Sammy Davis Jr
Sammy Davis Jr was born in Harlem in 1925 to Elvira Sanchez, a
Puerto Rican dancer, and Sammy Davis Snr, a black vaudeville
entertainer.
 Elvira's
mother was a light-skinned, Manhattan-born Cuban whose miedro
al negro (fear of blacks) encouraged Elvira to abandon her
son.
Raised by his paternal grandmother for his first three years
until his father took him on tour, Sammy Jr was raised by two men
- his father and his 'uncle' Will Mastin who led his father's
dance troupe.
Sammy Jr joined Mastin's shows from the age of four and never
went to school. He was drafted into the US Army when he was
eighteen and his experiences in the service were not happy ones.
Suffering abuse by fellow soldiers, he was transferred to an
entertainment regiment, and eventually found himself performing in
front of some of the same soldiers who had painted the word
"coon" on his forehead.
After the war, Davis went solo and signed a recording contract
with Decca Records. His first two albums - Starring Sammy
Davis, Jr and Just for Lovers - both sold well
and he soon became a headliner in Las Vegas and New York.
In the 1960s Davis managed to turn an average Broadway show, Mr
Wonderful, into a roaring success. He went on to woo critics
in the film Porgy and Bess and, as a member of the
high-profile Rat Pack, he hobnobbed with Frank
Sinatra, Dean Martin and Joey
Bishop.
 With
one lazy eye and standing no taller than Sinatra's shoulder
(himself no giant), he was never obvious star material. And yet he
shone all the same.
Possessed of a magnificent crooner's voice that was full of
baritone and sugary schmaltz, he was one of 60s America's greatest
entertainers. But the highlife also served up pitfalls for Davis,
and his marriage to Swedish actress May Britt (pictured at left) earned him the
vitriol of the Ku Klux Klan.
While his Rat Pack ways of
drink and drugs threatened his health, his lavish lifestyle nearly
bankrupted him. Davis became addicted to drugs and alcohol, later
developing both liver and kidney trouble which required
hospitalisation in 1974.
The last fifteen years of Davis's life were conducted at his usual hectic pace. In 1978 he appeared in another
Broadway musical, Stop the World - I Want To Get Off.
Following the discovery of a throat tumour in 1989, Davis
underwent radiation therapy, but he died in 1990 aged 64.
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