In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr | 
| Author: Wil Haygood
Creator: Denzel Washington
Publisher: Billboard Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $0.99
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Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 1096427
Media: Paperback
Pages: 528
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0823083950
Dewey Decimal Number: 792.7028092
EAN: 9780823083954
ASIN: 0823083950
Publication Date: April 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
He was, for decades, one of the most recognizable figures in the cultural landscape, his image epitomizing a golden age of American show business. His career spanned a lifetime, but for years he has remained hidden behind the persona he so vigorously generated, and so fiercely protected. Now, in this surprising, illuminating, and compulsively readable biography, we are taken beyond the icon, into the extraordinary, singular life of Sammy Davis, Jr.
In scrupulous detail and with stunning powers of evocation, Wil Haygood takes us back to the era of vaudeville, where it all began for four-year-old Sammy who ran out onstage one night and stole the show. From then on it was a motherless childhood on the road, singing and dancing his way across a segregated America with his father and the formidable showman Will Mastin, struggling together to survive the Depression and the demise of vaudeville itself.
With an ambition honed by poverty and an obsessive need for applause, Sammy drove his way into the nightclub circuit of the 1940s and 1950s, when, his father and Mastin aging and out of style, he slowly began to make a name for himself, hustling his way to top billing and eventually to recording contracts. From there, he was to stake his claim on Broadway, in Hollywood, and, of course, in Las Vegas.
Haygood brings Sammy’s showbiz life into full relief against the backdrop of an America in the throes of racial change. Sammy grew up trapped between the worlds of blacks and whites, with so much invested in both. He made his living entertaining white people but was often denied service in the very venues he played. Drafted into a newly integrated U.S. Army in the 1940s, he saw up close the fierce tensions that seethed below the surface. Dragged into the civil rights movement, he witnessed a hatred that often erupted into violence. In his broad and varied friendships and alliances (with Frank Sinatra; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Richard Nixon; Sidney Poitier; Marilyn Monroe, to name just a few), not to mention his romances (his relationship with Kim Novak and his marriage to the blond beauty May Britt drew death threats), he forged uncharted paths across racial lines. Admired and reviled by both blacks and whites, he was tormented all his life by raging insecurities, and never quite came to terms with his own skin. Ultimately, his only true sense of his identity was as a performer.
Based on painstaking research and more than 250 interviews, Wil Haygood brings us a sweeping and vivid cultural history of the twentieth century, chronicling black entertainment from its beginnings and the birth of popular culture as we know it. In Black and White transcends simple biography to become an important record, both celebratory and elegiacal, of a vanished America and its greatest entertainer.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 Not A Definitive Biography May 18, 2007
Howard Wexler (White Plains, NY United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Maybe the definitive biography of Sammy Davis Jr. can never be written. Or maybe it simply hasn't been done. This book is a mixed bag.
The book filters the story of Sammy Davis Jr. through race, everything is either black or white. As a result, you do get some interesting concepts, that Davis did not want to "be" black, as if all blacks (or for that matter, all whites) had something in common.
You do get extensive thoughts about his love for blonde women, and his affairs with Kim Novak is given a prominent amount of space.
You also have a wonderful portrait of Will Mastin, a man who is ignored in every other book about Davis.
But other things are glossed over, his drug and alcohol abuse, his Rat Pack days, even his marriage to May Britt.
Oh, do not expect anything about his music in here, absolutely nothing about any of his records.
 A Biography filled with Historical Landscapes May 9, 2007
Deleso Alford
A must read! Wil Haygood's book, In Black and White, The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. not only captures the mesmerizing and oftentimes daunting physical movement of the man- Sammy- in the seemingly separate worlds of black and white but unapologetically captivates the reader with Sammy's human quest for love and approval.
The author skillfully provides the reader with a historical landscape to navigate the multidimensional aspects of the making of "Sammy" from his vaudeville childhood days to the inscription on the headstone of his final resting place--
Sammy Davis Jr. "The Entertainer" He Did It All...and indeed he did.
After reading the book, I can't wait to see Sammy "in living color" thanks to Denzel Washington's insight to purchase the screen rights.
Written by Deleso Alford Washington, J.D., LL.M.
 Not the real story... February 3, 2007
jwfatgruv (Santa Monica)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book does not reflect the spirit of the life of Sammy Davis, Jr. I'm afraid that it relects the spirit of the life that the author, Wil Haygood, unfortunately must have led.
I am very familiar with the details of Sam's life, I have heard it in his own words. Sam was a very pragmatic optimist who imagined the world in a very color-blind way. This is where Mr. Haygood leads the un-informed reader very far away from Sam's actual beliefs.
Sam didn't want to be white, he wanted to be the best. That is what he constantly strived for. Sam stood up to racism so many times, in so many ways. How many times was his nose broken in race baited fights from his hitch in the Army ? Sam experienced the ignorance of racism many, many times, from many different people. But for every racist he had to battle, he also saw many more people who he loved, trusted & repected, and who he knew felt the same way towards him.
Almost all of the material in this book is 'lifted' from the books co-written by Sam and Jane & Burt Boyar. These works are the true story. These people were there when these events happened, they witnessed them first hand. Not only has Mr. Haygood taken what actually transpired and twisted it to fit his agenda, he berates the people who daily lived through these experiences with Sam.
excellent November 5, 2005
JB (New York United States)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is well written, thorough, entertaining, and really a superb history lesson. Great Job Mr. Haygood.
Impressive and entertaining biography of Sammy Davis jr. May 10, 2005
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
Wil Haywood, staff writer for the Washington Post, won the 2004 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction, plus a host of other awards for In Black And White: The Life Of Sammy Davis Jr., so it's only fitting his impressive and entertaining biography of the life of Sammy Davis Jr. be reprinted in paperback to reach new generations of audiences with his award-winning life of one of America's most popular and versatile performers and entertainers of the 20th Century.
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