"With all the racial tension I endured, I never turned around and hated right back," Davis said in the book.
I wouldn't have survived the army without him." Davis' daughter writes that Williams taught the entertainer, who had never attended school, how to read and write. He distracted me from all my rage, all my anger. He tempered all the humiliation I felt from my unit. "Sergeant Williams was my savior," Davis said in the book. Quicklist: title: How Davis Survived Racism in the Armytext: While in the Army, the 17-year-old, 5-foot-6, 120-pound entertainer was repeatedly beaten and humiliated by the white soldiers in his unit until a sergeant named Williams taught him how to use his talent and not his fists to fight racial ignorance.
Talent earned us respect." Added Davis, "Talent was my only weapon." "All I knew was when the Will Mastin Trio got onstage, people laughed, clapped, were entertained. "Somehow in my naive sheltered world, I believed it," Davis said in the book.
Because of their skin color, they were forced to stay in colored boarding houses while on the road, but Davis' father told him they did that because other people were jealous of their act. His father put him in black face and claimed he was a 44-year-old dwarf known as Silent Sam, because it was illegal for performers under 16 to be on stage. Quicklist:title: Talent Shielded Davis from Bigotrytext: At the tender age of 3, Davis joined his father Sammy Davis, Sr., and Will Mastin to perform on the vaudeville stage as the Will Mastin Trio. Keep reading for more revelations from the book. The book details how Davis overcame racism and bigotry to sing, dance and act his way to the top of a career that spanned six decades and included 40 albums, seven Broadway shows, 23 films and countless nightclub and concert performances. The entertainer's daughter with Britt, Tracey Davis, reveals the Kennedy snub and more in her new book, "Sammy Davis Jr.: A Personal History with My Father," based on conversations with her father in his final months before he died in 1990. Kennedy, but after Davis married Swedish actress May Britt, Kennedy refused to let him perform at his inauguration, Davis’ daughter claims in a new book. was at the height of his stardom in 1961 when he and close friend Frank Sinatra campaigned to elect President John F. David Sutton/Fotos International/Getty ImagesĪpril 18, 2014 - intro: Sammy Davis Jr.