Davis, Ossie

found: LEXIS/NEXIS, Sept. 3, 1997: Celebrity bios, c1997(Davis, Ossie; actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author; b. Dec. 18, 1917; Cogdell, GA; married actress Ruby Dee in 1948; 1961, wrote and starred in Broadway play, "Purlie Victorious")

found: National Public Radio (NPR) WWW site, Feb. 4, 2005:(Ossie Davis, 87, actor, activist; d. Feb. 4, 2005, Miami, Fla.)

found: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century, accessed via The Oxford African American Studies Center online database, July 27, 2014:(Davis, Ossie; Raiford Chatman Davis; his name "Ossie" came from a clerk's misunderstanding the pronunciation of the initials "R. C." when recording his birth; stage / screen actor, television actor, motion picture producer / director, dramatist, community activist, civil rights activist); born 18 December 1917 in Cogdell, Georgia, United States; attended Howard University; in 1942 the World War II draft relocated him to Liberia in West Africa, where he served the military for three years as a surgical technician; in 1946 made his Broadway debut; he not only achieved professional succes, but also visible activism for civil rights working with the Congress of Racial Equality, serving as a host for the March on Washington, and giving the eulogy at the funeral of Malcolm X; died 04 February 2005 in Miami, Florida, United States)

found: African American National Biography, accessed December 21, 2014, via Oxford African American Studies Center database:(Davis, Ossie; stage/ screen actor, television actor, motion picture producer/ director, dramatist, community activist, civil rights activist; born 18 December 1917 in Cogdell, Georgia, United States; studied at Howard University, in Washington, D.C for four years; appeared in four plays (1939-1941); performed in fifteen plays (1948-1957); received a Tony Award nomination for Jamaica (1958); finished playwriting class at Columbia University (1947); his play Purlie Victorious (1961) was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Musical (9170); film and television work began with the film No Way Out (1950); appeared in more than a hundred films- A Man Called Adam (1966), Malcolm X (1992); starred in numerous television dramas and miniseries- Roots (1979), King (1978); wrote three children's books; winner of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award; directed his first film Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970); founded his own production company with his wife- Emmalyn II Productions Company; Davis and his wife received the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle Award (1994); was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton (1995); received the Screen Actors Guild's highest honor, the Life Achievement Award (2000); died 04 February 2005 in Miami, Florida, United States)