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American Masters: Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me He was "Mr. Entertainment," a show-business meteor who blazed across the twentieth century. Sammy Davis, Jr. had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary, so vast and multi-faceted that it was dizzying in its scope and scale. Yet, his life was complex, complicated, and contradictory. Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me explores Davis' journey to create his own identity - as a black man who embraced Judaism - through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress. A veteran of increasingly outdated show business traditions, Davis strove to stay relevant, even as he found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America and the distaste of black America.
Featuring interviews with such luminaries as Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg, and Kim Novak, with never-before-seen photographs from Davis' vast personal collection and footage of his electric performances, this film explores the life and art of a uniquely gifted entertainer whose trajectory highlighted the major flashpoints of American society from the Depression through the 1980s. |
