What Becomes a Legend Most?

Dee's recent triumphs are bittersweet, as she continues to gracefully mourn her husband's death in 2005. When Davis died, Dee was filming "Naming Number Two" in New Zealand. She flew home to bury her husband and was back on the set two weeks later. It was an amazing feat of resilience, not the least because Dee hates goodbyes so much, she's never been able to bear the sight of a car backing out of her driveway. But she soldiered on at his behest. "He wasn't the grieving type," she says. "He always said that he didn't want me to live like I could stop him from dying. He could be brutal in his logic."

The subject of her late husband softens Dee's voice and, suddenly, she's not as averse to speaking about her life in the past tense. She stares off to the side when she reminisces about Davis, whose face is included in a mural of black luminaries hanging in Sylvia's vestibule. Ossie and Ruby, always together, even if apart. She especially likes to talk about his sense of humor, reflected in the inscription he wrote for the urn that will someday hold both of their ashes: "In this thing together." "I'm getting older now," she says, as though she just rounded 40, "and I'm at a time when I can start reflecting back on the things I've accomplished. But that doesn't mean I don't have a few accomplishments left in me." Maybe more than a few.

© 2008