Happy Birthday Ruby Dee (video)

Rare video with Rudy Dee and Ossie Davis in 1963.

In celebration of Rudy Dee’s birthday we post this video from Purlie, a musical with a book by Dee’s legendary partner/husband Ossie Davis, Philip Rose, and Peter Udell, lyrics by Udell, and music by Gary Geld. It is based on Davis’ 1961 play Purlie Victorious, which was later made into the 1963 film Gone Are the Days! and which included all of the original Broadway cast, including Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Beah Richards, and Godfrey Cambridge.

CHECK OUT PHOTOGRAPHS FROM RUBY DEE’S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT THE SCHOMBURG IN HARLEM BY RUDY COLLINS >>>

Purlie is set in an era when Jim Crow laws still were in effect in the American South. Its focus is on the dynamic, traveling preacher Purlie Victorious Judson, who returns to his small Georgia town hoping to save Big Bethel, the community’s church, and emancipate the cotton pickers who work on oppressive Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee’s plantation. With the assistance of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, Purlie hopes to pry loose from Cotchipee an inheritance due his long-lost cousin and use the money to achieve his goals. Also playing a part in Purlie’s plans is Cotchipee’s son Charlie, who ultimately proves to be far more liberal than his Simon Legree-like father and saves the church from destruction with an act of defiance that has fatal consequences from WIKI.

Happy belated birthday Ruby.

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