In Black And White: The Life Of Sammy Davis Junior - Plot & Excerpts
Chapter 7 THE GREAT WHITE SAMMY WAY Few performers are without a competitive edge, and Sammy was no different. Although he was apt to heap slavish praise upon fellow entertainers, he also possessed an edgy, competitive streak. Not only did he want to be as good as Mel Torme and Perry Como and Frank Sinatra, and as funny as Eddie Cantor and Jerry Lewis—he wanted to be better. He had the nerve to stand before them—as a mimic—and bring them into himself, then spit them right back out into the rolling waves of laughter. Most mimics are swathed in the ethos of irony—even if they can’t quite put it into words. “Nobody wants to be a mimic,” says impersonator Will Jordan, who first met Sammy in 1952 in Pittsburgh. (Jordan was considered the craftiest of the Ed Sullivan impersonators.) “We want to be ourselves.” As himself, Sammy knew how good he could be, knew that it would take more than the loss of an eye to stymie his gifts. The entertainers he looked up to had one thing in common: they were white.
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