Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, actor, comedian and dancer. Known as "Mr. Entertainment" and "Mister Show Business", Davis was regarded as one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century and as a black entertainer, he helped to break racial barriers in several venues, including nightclubs, music, film and television.
Davis began his career at the age of two in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and Will Mastin in the Will Mastin Trio. At seven, he started his film career with the musical shorts Rufus Jones for President and Seasoned Greetings. In 1951, Davis's career breakthrough came after he and the Will Mastin Trio opened for Janis Paige the week before the 23rd Academy Awards at the Hollywood nightclub Ciro's.
Three years later he became the first black entertainer to headline a show in Las Vegas and two years later starred in his first Broadway musical, Mr. Wonderful. After starring in his first box-office film, Anna Lucasta (1958), Davis earned rave reviews for his role in Porgy and Bess (1959). A year later he became a member of the Rat Pack alongside lifelong friends Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. In 1964, he returned to Broadway in the musical adaptation of Clifford Odets's Golden Boy, which featured the first interracial kiss in a Broadway play and won Davis a Tony Award nomination. Two years after that, Davis hosted his own variety series.
Davis also became a successful recording artist. His 1955 debut album, Starring Sammy Davis Jr., spawned hits such as "Hey There" and "The Birth of the Blues" and topped the Billboard pop albums chart. His other hits included "Something's Gotta Give", "That Old Black Magic" and the Grammy Award-nominated "What Kind of Fool Am I?". Later hits "I've Gotta Be Me", "The Candy Man" (his only number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100) and "Mr. Bojangles" became his signature songs.
In 1954, at the age of 29, Davis lost his left eye in a car accident. Three years later, Davis faced backlash for his involvement with white actress Kim Novak at a time when interracial relationships were taboo in the U.S. and when interracial marriage was not yet legalized nationwide (until 1967). In 1960, Davis converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by both African Americans and Jewish Americans. One day on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. "Handicap?" he asked. "Talk about handicap. I'm a one-eyed Negro who's Jewish." This was to become a signature comment.
After reuniting with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally before his death from lung cancer in 1990. He died in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, and his estate was the subject of legal battles after the death of his wife. Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Primetime Emmy Award for his television performances. He was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987, and in 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2017, Davis was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
Davis was born on December 8, 1925, in the Harlem district of Manhattan in New York City, the son of African-American entertainer and stage performer Sammy Davis Sr. (1900–1988) and Cuban-American tap dancer and stage performer Elvera Sanchez (1905–2000).
During his lifetime, Davis stated that his mother was Puerto Rican and born in San Juan. However, in the 2003 biography In Black and White, author Wil Haygood wrote that Davis's mother was born in New York City to Cuban parents who were of Afro-Cuban background, and that Davis claimed she was Puerto Rican because he feared anti-Cuban backlash would hurt his record sales.
Davis's parents were vaudeville dancers, having met while being members of Will Mastin's Holiday in Dixieland troupe. As an infant, Davis was reared by his paternal grandmother. When he was two years old, his parents separated. His father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour as part of what was then known as "Will Mastin's Gang" with Mastin having dropped the "Holiday in Dixieland" title. Davis would learn how to tap dance from troupe member Howard M. Colbert Jr. as well as his father and Mastin, who became his godfather. Davis became a regular performer with the Mastin troupe following a talent show victory at the Standard Theatre in Philadelphia. Some of Davis's early performances had him perform in blackface, due to his father and Mastin disguising Davis as a "44-year-old midget" to avoid child labor laws.
Around 1932 or 1933, the troupe was renamed "Will Mastin's Gang Featuring Little Sammy"; along with tap dancing, Davis also sang with the act, his usual song being Louis Armstrong's rendition of "(I'll Be Glad When You're Dead) You Rascal You". In 1933, Davis caught the attention of filmmakers who were seeking to find child performers for the short film, Rufus Jones for President, easily gaining the role of Rufus Jones. His co-star in the film was Ethel Waters. Later that same year, Davis appeared in another short film, Seasoned Greetings.
By the early 1940s, the troupe had gradually shortened and when Colbert left in 1941, the name of the troupe was changed to the Will Mastin Trio with just Mastin, Sammy Davis Sr. and Jr. They were billed as "The Will Mastin Trio Featuring Little Sammy" and later, "The Will Mastin Trio Featuring Sammy Davis Jr." after Davis became a teenager. In 1941, 15-year-old Davis first became acquainted with Frank Sinatra, then just 25, when Sinatra was the lead singer of Tommy Dorsey's band and the Will Mastin Trio opened for Dorsey during several performances at the Michigan Theater in Detroit. During Davis's early career, Mastin and his father shielded the youngster from racism, for example by dismissing race-based snubs as "jealousy". Davis recalled living for several years in Boston's South End and reminisced years later about "hoofing and singing" at Izzy Ort's Bar & Grille.
In December 1944, during World War II, Davis was drafted into the United States Army at age 18. There, Davis was confronted by strong prejudice. Davis later stated: "Overnight the world looked different. It wasn't one color any more. 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 18 years, a door which they had always secretly held open." He was frequently abused by white soldiers from the South and later recounted: "I must have had a knockdown, drag-out fight every two days." His nose was broken numerous times and permanently flattened. At one point he was offered a beer laced with urine.
He was reassigned to the Army's Special Services branch, which put on performances for troops. At one show he found himself performing in front of soldiers who had previously racially abused him. Davis, who earned the American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal, was discharged in 1945 with the rank of private. He later said, "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."
While in Paris in September 1944, he found himself being introduced and guided around the city by a French resistance fighter and left-wing journalist, Madeleine Riffaud.
Following his discharge from the Army, Davis rejoined the family dance act, which were now performing at clubs in the Pacific Southwest, namely clubs in Portland, Oregon. Davis, who had spent his early years mainly dancing in the troupe, added singing pop standards, playing instruments and doing comedic impressions of actors such as James Cagney, Cary Grant and James Stewart into the act, which helped to increase Davis's popularity and helped the trio earn spots in bigger venues though Davis's father and Mastin warned him that doing impressions of white actors rather than black actors was "controversial", fearing backlash. Due to racial segregation, the trio regularly performed at predominantly black venues in the Chitlin' Circuit. During this era, Davis first got acquainted with Mickey Rooney, who tried to give him a role in a box office film but was rebuffed due to Davis's skin color.