Veteran actress Ruby Dee, who was known for landing leading roles in movies and on Broadway despite segregation-era stereotypes, died Wednesday at the age of 91. Dee, who emceed the 1963 March on Washington, was a vocal advocate for racial equality in the arts. “I’m sick of being offered scripts about hookers or goody-good nurses!” she told a reporter in 1970. “Black women fall in love and have adventures and secrets and are just as driven and gutsy as a lot of white ladies in middle America.” Dee’s marriage to actor and playwright Ossie Davis—with whom she co-starred in Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever—lasted 56 years, until his death in 2005. The cause of Dee’s death was not disclosed.
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