Ruby Dandridge

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Ruby Dandridge (1 March 1899 in Wichita, Kansas – 17 October 1987 in Los Angeles, California), born Ruby Jean Butler, was an African American actress from the early 1900s to the 1950s. She is best known for her radio work in her early days of acting.

Her parents were Nellie Simon and George Butler. It is stated in her daughter, Dorothy Dandridge's book (written by Earl Mills) that Ruby had mixed Jamaican, Mexican, and Native American ancestry. Her father was a janitor, minister, school principal, and entertainer, who inspired her to go into acting when she was young.

On 30 September 1919 Ruby married Cyrus Dandridge. She moved with her husband to Cleveland, Ohio, where her daughter, actress Vivian Dandridge was born in 1921. A second daughter, Academy Award-nominated actress Dorothy Dandridge, was born there the following year, in 1922, five months after Ruby and Cyril divorced. It is noted that after her divorce, Ruby Dandridge had a relationship with a woman named Geneva Williams who overworked the two children and punished them harshly.^{[citation needed]}

Ruby Dandridge is best known for her role on the radio show Amos 'n Andy, in which she played Sadie Blake and Harriet Crawford. She is also recognized for her role in the 1959 movie A Hole in the Head, in which she played Sally.

She attended Dorothy Dandridge's funeral in 1965. [1] After Dorothy died, she went into seclusion^{[citation needed]}

She died of a heart attack at the age of eighty-eight in Los Angeles, California, and is buried next to her daughter Dorothy at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glensdale, California.

In the 1998 flim, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge she is potrayed by Loretta Devine