June 2014 Fiction & Entertainment Ingram Publisher Services International

Sammy Davis Jr.: A Personal Journey with My Father Tracey Davis, Nina Bunche Pierce

Sammy Davis Jr.: A Personal Journey with My Father
Tracey Davis, Nina Bunche Pierce


In Sammy Davis Jr.: A Personal Journey with My Father, the entertainment legend’s story comes to life through rare family photos and a compelling narrative based on conversations between father and daughter as he neared the end of his life, offering fans a uniquely intimate experience. The stories begin with Sammy Davis Jr.’s bittersweet childhood days growing up in Harlem. On the stage by age three, he first became a star in vaudeville with the Will Mastin Trio. Davis was already a popular performer by the time he was recruited into the Army during World War II. As Tracey Davis candidly relates, it was there that her father first learned to use his talent—singing and dancing—as a weapon against racial bigotry. His career took off in the 1940s through his sheer determination, talent, and the support of friends like Frank Sinatra. With tenderness and humor Tracey speaks of her father’s friendship with Sinatra, and how he stood by him when Davis married Tracey’s Swedish actress mother. In a time when interracial marriages were forbidden by law in thirty one states, both bride and groom received an onslaught of negative press and even death threats.