Dimensions
140 x 210 x 42mm
The Life and Times of the Last Great American Hipster - from Vaudeville to Vegas - as Seen through the Eyes of His Public.
Sammy Davis Jr rose from childhood stardom on the vaudeville stage to become one of the most famous African American entertainers of the 1950s and '60s (and the only black member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack). Yet he spent most of his career surrounded by controversy and ridicule - over his affairs with white film stars like Kim Novak and Jean Seberg; his 1960 marriage to Swedish actress May Britt; his conversion to Judaism; his closeness to the Kennedys and later, Richard Nixon; and his problems with alcohol and drugs.
'The Sammy Davis Jr Reader' is a composite portrait of a complex, self-conscious man and the society that treated him, for more than forty years, with passionate ambivalence.