Ruby Dee: Celebs Rumors

Michaela Zee editorThe Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is celebrating 73 years of Black film artistry with the new exhibit titled Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971.Curated by the Academy Museum’s Doris Berger and Rhea Combs of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the first-of-its-kind exhibition features seven galleries exploring Black representation in film, from portraits of icons like Ruby Dee and Nina Mae McKinney to home videos of the Nicholas Brothers and Cab Calloway. “It’s really exciting for us to be able to help expand the conversation around American cinema, essentially, by bringing forward these important contributions by Black filmmakers as well as performers and other artisans and technicians,” Combs tells Variety.  Since 2017, Berger and Combs have been acquiring a vast collection of costumes, scripts, drawings and other historical materials for “Regeneration” by digging through multiple archives at the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library and even traveling to Berlin and Paris. The co-curators located myriad never-before-shown pieces, including a sequined evening gown worn by Lena Horne in 1943’s “Stormy Weather” and a copy of the rediscovered 1939 film “Reform School,” which they restored in time for the exhibition.About last night…Lena Horne’s gown from 1943’s “Stormy Weather” at the @AcademyMuseum pic.twitter.com/2Dfbvi9lh3— Marc Malkin (@marcmalkin) August 19, 2022Through “Regeneration,” Berger and Combs aim to capture the nuances of Black performance and film creation from the start of the motion picture industry to the rise of the Blaxploitation era of the early 1970s. “I really hope that it creates the opportunity for public dialogue and intergenerational dialogue,” Combs says.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Cord Jefferson will write and executive produce the upcoming Scarlett Johansson limited series, which serves as her first major television role. The “American Fiction” filmmaker has boarded the Amazon Prime Video adaptation of John Katzenbach’s novel “Just Cause.” Additionally, acclaimed writer John Wells has joined the project, co-writing the series with Jefferson, and will also serve as an executive producer. “Just Cause,” first published in 1992, tells the story of Matt Cowart, a Miami reporter.

Long before Slave Play, decades before Ain’t No Mo, there was Purlie Victorious, the Ossie Davis comedy masterwork that, like those descendant plays, fused broad comedy, satirical minstrelsy, racial satire and still-relevant social commentary to create a play that is so encompassing in its views of history and legacy, so generous in its humanity and pinpoint sharp in its take on debts long owed and now demanded that Kenny Leon’s revival, opening tonight on Broadway, feels as current and bracing as a folding chair.

The previously announced Broadway revival of the Ossie Davis comedy Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch starring Leslie Odom, Jr. will begin previews on Thursday, September 7, at The Music Box Theatre, with an opening date to be announced.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Angela Bassett goes into the Oscars as a supporting actress nominee for her work in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The first and last time she was nominated was 29 years ago for “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” On Wednesday night, she recalled her early days in Hollywood. “When I came into this business, the path was not clear,” Bassett said while being honored at Time magazine’s Women of the Year gala at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. “I grew up at a time when it was a special occasion when people who looked like me were featured on the television screen or movie screen or in the theaters. But it was women like Rosalind and Ruby Dee and Diahann Carroll and Cicely Tyson, whose perseverance and resilience led me to have courage — courage to stay the course no matter what the obstacles.”

Tony & Grammy winner Leslie Odom, Jr. will star in a new Broadway production of the classic American comedy Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch by Ossie Davis. Purlie Victorious will be staged by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon, with the production scheduled to begin in late summer 2023 for the 2023-2024 Broadway season.

EXCLUSIVE: In her first major foray into television, Scarlett Johansson is set to star in and executive produce Just Cause, a thriller limited series based on John Katzenbach’s 1992 novel. In a very competitive situation, the project, from writer Christy Hall (I’m Not OK With This, Daddio), Johansson’s These Pictures banner and Warner Bros. TV, has landed at Amazon Studios with a straight-to-series order for Prime Video.

The African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) will present AAFCA Salutes Broadway on Monday, October 17th at the Lamb’s Club in the heart of New York’s theater district.

William Earl “Death of a Salesman” actor Wendell Pierce, “The Piano Lesson” director LaTanya Richardson Jackson and “Till” star John Douglas Thompson are among the honorees set for the inaugural Salute to Broadway presented by the African American Film Critics Association. The event is set for Oct. 17 at The Lambs Club in the heart of Midtown’s theater district. “It’s no secret that some of our greatest actors have come from the stage or have tested their chops on it,” said Gil Robertson, co-founder of AAFCA. “Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis are just a handful of our beloved icons for which this was true, with Tony winners Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Audra McDonald, Adrienne Warren and Myles Frost among those continuing that legacy. As a reliable pipeline for outstanding Black talent in front of the camera as well as behind it, Hollywood has benefited greatly from this esteemed training ground and AAFCA Salutes Broadway celebrates that rich heritage.”

ESSENCE Black Women In Hollywood Awards has grown into one of those “must attend” events in the industry, and the opportunity to witness that females of color have on all forms of entertainment.From its inception in 2008, this ceremony highlighted up-and-coming actresses, as well as established stars and cultural icons. Some of the honorees include dynamic women such as Ruby Dee, Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Pam Grier, Oprah Winfrey, Ava DuVernay, Zendaya, and a long list of others.

Black Women in Hollywood luncheon, honoring some of the divine women of the big and small screens breaking ground with their expertly portrayed roles, we’re taking a look back at some of the defining moments of this legendary day each year. Since the inaugural event in 2008, honoring the accomplishments and contributions of Jurnee Smollet, Suzanne de Passe, Ruby Dee, and Jada Pinkett Smith, powerhouse performers have graced the stage, lending their voices to honor and regale the sisterhood-fueled gathering of actresses and film-industry players in celebration of the female voice and Black women’s representation on screen.

Academy Award-nominated actor and producer Samuel L. Jackson (The Hateful Eight, Pulp Fiction) will be honored at the 53rd NAACP Image Awards with the prestigious Chairman’s Award, the NAACP and BET announced today.

Sidney Poitier, the pioneering actor and director who became the first bankable Black leading man in Hollywood, has died at age 94, according to the Bahamian Minister of Foreign Affairs.Poitier, who was born in the U.S. but grew up in the Bahamas, broke multiple racial barriers in his decades-long career, including when he became the first Black actor to win the Academy Award, for his role in 1963’s “Lilies of the Field.”From his first film performance, playing a doctor who treats a bigoted white man in 1950’s “No Way Out,” he blazed a trail by refusing to play roles that traded on racial stereotypes.

Ossie Davis & Ruby DeeAs one of the most popular couples of Black Hollywood, the late Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee understood the intersection of acting and activism. The duo became fixtures during the civil rights and Black Power movements, befriending the likes of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.