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EVENT DETAILS |
Join New America NYC & Betaworks Studios for a preview screening of Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me.
Doors will open at 6:00 p.m. with the film beginning promptly at 6:30. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
American Masters - Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me is the first major film documentary to examine the performer's vast career & his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights & racial progress during 20th-century America. Sammy Davis, Jr., had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary, vast in scope & scale. And yet, his life was complex, complicated & contradictory. Davis strove to achieve the American Dream in a time of racial prejudice & shifting political territory. He was a veteran of increasingly outdated show business traditions & worked tirelessly to stay relevant, even as he frequently found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America & the distaste of black America. Davis was the most public black figure to embrace Judaism, thereby yoking his identity to that of another persecuted minority. In Duke Ellington's words, he was beyond category.
Featuring exclusive interviews with Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg & Kim Novak, with never-before-seen photographs from Davis' vast personal collection & rare footage from his performances in television, film & concert, American Masters explores the life & art of a uniquely-gifted entertainer whose trajectory paralleled the major flashpoints of American society, from the Depression through the 1980s.
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