Ask anyone old enough to remember the 1960s to name the smoothest entertainer of the Rat Pack era, and Sammy Davis Jr. is usually in the first breath. He sang, danced, acted, and traded jokes with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, but his life was a running collision with mid-century racial barriers that turned into one of the most complicated success stories in American entertainment.
Died: May 16, 1990 ·
Cause of Death: Throat cancer (Oral Cancer Foundation profile) ·
Height: 5 ft 5 in (165 cm) (IMDb biography)
Quick snapshot
- Lost his left eye in a 1954 car accident and wore a glass eye afterward (IMDb biography)
- Married May Britt, a white Swedish actress, in 1960 (official Sammy Davis Jr. biography)
- The wedding-night story survives in conflicting versions, with no settled account from Davis or Britt.
- The exact state of Davis’s finances at death — estate debts versus ongoing royalties — is reported inconsistently.
- Some old profiles list him at 5’4″; the more common reference is 5’5″.
- 1954: The car accident that cost him his left eye (IMDb biography)
- 1960: He married May Britt (Encyclopedia.com entry)
- March 1990: Doctors found a recurrence of throat cancer after he left Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Virginia Tech news archive)
- The 2018 exhumation keeps the paternity and estate questions open in the public record.
- Future biographies will have to reconcile the public showman with the private, physically fragile man.
Six facts, one pattern: the wider his fame grew, the more his body and private life became public property.
| Detail | Record |
|---|---|
| Born | , Harlem, New York City (Encyclopedia.com entry) |
| Died | , Beverly Hills, California (The New York Times obituary) |
| Cause of Death | Throat cancer, described in medical profiles as oral/throat cancer (Oral Cancer Foundation profile) |
| Disability | Lost left eye in a 1954 car accident; wore a glass eye (Biography.com profile) |
| Spouse & Children | May Britt (m. 1960; div. 1968); Altovise Gore (m. 1970); biological daughter Tracey; adopted sons Mark, Jeff, and Manny (official Sammy Davis Jr. biography) |
| Famous For | Rat Pack member; singer, dancer, actor, comedian (UPI obituary report) |
What was the cause of Sammy Davis Jr.’s death?
Davis was 64 when he died. UPI’s archival report described the end as the conclusion of an eight-month battle with throat cancer (UPI Archives).
- A 1990 report from the Roanoke Times, preserved in Virginia Tech’s archive, said doctors found a recurrence of throat cancer after Davis left Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in March 1990 (Virginia Tech news archive).
Davis’s death was not a private exit. It became a public-health reference point for a disease that was still poorly understood in 1990.
Why did they exhume Sammy Davis Jr.?
- In 2018, Davis’s remains were exhumed as part of a paternity dispute (Wikipedia biography).
His body was re-interred afterward, but the episode reopened the private record of his estate and his family. The paternity claim did not settle into a single, widely reported public resolution.
Was Sammy Davis Jr. poor when he died?
- The rumors say he died broke; the record says his estate carried debt but he was not destitute at the end.
The honest answer is that “poor” is too simple. Davis was not destitute at death, but his estate was in debt, and those debts became part of the estate narrative.
The pattern: Davis’s final chapter mixed money, illness, and rumor so thoroughly that the financial truth never got the same attention as the career that preceded it.
What disability did Sammy Davis Jr. have?
Davis’s most visible disability came from an early-morning road accident in 1954. He lost his left eye and wore a glass prosthetic from then on (Biography.com profile).
Why was Sammy Davis Jr. so short?
- At 5 ft 5 in, he was below the height of many leading men, but not far outside the average for a man of his generation.
The word “short” showed up constantly in profiles, but the stage version of Davis — fast, loud, kinetic — made his actual height beside the point.
The pattern: the disability that mattered was the one he couldn’t hide, and he turned even that into part of the act.
Did Sammy Davis Jr. marry a white woman?
Yes. Davis married May Britt, a Swedish actress, in 1960, and the interracial marriage became a national conversation. He had been married briefly before — to Loray White, from 1958 to 1959 (Biography.com profile).
What did Sammy Davis Jr. do to his wife on their wedding night?
The catchThe most repeated wedding-night story — Davis slipping away to play golf — has no settled first-person confirmation.
The anecdote is classic Las Vegas lore: in one version he disappeared to a golf course, in another the night dissolved into casino hours. Different retellings disagree, which is exactly why it belongs in the unclear file.
Why this matters: the wedding was one of the most scrutinized interracial marriages of its era, and the lore around it shows how much of Davis’s private life was consumed by public storytelling.
Did Sammy Davis have any biological children?
Davis and May Britt had one biological daughter, Tracey, and the couple adopted two sons, Mark and Jeff. After his 1970 marriage to Altovise Gore, he adopted a son, Manny. The family breakdown in the table above comes from the official biography.
What happened to Sammy Davis Junior’s daughter Tracy?
- Tracey Davis became an author and died in 2020 (Wikipedia biography).
Her memoir kept her father’s story in print into the twenty-first century, and her death was another reminder that the next generation of the Davis family carried the weight of his legacy.
The takeaway: Davis’s family was a mix of biological and chosen bonds, and the public kept confusing the two.
Who paid for Sammy Davis Jr.’s funeral?
Frank Sinatra paid for Davis’s funeral. The services were at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, and the bill was a private act from the man who had been his friend, defender, and Rat Pack partner for decades (Wikipedia biography).
Sinatra paying for the funeral was a private expense with a public message: the Rat Pack bond outlasted the casinos and the cameras.
What this means: Sinatra’s parting gesture framed Davis’s death as a family matter, not just a show-business one.
Key dates in Sammy Davis Jr.’s life
Five dates, one arc: each milestone pushed Davis further into the spotlight and deeper into a body that was failing him.
| Date | Moment |
|---|---|
| 1925 | Born in Harlem, New York City (Encyclopedia.com entry) |
| 1954 | Car accident; lost his left eye (IMDb biography) |
| 1960 | Married May Britt (Encyclopedia.com entry) |
| 1990 | Died of throat cancer (The New York Times obituary) |
| 2018 | Body exhumed for a paternity dispute (Wikipedia biography) |
The pattern: every major turn in Davis’s public life came with a physical or personal price attached.
Confirmed facts and what’s still unclear
Confirmed facts
- Davis died of throat cancer on May 16, 1990 (The New York Times obituary)
- The 1954 car accident cost him his left eye (Virginia Tech news archive)
What’s unclear
- What Davis did on his wedding night — golf, casino, or neither — depends on the retelling.
- Whether he was “broke” at death: the estate had debt, but the exact accounting was never a single clear public number.
- His precise height: 5’5″ is most common, but some earlier profiles say 5’4″.
- The outcome of the paternity dispute that led to the 2018 exhumation was never settled in a widely reported public ruling.
- The full financial story of his final years remains tangled between royalties, debts, and estate claims.
The trade-off: the confirmed record gives us the shape of Davis’s life; the unclear record tells us how much of it was rumor, legend, and people projecting onto a public face.
What the record says
Davis’s death is classified as oral/throat cancer, and the foundation treats his case as a warning about a disease that took a trailblazing career at 64.
The 1990 news report preserved by Virginia Tech notes the timing plainly: doctors found a recurrence of throat cancer after Davis left Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in March 1990.
The impplication: the source record is thin on the intimate details and strong on the public milestones, which is exactly why the private stories have to be labeled as lore.
The takeaway
Davis’s life is usually reduced to the glitter: the Rat Pack, the tuxedos, the one-liners. The fuller record is harder and more honest — a Black entertainer who broke barriers, a performer who lost an eye and kept going, and a man whose body and money came apart in public. For anyone retelling his story, the assignment is clear: hold the whole man — the talent, the barriers, and the damage — in the same frame, or you are not telling the truth.
Frequestly asked questions
What was Sammy Davis Jr.’s real name?
Samuel George Davis Jr. He was born December 8, 1925, in Harlem, New York City (Encyclopedia.com entry).
Did Sammy Davis Jr. convert to Judaism?
Yes. After the 1954 accident, Davis converted to Judaism, a detail his official biography highlights as part of the turn his life took after the crash (official Sammy Davis Jr. biography).
Was Sammy Davis Jr. in the military?
Yes. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, an experience that exposed him to the same racial discrimination he fought against in civilian life (UPI obituary report).
How did Sammy Davis Jr. lose his eye?
In a car accident in 1954. The crash cost him his left eye, and he wore a glass prosthetic for the rest of his life (IMDb biography).
What health problem did Sammy Davis Jr. face before his death?
Throat cancer. Davis died on May 16, 1990, after an eight-month battle; a 1990 report noted that doctors found a recurrence after he left Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in March 1990 (UPI Archives) (Virginia Tech news archive).
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Noah Gagnon is Senior Reporter at Canada Scope, covering daily news and breaking stories across Canada.