With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee met in 1945, when they were both performing in the same play on Broadway; Davis, resuming an acting career that had been interrupted by a World War II tour of duty in Liberia, was cast as the male lead, while Dee was originally hired as understudy to the female lead and soon found herself taking over the part. Three years later, still working together, they took advantage of a rehearsal-free day in their schedule to get married--and have been together through thick and thin ever since.

Trading turns with one another, Davis and Dee discuss the high and low points of more than a half century in each other's company. With Ossie & Ruby has enough stories for at least three books, covering the world of stage and film, the history of the civil rights movement, and the endurance of love and marriage. Their telling, in alternating first-person narration, is unflinching in its portrayal of the hardships they endured for being black-skinned and "left-wing" political activists--and equally firm in their continued dedication. This is a first-rate memoir by a man and a woman--each with a thriving career--who have collaborated to form a union even greater than the sum of its parts.