Biography: All the Stats, Facts, and Data You'll Ever Need to Know

The multitalented Rat Packer Sammy Davis Jr. was born in Harlem in 1925. Dubbed "the world's greatest performer," Davis made his movie launching at age 7 in the Ethel Waters movie Rufus Jones for President. A singer, dancer, impressionist, drummer and actor, Davis was irrepressible, and did not permit racism or even the loss of an eye to stop him. Behind his frenetic motion was a dazzling, academic male who absorbed knowledge from his selected teachers-- including Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, and Jack Benny. In his 1965 autobiography, Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr., Davis candidly recounted whatever from the racist violence he faced in the army to his conversion to Judaism, which started with the present of a mezuzah from the comedian Eddie Cantor. But the entertainer likewise had a devastating side, further stated in his second autobiography, Why Me?-- which led Davis to suffer a heart attack onstage, drunkenly propose to his first wife, and invest countless dollars on bespoke fits and fine fashion jewelry. Driving it all was a lifelong battle for approval and love. "I have actually got to be a star!" he wrote. "I have to be a star like another man needs to breathe."
The son of a showgirl and a dancer, Davis took a trip the country with his father, Sam Davis Sr. and "Uncle" Will Mastin. His education was the numerous hours he invested backstage studying his mentors' every relocation. Davis was just a toddler when Mastin initially put the meaningful child onstage, sitting him in the lap of a female performer and training the boy from the wings. As Davis later remembered:
The prima donna struck a high note and Will held his nose. I held my nose, too. However Will's faces weren't half as funny as the prima donna's so I began copying hers rather: when her lips shivered, my lips trembled, and I followed her all the way from a heaving bosom to a quivering jaw. The people out front were seeing me, chuckling. When we got off, Will knelt to my height. "Listen to that applause, Sammy" ... My father was bent next to me, too, smiling ..." You're a born assailant, child, a born mugger."
Davis was formally made part of the act, ultimately renamed the Will Mastin Trio. He performed in 50 cities by the time he was 4, coddled by his fellow vaudevillians as the trio took a trip from one rooming house to another. "I never felt I lacked a house," he writes. "We carried our roots with us: our very same boxes of makeup in front of the mirrors, our exact same clothes hanging on iron pipeline racks with our same shoes under them." wo of a Kind
In the late 1940s, the Will Mastin Trio got a huge break: They were reserved as part of a Mickey Rooney taking a trip evaluation. Davis soaked up Rooney's every relocation onstage, marveling at his ability to "touch" the audience. "When Mickey was on phase, he may have pulled levers labeled 'cry' and 'laugh.' He could work the audience like clay," Davis remembered. Rooney was similarly impressed with Davis's talent, and soon added Davis's impressions to the act, giving him billing on posters revealing the program. When Davis thanked him, Rooney brushed it off: "Let's not get sickening about this," he said. The two-- a set of a little developed, precocious pros who never had youths-- likewise became great friends. "Between shows we played gin and there was constantly a record player going," Davis composed. "He had a wire recorder and we ad-libbed all kinds of bits into it, and wrote tunes, including an entire rating for a musical." One night at a party, a protective Rooney slugged a male who had actually launched a racist tirade versus Davis; it took 4 men to drag the star away. At the end of the trip, the buddies said their goodbyes: a wistful Rooney on the descent, Davis on the ascent. "So long, buddy," Rooney stated. "What the hell, perhaps one day we'll get our innings."
In November 1954, Davis and the Will Mastin Trio's decades-long dreams were finally coming to life. They were headlining for $7,500 a week at the New Frontier Gambling Establishment, and had even been used suites in the hotel-- instead of dealing with the usual indignity of remaining in the "colored" part of town. To commemorate, Sam Sr. and Will presented Davis with a new Cadillac, total with his initials painted on the passenger side door. After a night carrying out and gambling, Davis drove to L.A for a recording session. He later remembered: It was one of those magnificent early mornings when you can only keep in mind the advantages ... My fingers fit perfectly into the ridges around the guiding wheel, and the clear desert air streaming in through the window was covering itself around my face like some gorgeous, swinging chick offering me a facial. I turned on the radio, it filled the car with music, and I heard my own voice singing "Hey, There." This magic flight was shattered when the Cadillac rammed into a lady making an ill-advised U-turn. Davis's face knocked into a protruding horn button in the center of the motorist's wheel. (That model would soon be upgraded because of his accident.) He staggered out of the cars and truck, concentrated on his assistant, Charley, whose jaw was click here horrifically hanging slack, blood pouring out of it. "He pointed to my face, closed his eyes and groaned," Davis writes. "I rose. As I ran my turn over my cheek, I felt my eye hanging there by a string. Frantically I attempted to stuff it back in, like if I might do that it would remain there and nobody would understand, it would be as though nothing had actually occurred. The ground went out from under me and I was on my knees. 'Do not let me go blind. Please, God, don't take it all away.'".