In one of her earliest onscreen roles, Ruby Dee embodies the real-life figure of Rachel “Rae” Isum, who married pioneering baseball player Jackie Robinson just one year before he became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in 1947. Cast to portray himself in this filmed version of his life while simultaneously boasting his best year to date with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson exudes a calm, confident resolution onscreen, shared by Dee’s Rae as his endlessly supportive partner. In another stroke of realism, Dee was the exact same age as Rae during filming: both were born in 1922.