Sammy Davis Jr.

Sammy Davis, Jr. (December 8, 1925-May 16, 1990) was an all-around entertainer. He danced, sang, played vibraphone and drums, did impressions, and acted.

He was born in Harlem, New York to vaudeville dancers. As an infant, he was raised by his paternal grandmother. When he was three years old, his parents split. His father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour.

As a child he learned how to dance from his father, Sammy Davis, Sr and his "uncle" Will Mastin, who lead the dance troup his father worked for. Young Davis eventually joined the act and they became the Will Mastin Trio. Throughout his long career, Davis included the Will Mastin Trio in his billing.

Mastin and his father had protected him from racial prejudice, but during World War II, Davis served in the United States Army, where he was first confronted by strong racial prejudice. 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."

While 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.

After he was discharged, he rejoined the dance act and began to achieve success. He suffered a setback in 1954, when an automobile accident resulted in the loss of an eye. Later that year, he converted to Judaism, and the next year he released his second album. In 1959 he became a charter member of the Rat Pack, which was led by his old friend Frank Sinatra.

He died of complications from throat cancer in Beverly Hills, California and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Films

Autobiographies

Yes I Can (with Burt and Jane Boyar) (1965) ISBN 0374522685
Why Me? (with Burt and Jane Boyar) (1980) ISBN 0446360252
Sammy (with Burt and Jane Boyar) (2000) ISBN 0374293554 Consolidates the two previous books and includes additional material.