Skip to main content

Search the Special Collections and Archives Portal

ent001053-005

Image

File
Download ent001053-005.tif (image/tiff; 104.88 MB)

Information

Digital ID

ent001053-005
    Details

    Publisher

    University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Libraries

    FROM: PRESS DEPT. WILLIBM MORRIS AGENCY, INC. THE WILL MASTIN TRIO Starring SAMMY DAVIS. JR. Undoubtedly one of the most phenomenal talents to appear in show business over this past quarter century, Sammy Davis, Jr,, star- ring with the Will Mastin Trio, will shortly be appearing at the ______on the . The trio?╟╓s history started long before Sammy, Jr., arrived on the scene. His dad, Sam Davis, Sr., and his uncle, Will Mastin, were a well-known act on the vaudeville circuits for some time before Sammy was born. Sammy?╟╓s story begins when Will Mastin had an act called, "Holiday In Dixieland," consisting of seven men and seven women, off- ering songs, skits and comedy in addition to their specialty ------ a dance novelty that was then sweeping the nation, the "Texas Tommy,." Sam Davis, Sr., married one of the girls in the unit, Elvira Sanchez, and Sammy Davis, Jr., was born in 1926 in New York City, He celebrated his first birthday in a specially contrived crib in a dressing room at the old Hippodrome Theatre in New York. When Sammy was two, Will Mastin formed another unit called "Creole" and Sammy, Jr,, amazed the performers as he mimicked their parts as the piano player tossed off the cues. When the great depression era of the early 1930?╟╓s hit the nation, Mastin cut his act to five men and at the tender age of four, Sammy was considered one of the "men." When the act hit the West Coast, Will had young Sammy audition fey, and win, a role in an Ethel Waters picture for Warners titled "Rufus Jones For President," later he played in "Season?╟╓s Greetings," also (more)