Posted: 4/14/22 at 11:28pm
Hulu is teaming with Lee Daniels to tell the story of Sammy Davis Jr.
The Disney-backed streamer has picked up an eight-episode limited series exploring the life of the entertainer and told through the lens of his racial identity and relationship with the Black community. Elijah Kelley, who has collaborated twice already with Daniels, will play Davis Jr.
The untitled series is based on Wil Haygood’s book, In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr., and will chart his rise from childhood stardom on the vaudeville stage where he became one of the most famous Black entertainers of the 1950s and ’60s (and the only Black member of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack). At the same time, he spent most of his career surrounded by controversy and ridicule — over his affairs with white film stars, his 1960 marriage to Swedish actress May Britt, his conversion to Judaism, his closeness to the Kennedys (and later Richard Nixon) and his problems with alcohol and drugs.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/sammy-davis-jr-drama-starring-elijah-kelley-and-from-lee-daniels-lands-at-hulu-1235130031/
