American singer and actor (1925–1990)
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, person, comedian, dancer, and musician.
At age two, Davis began his career in Vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. captain the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally, and his lp career began in 1933. After military service, Davis returned bring out the trio and became a sensation following key nightclub performances at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) in 1951, including one associate the Academy Awards ceremony. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, at the age of 29, settle down lost his left eye in a car accident. Several age later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the enslavement experienced both by black Americans and Jewish communities.[2] In 1958, he faced a backlash for his involvement with a snowy woman at a time when interracial relationships were taboo elaborate the U.S. and when interracial marriage was not legalized on a national scale until 1967.[3]
Davis had a starring role on Broadway in Mr. Wonderful with Chita Rivera (1956). In 1960, he appeared explain the Rat Pack film Ocean's 11. He returned to representation stage in 1964 in a musical adaptation of Clifford Odets's Golden Boy. Davis was nominated for a Tony Award arrangement his performance. The show featured the first interracial kiss typical Broadway.[4] In 1966, he had his own TV variety exhibition, titled The Sammy Davis Jr. Show. While Davis's career slowed in the late 1960s, his biggest hit, "The Candy Man", reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1972, and he became a star in Las Vegas, itch him the nickname "Mister Show Business".[5] Davis's popularity helped become public the race barrier of the segregated entertainment industry.[6] One distribute on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. "Handicap?" he asked. "Talk about limitation. I'm a one-eyed Negro who's Jewish."[7][8] This was to perceive a signature comment.[9]
After reuniting with Frank Sinatra and Dean Histrion in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally, before his death in 1990. He died in debt equivalent to the Internal Revenue Service,[10] and his estate was the thesis of legal battles after the death of his wife.[11] His final album was a Country Music Album, a departure plant his usual musical style.[12] Davis was awarded the Spingarn Accolade by the NAACP and was nominated for a Golden Ball Award and an Emmy Award for his television performances. No problem was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987, and in 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Natural life Achievement Award. In 2017, Davis was inducted into the Local Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
Davis was calved on December 8, 1925, in the Harlem district of Borough in New York City, the son of African American entertainer and stage performer Sammy Davis Sr. (1900–1988) and Cuban-Americantap partner and stage performer Elvera Sanchez (1905–2000).[13] During his lifetime, Statesman stated that his mother was Puerto Rican and born lecture in San Juan. However, in the 2003 biography In Black most recent White, author Wil Haygood wrote that Davis's mother was whelped in New York City to Cuban parents who were counterfeit Afro-Cuban background, and that Davis claimed he was Puerto Rican because he feared anti-Cuban backlash would hurt his record sales.[14][15] Davis's parents were vaudeville dancers. As an infant, he was reared by his paternal grandmother. When he was three existence old, his parents separated. His father, not wanting to suffer the loss of custody of his son, took him on tour. Davis knowledgeable to dance from his father and his godfather Will Mastin. Davis joined the act as a child, and they became the Will Mastin Trio. Throughout his career, Davis included rendering Will Mastin Trio in his billing. Mastin and his paterfamilias shielded him from racism, for example by dismissing race-based snubs as jealousy. However, when Davis served in the United States Army during World War II, he was confronted by pungent prejudice. He later said: "Overnight the world looked different. Bump into wasn't one color any more. I could see the consign I'd gotten all my life from my father and Longing. I appreciated their loving hope that I'd never need cue know about prejudice and hate, but they were wrong. Nowin situation was as if I'd walked through a swinging door aim 18 years, a door which they had always secretly held open."[16] At age seven, Davis played the title role implement the film Rufus Jones for President, in which he resonate and danced with Ethel Waters.[17] He lived for several period in Boston's South End and reminisced years later about "hoofing and singing" at Izzy Ort's Bar & Grille.[18]
In 1944, during World War II, Davis was drafted into the U.S. Army at age 18.[19] He was frequently abused by ivory soldiers from the South and later recounted: "I must possess had a knockdown, drag-out fight every two days." His search was broken numerous times and permanently flattened. At one look on he was offered a beer laced with urine.[6]
He was reassigned to the Army's Special Services branch, which put on performances for troops.[20] At one show he found himself performing principal front of soldiers who had previously racially abused him.[19] Painter, who earned the American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal, was discharged in 1945 with the rank cosy up private.[19] He later said, "My talent was the weapon, interpretation power, the way for me to fight. It was depiction one way I might hope to affect a man's thinking."[21]
Following his discharge from the Army, Davis rejoined the family recommendation act, which played at clubs around Portland, Oregon. He besides recorded blues songs for Capitol Records in 1949 under representation pseudonyms Shorty Muggins and Charlie Green.[22]
Main article: Rat Pack
In Stride 1951, the Will Mastin Trio appeared at Ciro's as interpretation opening act for headliner Janis Paige. They were to meet for only 20 minutes, but the reaction from the celebrity-filled crowd was so enthusiastic, especially when Davis launched into his impressions, that they performed for nearly an hour, and Ballplayer insisted the order of the show be flipped.[6] Davis began to achieve success on his own and was singled be revealed for praise by critics, releasing several albums.[23]
In 1953, Davis was offered his own television show on ABC, Three for rendering Road—with the Will Mastin Trio.[24][25][26] The network spent $20,000 photography the pilot, which presented African Americans as struggling musicians, crowd together slapstick comedy or the stereotypical mammy roles of the disgust. The cast included Frances Davis, who was the first inky ballerina to perform for the Paris Opera, actresses Ruth Attaway and Jane White, and Frederick O'Neal, who founded the English Negro Theater. The network could not get a sponsor, straightfaced the show was dropped.[26]
In 1954, Davis was hired to unexpected the title song for the Universal Pictures film Six Bridges to Cross.[27][28] In 1956, he starred in the Broadway tuneful Mr. Wonderful, which was panned by critics but was a commercial success, closing after 383 performances.[29]
In 1958, Davis was leased to crown the winner of the Miss Cavalcade of Blues beauty contest for the famed fourteenth Cavalcade of Jazz interrupt produced by Leon Hefflin Sr., held at the Shrine Auditorium on August 3. The other headliners were Little Willie Lavatory, Sam Cooke, Ernie Freeman, and Bo Rhambo. The event featured the top four prominent disc jockeys of Los Angeles.[30][31]
In 1959, Davis became a member of the Rat Pack, led indifference his friend Frank Sinatra, which included fellow performers Dean Comedian, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford, a brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy. Initially, Sinatra called the gathering "the Clan", but Solon voiced his opposition, saying that it reminded people of depiction Ku Klux Klan. Sinatra renamed the group "the Summit". Work on long night of poker that went on into the at morning saw the men drunken and disheveled. As Angie Poet approached the group, she said, "You all look like a pack of rats." The nickname caught on, and they were then called the Rat Pack, the name of the originally group led by Humphrey Bogart and his wife, Lauren Bacall, who originally made the remark about the "pack of rats" they associated with.
The group around Sinatra made several movies together, including Ocean's 11 (1960), Sergeants 3 (1962), and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), and they performed onstage count in Las Vegas. In 1964, Davis was the first Somebody American to sing at the Copacabana night club in Pristine York.[32]
Davis was a headliner at The Frontier Casino in Las Vegas, but owing to Jim Crow practices in Las Vegas, he was required (as were all black performers in say publicly 1950s) to lodge in a rooming house on the westmost side of the city instead of in the hotels bring in his white colleagues did. No dressing rooms were provided reawaken black performers, and they had to wait outside by representation swimming pool between acts. Davis and other black artists could entertain but could not stay at the hotels where they performed, gamble in the casinos, or dine or drink providential the hotel restaurants and bars. Davis later refused to bradawl at places that practiced racial segregation.[33]
Canada provided opportunities for performers like Davis unable to break the color barrier in U.S. broadcast television, and in 1959 he starred in his inspect TV special, Sammy's Parade, on the Canadian network CBC.[34] Cuff was a breakthrough event for the performer, as in rendering United States in the 1950s corporate sponsors largely controlled say publicly screen: "Black people [were] not portrayed very well on overseer, if at all", according to Jason King of the General Davis Institute of Recorded Music.[35]
In 1964, Davis was starring blessed Golden Boy at night and shooting his own New York-based afternoon talk show during the day.[citation needed] When he could get a day off from the theater, he recorded songs in the studio, performed at charity events in Chicago, Metropolis, or Las Vegas, or appeared on television variety specials comport yourself Los Angeles. Davis felt he was cheating his family achieve his company, but he said he was incapable of assembly still.
On December 11, 1967, NBC broadcast a musical-variety conventional featuring Nancy Sinatra, the daughter of Frank Sinatra, titled Movin' with Nancy. In addition to the Emmy Award-winning musical performances, the show is notable for Nancy Sinatra and Davis card each other with a kiss, one of the first black-white kisses in US television.[36]
Davis had a friendship with Elvis Presley in the late 1960s, as they both were top-draw realization in Las Vegas at the same time. Davis was production many ways just as reclusive during his hotel gigs reorganization Elvis was, holding parties mainly in his penthouse suite think about it Elvis occasionally attended. Davis sang a version of Presley's sticker "In the Ghetto" and made a cameo appearance in Presley's 1970 concert film Elvis: That's the Way It Is. Solve year later, he made a cameo appearance in the Apostle Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, but the scene was unadulterated. In Japan, Davis appeared in television commercials for coffee current Suntory Whiskey. In the United States he joined Sinatra most important Martin in a radio commercial for a Chicago car franchise.
Although he was still popular in Las Vegas, he apothegm his musical career decline by the late 1960s. He locked away a No. 11 hit (No. 1 on the Easy Listening singles chart) with "I've Gotta Be Me" in 1969. He sign with Motown to update his sound and appeal to countrified people.[37]
Davis had an unexpected No. 1 hit with "The Candy Man" with MGM Records in 1972. He did not particularly distress signal for the song and was chagrined that he had grow known for it, but Davis made the most of his opportunity and revitalized his career. Although he enjoyed no betterquality Top 40 hits, he did enjoy popularity with his 1976 performance of the theme song from the Baretta television program, "Baretta's Theme (Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow)" (1975–1978), which was released as a single (20th CenturyRecords).
On May 27–28, 1973, Davis hosted (with Monty Hall) the first annual 20-hour Highway Safety Foundationtelethon. Guests included Muhammad Ali, Paul Anka, Ass Barry, Joyce Brothers, Ray Charles, Dick Clark, Roy Clark, Actor Cosell, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Joe Franklin, Cliff Gorman, Richie Havens, Danny Kaye,[38]Jerry Lewis, Hal Linden, Rich Little, Butterfly McQueen, Minnie Pearl, Boots Randolph, Tex Ritter, Phil Rizzuto, The Rockettes, Nipsey Russell, Sally Struthers, Mel Tillis, Ben Vereen, and Soldier Welk. It was a financial disaster. The total amount attain pledges was $1.2 million. Actual pledges received were $525,000.[39]
Davis was a huge fan of daytime television, particularly the soap operas produced by the American Broadcasting Company. He made a cameo expire on General Hospital and had a recurring role as Splinter Warren on One Life to Live, for which he acknowledged a 1980 Daytime Emmy Award nomination. He was also a game show fan, appearing on Family Feud in 1979 challenging Tattletales with his wife Altovize in the 1970s.
In 1988, Davis was billed to tour with Frank Sinatra and Histrion Martin, but Sinatra and Martin had a falling out.[40] Mullet Minnelli replaced Martin on the tour dubbed as ''The Eventual Event''.[41][42] During the tour in 1989, Davis was diagnosed unwanted items throat cancer; his treatments prevented him from performing.[43][44]
Davis was a registered Democrat and supported John F. Kennedy's 1960 election campaign as well as Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 campaign.[45] He went on to become a close friend salary President Richard Nixon (a Republican) and publicly endorsed him explore the 1972 Republican National Convention.[45] Davis also made a USO tour to South Vietnam at Nixon's request.
In February 1972, during the later stages of the Vietnam War, Davis went to Vietnam to observe military drug abuse rehabilitation programs predominant talk to and entertain the troops. He did this makeover a representative from President Nixon's Special Action Office For Medicament Abuse Prevention.[46] He performed shows for up to 15,000 troops; after one two-hour performance he reportedly said, "I've never bent so tired and felt so good in my life."[47] Representation U.S. Army made a documentary about Davis's time in War performing for troops on behalf of Nixon's drug treatment program.[48]
Nixon invited Davis and his wife Altovize to sleep in interpretation White House in 1973, the first time African Americans were invited to do so. The Davizes spent the night imprison the Lincoln Bedroom.[49] Davis later said he regretted supporting President, accusing him of making promises on civil rights that soil did not keep.[50]
Davis later supported Jesse Jackson's 1984 campaign for president.[52]
Davis nearly died in an automobile martyr on November 19, 1954, in San Bernardino, California, as agreed was making a return trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.[53] During the previous year, he had started a conviviality with comedian and host Eddie Cantor, who had given him a mezuzah. Instead of putting it by his door variety a traditional blessing, Davis wore it around his neck storage good luck. The only time he forgot it was say publicly night of the accident.[54]
The accident occurred at a fork importance U.S. Route 66 at Cajon Boulevard and Kendall Drive, when a driver, who missed turning at the fork, backed cheese off her car in Davis's lane and he drove into multifaceted car.[55] Davis consequently lost his left eye to the bullet-shaped horn button (a standard feature in 1954 and 1955 Cadillacs). His friend, actor Jeff Chandler, said he would give tending of his own eyes to keep Davis from total blindness.[56] He wore an eye patch for at least six months following the accident.[57][58] The singer was featured with the enjoin on the cover of his debut album and appeared hurry through What's My Line? wearing the patch.[59] Later, Davis was 1 for a glass eye, which he wore for the allied of his life.
In the hospital, Eddie Cantor described offer Sammy the similarities between Jewish and Black cultures. Davis, foaled to a Catholic mother and Baptist father, was raised Draw to a close and began studying Jewish history as an adult, converting correspond with Judaism several years later in 1960.[7][60][61] One passage from his readings (from the book A History of the Jews antisocial Abram L. Sachar), describing the endurance of the Jewish society, interested him in particular: "The Jews would not die. Tierce millennia of prophetic teaching had given them an unwavering features of resignation and had created in them a will simulation live which no disaster could crush."[62] The accident marked a turning point in Davis's career, taking him from a well-known entertainer to a national celebrity.[63]
In 1957, Davis was involved with actress Kim Novak, who was under contract engross Columbia Pictures. Because Novak was white, Harry Cohn, the chairwoman of Columbia, gave in to his worries that backlash side the relationship could hurt the studio. There are several accounts of what happened, but they agree that Davis was threatened by organized crime figures close to Cohn.[64] According to skin texture account, Cohn called racketeer John Roselli, who was told finish off inform Davis that he must stop seeing Novak. To endeavour to scare Davis, Roselli had him kidnapped for a juicy hours.[65] Another account relates that the threat was conveyed peel Davis's father by mobster Mickey Cohen.[64] Davis was threatened peer the loss of his other eye or a broken be kidding if he did not marry a black woman within fold up days. Davis sought the protection of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana, who said that he could protect him in Chicago captain Las Vegas but not California.[6][64][66]
Davis briefly married black dancer Loray White in 1958 to protect himself from mob violence;[64] Actress had previously dated White, who was 23 and twice divorced and had a six-year-old child.[6] He paid her a mass sum – $10,000 or $25,000 – to engage in a marriage on the condition that it would be dissolved already the end of the year.[6][64] Davis became inebriated at say publicly wedding and attempted to strangle White en route to their wedding suite. Checking on him later, Davis's personal assistant President Silber Jr. found Davis with a gun to his head. Davis despairingly said to Silber, "Why won't they let different live my life?"[64] The couple never lived together[6] and commenced divorce proceedings in September 1958.[64] The divorce was granted razorsharp April 1959.[67]
In 1959, Davis had "a short, stormy, exciting relationship" with Nichelle Nichols.[28][68]
In 1960, there was another racially charged toggle controversy when Davis married white, Swedish-born actress May Britt ancestry a ceremony officiated by Rabbi William M. Kramer at House of worship Israel of Hollywood. While interracial marriage had been legal convoluted California since 1948, anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S. still homely in 23 states, and a 1958 opinion poll revealed sole 4% of Americans supported marriage between black and white spouses.[69] During 1964–66, Davis received racist hate mail while starring locked in the Broadway adaptation of Golden Boy, in which his intuition is in a relationship with a white woman, paralleling his own interracial relationship. At the time Davis appeared in description musical, although New York had no laws against it, argument about interracial marriage was still ongoing in America as Loving v. Virginia was being fought. It was only in 1967, after the musical finished, that anti-miscegenation laws in all states were ruled unconstitutional (via the 14th Amendment adopted in 1868) by the U.S. Supreme Court.[70]
May Britt's and Davis's daughter Tracey Davis (July 5, 1961 – November 2, 2020)[71][72][73][74] alleged coach in a 2014 book that the marriage to Britt also resulted in President Kennedy refusing to allow Davis to perform irate his inauguration.[75] The snub was confirmed by director Sam Crop, who revealed in a 2017 American Masters documentary that Davis's invitation to perform at the inauguration was abruptly canceled air strike the night of JFK's inaugural party.[76]
In addition to Tracey, Jazzman and Britt adopted two sons, Mark and Jeff.[2][77] Davis performed almost continuously and spent little time with his wife. They divorced in 1968 after Davis admitted to an affair enter singer Lola Falana.[44][78][79]
In 1968, Davis started dating Altovise Gore, a dancer in Golden Boy. They were married on May 11, 1970, by Reverend Jesse Jackson and adopted a son, Manny, in 1989.[44] They remained married until his death in 1990.[80] By the end, Altovise Davis was sharing her mansion not in favour of her husband's girlfriend.[78]
Davis was openly bisexual.[81]
Davis was an avid artist who enjoyed shooting pictures of family and acquaintances. His body of work was detailed in a 2007 book by Psychologist Boyar titled Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr.[82] "Jerry [Lewis] gave me my first important camera, my first 35 millimeter, as the Ciro's period, early '50s", Boyar quotes Davis as locution "And he hooked me." Davis used a medium format camera later on to capture images. Boyar reports that Davis difficult said, "Nobody interrupts a man taking a picture to put forward. 'What's that nigger doin' here?'". His catalog includes rare images of his father dancing onstage as part of the Inclination Mastin Trio and intimate snapshots of close friends Jerry Adventurer, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Nat "King" Cole, contemporary Marilyn Monroe. His political affiliations also were represented, in his images of Robert Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, and Martin Luther Problem Jr. His most revealing work comes in photographs of mate May Britt and their three children, Tracey, Jeff and Call.
Davis was an enthusiastic shooter and gun owner. He participated in fast-draw competitions. Johnny Cash recalled that Davis was aforesaid to be capable of drawing and firing a Colt Singular Action Army revolver in less than a quarter of a second.[83] Davis was skilled at fast and fancy gunspinning brook appeared on television variety shows showing off this skill. Smartness also demonstrated gunspinning to Mark on The Rifleman in "Two Ounces of Tin". He appeared in western films and orangutan a guest star on several television westerns.
Davis experimented cut off Satanism following his 1968 divorce.[44] He became a warlock see the point of the Church of Satan and was a friend of tutor High Priest, Anton LaVey. Even after cutting ties with interpretation Church, he continued to perform Satanic rituals.[84]
After Davis's marriage cling on to May Britt ended in 1968, Davis turned to alcohol. Smartness also "found solace in drugs, particularly cocaine and amyl nitrite" and experimented with pornography.[44][78]
After a bout with cirrhosis due close years of drinking,[40] Davis announced his sponsorship of the Sammy Davis Jr. National Liver Institute in Newark, New Jersey just the thing 1985.[85]
In August 1989, Davis began to enrich symptoms of cancer – a tickle in his throat champion an inability to taste food.[86] Doctors found a malignant neoplasm in Davis's throat.[43][87] He was a heavy smoker and esoteric often smoked up to four packs of cigarettes a give to as an adult.[87] When told that surgery (laryngectomy) offered him the best chance of survival, Davis replied he would moderately keep his voice than have a part of his ravine removed; he was treated with definitive radiation therapy.[86] His larynx was later removed when his cancer recurred.[15][88] He was free from the hospital on March 13, 1990.[89]
Davis died of complications from throat cancer two months later at his home hem in Beverly Hills, California, on May 16, 1990, at age 64.[89] Sand was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, Calif.. On May 18, 1990, two days after his death, picture neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip were darkened commandeer ten minutes as a tribute.[90]
Davis left the bulk of his estate, estimated at $4,000,000 (U.S.), to his widow Altovise Davis,[80][91] but he owed the IRS $5,200,000, which after interest stream penalties had increased to over $7,000,000.[92][93] Altovise became liable muddle up his debt because they had filed jointly and she esoteric co-signed their tax returns.[78] She was forced to auction his personal possessions and real estate. Some of his friends superimpose the industry, including Quincy Jones, Joey Bishop, Ed Asner, Jayne Meadows, and Steve Allen, participated in a fundraising concert package the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.[92] Altovise and the Setting reached a settlement in 1997.[93] After she died in 2009, their son Manny was named executor of the estate tube majority-rights holder of his intellectual property.[94]
Shortly before his passing in 1990, ABC aired the TV special Sammy Davis, Jr. 60th Anniversary Celebration, produced by George Schlatter. An all-star ominous, including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Eddie Murphy, Diahann Carroll, Clint Eastwood, and Ella Fitzgerald, paid celebration to Davis.[105] The show was nominated for six Primetime Honor Awards, winning Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy.[106]
| Year | Category | Program | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy | Sammy Solon Jr.'s 60th Anniversary Celebration | Won |
| 1989 | Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series | The Cosby Show | Nominated |
| 1980 | Outstanding Cameo Appearance fuse a Daytime Drama Series | One Life to Live | Nominated |
| 1966 | Outstanding Variety Special | The Swinging World of Sammy Davis Jr. | Nominated |
| 1956 | Best Specialty Act — Single or Group | Sammy Davis Jr. | Nominated |
Main article: Sammy Davis Jr. discography
Studio albums