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In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr.
"Reading this book is a very moving experience: because of the power of Wil Haygood's prose; because of the compassion with which he writes about his complex and tortured subject; and because of the penetrating historical insight - indeed brilliance - with which he weaves Sammy Davis Jr's life".
ROBERT CARO.
Based on more than 250 interviews, Wil Haygood gives a sweeping and vivid cultural history of the 2oth Century, chronicling black entertainment from its beginings and the birth of popular culture as we know it. In scrupulous detail, he recreates the era of Vaudeville, where it all began for 4 year old Sammy, through his years with the 'Wil Mastin Trio' during the Depression and onto the nightclub circuit of the 1940s and 1950s, and then to Broadway, Hollywood and Las Vegas. He also brings Sammy's showbiz life into full relief against the backdrop of an American in the throws of racial change. In his broad and varied friendships with Frank Sinatra; Martin Luther King, Richard Nixon, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Marilyn Monroe, (to name just a few) not to mention his romances (his relationship with Kim Novak, and his marriage to May Britt drew death threats), Sammy forged uncharted paths across racial lines.
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