Biography for Sammy Davis Jr.

After army service during WWII, where he twice had his nose broken in interracial fights with white soldiers, Davis rejoined the Will Mastin Trio as the headliner of the group and by the early 1950s had slowly broken into the nightclub and TV circuit with his impressions of screen stars and singers, his dancing and his performing on the trumpet and drums. He was signed by Decca records in 1951 after a triumphant engagement at Ciro's nightclub in Hollywood, and even a near-fatal car accident in which he lost his left eye and suffered severe injuries couldn't halt his almost manic drive for adulation and fame.

By the mid-50s Davis' career was in full swing. In 1955 he made his feature film debut as Fletcher Henderson in "The Benny Goodman Story". In Otto Preminger's 1959 lavish film version of "Porgy and Bess", he used his lithe, wiry body, snake-like grace and insinuating, seductive drawl to create an almost definitive portrayal of the drug dealer, Sportin' Life. By the 1960s, as an off-again-on-again member of the swinging Rat Pack, he costarred with such cohorts as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford in a series of offhand larks such as "Ocean's Eleven" (1960), "Sergeants Three" (1962), "Robin and the Seven Hoods" (1964) and "Salt and Pepper" (1968) while also giving more serious dramatic performances in "Anna Lucasta" (1958) and "A Man Called Adam" (1966).

Davis had also made his Broadway debut in 1956 in the semi-autobiographical musical vehicle unabashedly titled "Mr Wonderful," in which he introduced one of his many signature songs, "Too Close for Comfort." He won a Tony nomination for his powerfully dramatic performance in the 1964 musical version of Clifford Odets' 1930s Group Theater hit "Golden Boy" which Odets tailored to Davis' talents and persona, adding an interracial romance to the morality tale about a musician turned boxer who is corrupted by the good life. Davis returned to the stage once again in a 1978 revival of the Anthony Newley-Leslie Bricusse musical "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off" from which his hit song "What Kind of Fool Am I?" had originated.

Calling himself a multi-minority figure (black, Jewish and handicapped), Davis overcame numerous hardships throughout his career, from the racism encountered in the Army and in the hotels and nightclubs at which he performed to backlash against his interracial dating of film star Kim Novak and his later marriage to Swedish actress May Britt: he was rejected by many blacks who felt he had sold out to white values and Republican politics, and by whites and blacks alike who were alienated by his excesses--his flashy lifestyle, gaudy gold jewelry and trendy clothes, his obsequious "sincerity" and his increasingly heavy drinking and drug use. His popularity as a nightclub headliner and TV guest, however, continued unabated.

By the 1980s Davis was hampered by a host of physical problems, yet his immense talent and driving ambition remained undimmed, making him one of the last of the major variety performers. When he died of throat cancer in 1990 (he chose not to have an operation that would have robbed him of his voice), Davis was remembered as a performer who helped break down the barriers of race and prejudice over the years and was a long-time supporter of the civil rights movement and humanitarian causes as well as a "Renaissance man of show business." Davis' reputation would only grow in the years following his death, and there would be a resurgence of interest in the performer, along with all of his Rat Pack cronies, beginning in the mid-1990s, resulting in a continuous flow of music releases and re-releases, TV biographical documentaries and books exploring his storied career and social impact. Actor Don Cheadle made for a splendid, tortured Davis in the otherwise spotty but respectable 1998 HBO telepic "The Rat Pack" (with Davis' spectacular tap dancing choreographed by dance great Savion Glover), while Denzel Washington and Brian Grazer planned to procuce a major motion picture based on author Will Haygood's 2003 book In Black & White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. It was clear that Davis' legacy and impact would outshine even his grand existence.