Ossie Davis is best known as an actor, but his accomplishments extend well beyond the stage. In the theater, in motion pictures, and in television he has won praise both for his individual performances and those he has given with his wife, Ruby Dee. He has, however, also been a writer, director, producer, social activist, and community leader. His reputation as a playwright rests primarily on his play Purlie Victorious (produced in 1953), which ran on Broadway for over seven months (and in which he played the title role), and on his adaptation of that play for the musical Purlie in 1970. Davis has also written a number of other plays for theater and screen, as well as several critical essays which reflect his social activism and his ideas on the function of art in society.

Davis was born in Cogdell, Georgia, in 1917, the son of a railway foreman. With...