Sammy Davis Jr.

Samuel George Davis Jr. was born on the eighth of December, 1925, in Harlem, New York City, the only son of Sammy Davis Sr., an African-American vaudeville dancer with the Will Mastin Troupe, and Elvera Sanchez, a dancer of Cuban descent. Though Davis himself long claimed Puerto Rican heritage, biographers established that his mother was Cuban-American, born in New York to Cuban parents. Placed in the care of his grandmother while his parents toured, the boy was soon taken onto the road by his father, and by the age of four he was dancing before audiences as part of what became the Will Mastin Trio.

Denied a childhood and a formal schooling, Davis learned his craft on the stages of segregated America, absorbing tap, song, mimicry, and every instrument he could reach. His artistry ripened until, in 1951, the Trio's electrifying turn at Ciro's in Hollywood announced him as a star. In 1954 he survived a near-fatal automobile crash that cost him his left eye, and returned to the stage with a resolve that made him one of the most complete entertainers of his century.

As the principal Black member of the Rat Pack alongside Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, Davis broke color lines in Las Vegas showrooms that had barred him from their own hotels. He converted to Judaism, married actress May Britt in 1960 amid fierce hostility to their interracial union, triumphed on Broadway in Golden Boy, and topped the charts in 1972 with "The Candy Man." In 1987 he received the Kennedy Center Honors.

Sammy Davis Jr. died on the sixteenth of May, 1990, in Beverly Hills, California. He gave everything he had to the stage, and left it richer than he found it. May his name be honored.