SAT., JANUARY 3, 1881
THE CAROLINA TIMES -J
Today Ds
jro-Atf kstf Soy Ossie E
my Bee
By Ossla Davis
Our new public television )
series, "With Ossie & Ruby,"
is the natural culmination of
k twenty years of our lives. My
twife, Ruby Dee, and I came
long at a time when being
Mack was hot yet fashionable,
and there was very little in the
professional theater for us to
do except carry silver trays and '
announce that the grits
wouldn't hold the heat. In our
first year of marriage, Ruby '
: and I together earned less than
1,000. We were starving fo
death, and it was obvious to us
there must be some other way
to earn a living.
During the early '50s, in ad
dition to being unemployed
because we were black, we also
learned that we were
unemployed because we were ,
red. Some of our California
hunts. Our association with which we would be paid'SIor
'; them made us targets, also. $20. Back then, that was a lot
Yet, out of this dire cir- of money at least to us.
cumstance came an opportuni-1 ' Through this experience.
i ty that led directly to "With X J Ruby and I found there was a
; Ossie & Ruby." Some of the
performers who were out of
; work found a way to pick up
an extra buck by giving
friends had been kicked out of 4 readings of literary material. ;
Hollywood, because of the So we went around to chur-
"McCarthyite" drive, and ; ches, schools, synagogues and
some of our New York friends ; union halls, and we'd give"
like Paul Robeson, Canada ; dramatic interpretations of !
Lee and John Henry Faulk Dostoevsky and Yeats and
were also targets of the. witch other literary masters, for .
Saturday
January 10, 1981
. . WFMY ' WPTF . WTVD WUNC WTTG WRAL I WTBS WGHP
CH.2- CH.28 CH.11 CH.4 CH.5 CH.5 CH.1l CH. 8
Cable 2 Cable 3 Cabled Cable 9 Cable 10 f Cabhl2 Cable 13
-m 00 Krofft -,. My Three Newsbag Kids Are Vegetable -Animals,
15 Superstars sons " People Soup Animals
.s30 FUntstones Rocky 4, Flipper Wonderama Too . -Romper TheJetsons
45 " Bullwlnkle " I 1 " " Room
S CO Mighty Godzilla Mighty " Super- Ultraman Super-
15 Mouse Globe- Mouse " Mends " friends
30. TomS :. ' trotters Tomt, Battled '. Western:
, 45 Jerry ,. Hour Jerry ffawte Tht " "The "
" 00 BugsBjunny- - . - ' "
Fredi J BugsBunny-
:' TheJetsons It'sA Restless It's A
U 15 RoadRunner Barney RoadRunner " Cpmedy Breed" Comedy
& 30 Meat The Bullwlnkle Block- &Kk.
45 Schmoo I I " busters " busters
y 00 " " " Entertaining Six Million " Classics: "
III 15 .." ' " . At Home Dollar ". "King
' w 35 Popeye Daffy Duck Popeye - Herb . Man 90 Minutes Of The 90 Minutes
45 1 - v " . " Gardening " Of Action Khyber" Of Action
00 " Batman & " Houseman- Theatre I: l Comedy
a a 15 " . SuperSeve-
11 n " ' ship" "First Men
I I 30 DrakPak " Drak Pak Inauguration In The " " "
45 I " ' " I " ' 1 Of Jams 1 Moon" " " '"
j r00 Fat Albert Bill Dance Fat Albert - " " Weekend Theatre: Weekend
7 J 15 " . Outdoors " . " . Specials- "River Specials
I C so JBA Jack Van American " " TBA Of No American
45 1 " I Impe " " " " Return" Bandstand
a 00 Duke Movie: " " Theatre II: Duke
1 15 vs. "How The ; - " "Darby's vs.
I 30 Maryland West Was V " Ranchers" Maryland " F Troop
45 ' I Won" ; " I " I " " " ' I "
f f 00 " ' ' I " " " " . Theatre: Soul Train
J 15 " ' " " ". " ' "Captain
' U 30 "Horatio
45 " 1 "1 " 1 " I " , " Hombtower "
3" 00 UNC " " Antiques " UNC " ' Wrestling
15' ys " " VS. " "
30 Virginia Tennessee " Once Upon Theatre III Virginia " "
L 45 ' I ys. I " I A CIassic "Old " "
400 " Kentucky " Masterpiece Dracula" ". " Hula Bowl
15 " " " Theatre " " " ' "
30 " " CBS Sports " " ' Rat Patrol "
45 " " r Spectacula . -
500 Wild Wild ' " " . Soccer Soul Tram Hula Bowl Wrestling
15 West " ' " Made In. " "
30 ". ShaNaNa " Germany " " " "
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yJ 30 CBS News " Reflections ThisO.d " " . ..
45 I " I " I " I House " I " l " I
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7 k " Football Lawrence
15 " Panther " " Kotter Saturday vs.
30 " Muppets " " M.A.S.H. The Baxters On TBS
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t00 WKRPIn NBC Movie: " Classic Georgetown Breaking Atlanta Breaking
15 Cincinnati "Kent " Country vs. Away Chiefs Away
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45 1 " I I " I " 1 " 1 " 1 Tampa Bay
f n 00 FreebieA " Freeblei Mystery! " Love Boat " Love Boat
. .Q.15 The Bean " TheBean
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11 15 Midland Blues Midland The Bijou " Island " Island
3 V 30 Heights " Heights " Black
I 45 I " " I " " Reflections ." . " I
j 00 News America's News " Odd Couple News Dick News
J 7 15 " Top Ten " " " " Maurice ABC News'
i I 30 Movie: Saturday Movie: MetiomeCia-
: Wrestling " ' Wiock
' 45 I "Tht Night Live "A I , j "The " " Theatre
j rtW Comedians" " Thousand Great " - Rock Concert
i 1 ? 15 " " " Waldo " " "
i Cm so " " " Pepper" Chiller "
i 45 " " " " Theatre "
separate body of material we
. could perform that came out
of pur past experiences and
j out of our ethnic identifica
! tion. It was then called Negro
: literature and included the
work of Langston Hughes,
' Phyllis Wheatley, Paul "
, Lawrence Dunbar and others. ,
Most black folks, particularly
those who came up from the
South, knew this material very
i well. I knew it because I had
come from Georgia, and each
year during Negro History;
Week, we would study black
' writers in great detail. So ;
Ruby and I began to perform
dramatic interpretations ' of
J this material in black chur
,' ches, at black weddings and at ;
i black, funerals, and somehow, 5
j we survived.
! A quantitative change in our :
lives occurred which was based
, on three events. First of all,
Ruby and I became involved
: with "A Raisin in the Sun,"
j one of the first plays written ?
; by a black and directed by a ;
black that was a smash on
i Broadway. Because of that
play, our status, prestige and
price went up. This led to the
-second major event writing
my own play, . "Purhe ; Vic
torious." It, too, became a
talked-about event, and it fix
ed our place as ; people of
(Significance in the black
literary experience. '
; The third thing that happen
ed, and I suppose the most im
portant thing, was a direct
i result of the Supreme Court's
; decision in 1954 which deter
' mined that the civil rights bat
j ties of the '60s would largely
be fought in the area of educa
tion. As a result of that deci-
sion, colleges and universities
, found themselves absolutely
' flatfooted when they were in-
clined or required by law to do
something . about black
' studies. They needed people to
take the material off the page
and dramatize it so black and
white students alike would
know what was nwant by
. black literature. As a result,
i we became very popular on
1 college campuses throughout,
the country.
During this time, there
! began to be suggestions and
' proposals for Ruby and me to .
i do" our thing on records, radio
and television.' We met ex
ecutives in offices, talked to
studio heads, worked with
agents, and they all said,
; "Wouldn't it be marvelous if
you could do that stuff ou do
on campuses on a television
show? In 1973, CBS gave us a
special called "Today Is
Ours," and Kraft Foods spon
sored a weekly radio show on
which Ruby and I read poetry
and did interviews. The pro
gram was quite successful.
j After the radio show ended,
we continued our college
I tours, made motion iictures
and appeared on r evision
shows. On one occas? a few
years ago, I was in v .fed to
!public television station '
i KERA in Dallas to serve as
thost for a six-program segr
ment of the "Here's to Your
J Health" series. At KERA, I
! met a rather quiet young man,
Bob Ray Sanders, black like
myself,' who asked me what
had become of our radio show
and if it would be possible to
bring it back. I said we'd
rather do a television show
! which would give wider ex-.
jposure to the kind of material
;we shared on our college :.
tours, That was the end of the ;
conversation. I paid little at- .
: lention to it because I had :
made that same speech a thou
sand times in a thousand
places, and nothing had ever
comeof it. ; :.
j Sometime later, our: agent'
i informed us that some people
! in Texas wanted Ruby and me '
'to do a television show.. When
I finally stopped to pay atten-!
tion to these Texas people, it
! turned out to be KERA's Bob
" Ray Sanders and the station's
; director, David Dowe. They
j gave us a proposal, and what '.
.they said made sense to us. To'
our great surprise, we found .
! that their's was a real poposi- "
' tion, a real chance. In short, -ithey
made us an offer we
couldn't refuse, and "With
; Ossie & Ruby" was, at last, on
! its way to becoming a reality.
J Since then, things have been
I a bit frantic at times as we've;
! selected, material, written and
rewritten scripts and then
began production. But I think
f viewers, will be satisfied and
. perhaps a little surprised at
;the results. "With Ossie "& .
Ruby" is a different kind of
i television series.:. Each pro-
gram presents a different
i aspect, a different view of the
; American experience. And
we're combining many arts
! forms - poetry, drama,
; music, dance, comedy to
entertain 6ur audience.
It has been a special
pleasure- for Ruby and me,
who have always dreamed of
having our own ; television
show, to see "With Ossie &
iRuby" become a reality. Now
Jthat it has, we can at last share
with millions of Americans the
i words, ideas and songs that
I are most dear to us. All the
work and struggle and hope it
! took to make it happen seem
well spent. I think "With
I Ossie & Ruby" is proof that
.the American. Dream does
work at least, for those who
(work for it.
jLmTJCm
for A3
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