ensembles of Bajo un Mismo Rostro playing Elvira, La Paloma as Madre Clara and Imperio de Cristal as Flora. In 1997 she took on the role of Nurse Clara Dominguez in Alguna Vez Tendremos Alas.

Her two most recognizable films are Amores Perros and Babel; the latter garnered her nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, an Online Film Critics Award, and a Chicago Film Critics Circle Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. She won in this category at the San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards. This role has earned her wide acclaim and she was nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, losing to Jennifer Hudson for her performance in Dreamgirls.

Barraza directed Locura de Amor (in which she also starred), Nunca Te Olvidare and El Manantial. She is also a professional acting coach and has worked with actors for a number of movies and television shows, including the American film Spanglish.

She currently works for Telemundo as an acting instructor. In 2007, Barraza was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Barraza recently appeared in Henry Poole Is Here, Drag Me to Hell, and And Soon the Darkness.

Inspired by actual events, JUNKYARD DOG is a gritty psychological-horror-thriller that delves the demented mind of a cannibalistic serial rapist who kidnaps his tenth victim. JUNKYARD DOG tells the terror-filled tale of Audra Buckman, a nineteen year-old college co-ed, trapped in a month-long nightmare, struggling to stay alive and uneaten while being held captive. Audra’s only hope of escape from this hell is Samantha Deatherage, a tough FBI agent who is sent on a solo assignment to search for the missing girl.