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This article is about the entertainer. For the football player, see Sammy Davis (American football). For the American soldier, see Sammy L. Davis.
Samuel George Davis, Jr. , better known as Sammy Davis, Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American entertainer. He was a dancer, singer, multi-instrumentalist (playing vibraphone, trumpet, and drums), impressionist, comedian, and actor.
BiographyEarly lifeDavis was born in the Harlem neighborhood of New York to Elvera Sanchez, an American of Cuban ancestry, and Sammy Davis, Sr., an African-American entertainer. The couple were both dancers in vaudeville. As an infant, he was raised by his paternal grandmother. When he was three years old, his parents split up. His father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour.
Image:Sammy Davis 1956.jpg Sammy Davis, Jr. performing at a National Urban League benefit at Birdland, photo by Carl Van Vechten, June 10, 1956 Mastin and his father had shielded him from racism. Snubs were explained as jealousy. But during World War II, Davis served in the United States Army, where he was first confronted by strong racial prejudice, and was even beaten by white soldiers on several occasions. As he said later, "Overnight the world looked different. It wasn't one color anymore. I could see the protection I'd gotten all my life from my father and Will. I appreciated their loving hope that I'd never need to know about prejudice and hate, but they were wrong. It was as if I'd walked through a swinging door for eighteen years, a door which they had always secretly held open." CareerWhile in the service, however, he joined an entertainment unit, and found that the spotlight removed some of the prejudice. "My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man's thinking," he said.[1] After he was discharged, he rejoined the dance act and began to achieve success on his own as he was singled out for praise by critics. The next year, he released his second album. The next move in his growing career was to appear in the Broadway show Mr. Wonderful in 1956.
Davis was a headliner at The Frontier Casino in Las Vegas for many years, yet was required to accept accommodations in a rooming house on the west side of the city, rather than reside with his peers in the hotels, as were all black performers in the 1950s. For example, no stage dressing rooms were provided for black performers, so they were required to wait outside by the swimming pool between acts.[2] After he achieved superstar success, Davis refused to work at venues which would practice racial segregation. His demands eventually led to the integration of Miami Beach nightclubs and Las Vegas, Nevada casinos. Davis was particularly proud of this accomplishment; during his early years in Vegas, he and other Negro artists like Nat King Cole and Count Basie could entertain on the stage, but often could not reside at the hotels they performed at, and most definitely could not gamble in the casinos or go to the hotel restaurants and bars. Although James Brown would claim the title of "Hardest Working Man in Show Business," the argument could be made that Sammy Davis, Jr. deserved it more. For example, in 1964 he was starring in a Broadway musical at night, shooting his own New York-based afternoon talk show during the day, and when he could get a day off from the theater, he would either be in the studio recording new songs, or else performing live, often at charity benefits as far away as Miami, Chicago and Las Vegas, or doing television variety specials in Los Angeles. Even at the time, Sam knew he was cheating his family of his company, but he couldn't help himself; as he later said, he was incapable of standing still. Although still a huge draw in Las Vegas, Davis' musical career had sputtered out by the latter years of the 1960s. An attempt to update his sound and reconnect with younger people resulted in some embarrassing[citation needed] "hip" musical efforts with the Motown record label. But then, even as his career seemed at its nadir, Sammy had an unexpected worldwide smash hit with "Candy Man". Although he didn't particularly care for the song, and he was chagrined that he was now best known for it, Davis made the most of his new opportunity and revitalized his career. Although he enjoyed no more Top 40 hits, he remained a successful live act beyond Vegas for the remainder of his career, and he would occasionally land television and film parts, including highly successful visits (playing himself) to the All in the Family series. In Japan, Davis appeared in television commercials for coffee, and in the U.S. he joined Sinatra and Martin in a radio commercial for a Chicago car dealership. Davis was one of the first male celebrities to admit to watching television soap operas, particularly the shows produced by the American Broadcasting Company. This admission led to him making a cameo appearance on General Hospital and playing the recurring character Chip Warren on One Life to Live for which he received a Daytime Emmy nomination in 1980. Personal lifeCar accidentDavis suffered a setback on November 19, 1954, when he almost died in an automobile accident in San Bernardino, California on a return trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and lost his left eye. The accident occurred on a bend in U.S. Highway 66 at a railroad bridge. While in the hospital, his friend Eddie Cantor told him about the similarities between the Jewish and black cultures. During his hospital stay, Davis converted to Judaism after reading a history of the Jews. One paragraph about the ultimate endurance of the Jewish people intrigued him in particular: "The Jews would not die. Three millennia of prophetic teaching had given them an unwavering spirit of resignation and had created in them a will to live which no disaster could crush".[3] Financial healthIn his autobiography, Davis describes his swinger lifestyle which included alcohol, cocaine, and women. He also chronicles his financial difficulties. Although he was pulling in seven figure incomes by the mid-sixties, he was spending more than what was coming in, and he remained in a state of precarious financial health for the rest of his life. Because of his past-due federal income taxes, much of his memorabilia was auctioned to pay the Internal Revenue Service.[citation needed] MarriagesIn the mid-1950s, Sammy was involved with Kim Novak, who was a valuable star under contract to Columbia Studios. The head of the studio, Harry Cohn called one of the mob bosses, who was asked to tell Sammy that he had to stop the affair with Miss Novak.[citation needed] In 1960, Davis caused controversy when he married white Swedish-born actress May Britt. Davis received hate mail when he was starred in the Broadway musical adaptation of Golden Boy from 1964 - 1966 (for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor), but that did not bother his fans. At the time Davis appeared in the play, interracial marriages were forbidden by law in 31 US states, and only in 1967 were those laws abolished by the US Supreme Court. The couple had one daughter and adopted two sons. Davis performed almost continuously and spent little time with his wife. They divorced in 1968, after Davis admitted to having had an affair with singer Lola Falana. That year, Davis started dating Altovise Gore, a dancer in "Golden Boy". They were wed in 1970 by Jesse Jackson. They remained married until Davis' death in 1990.
Political beliefsAlthough Davis had been a voting Democrat, he had felt a distinct lack of respect from the John F. Kennedy White House, and had been removed from the bill of the inaugural party hosted by Sinatra for the new President because of Davis's recent interracial marriage. In the early 1970s, Davis famously supported Republican President Richard M. Nixon (and gave the startled President a warm hug on live TV). DeathNear the end of his life when accepting an award in a televised event, he thanked Jesus for making it possible. Davis died in Beverly Hills, California on May 16, 1990 (the same day as Jim Henson) of complications from throat cancer at age 64. Davis is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California next to his father and Will Mastin. He was honored in 2001 with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Partial discographyDecca Records
Reprise Records
Motown RecordsMGM Records
Filmography
Performances on Broadway
Autobiographies
TriviaFor references to Sammy Davis, Jr. in popular culture, see, Cultural depictions of Sammy Davis, Jr.. See alsoReferencesFootnotes
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