Coordinates	37°46′45.48″N122°25′9.12″N
Name	March Of Dimes
Formation	January 3, 1938
Headquarters	White Plains, New York, U.S.
Leader title	President
Leader name	Jennifer L. Howse
Website	marchofdimes.com }}

The March of Dimes Foundation is a United States nonprofit organisation that was established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) on January 3, 1938, to combat Polio. Following the discovery of the polio vaccine, it adopted a new mission, "fighting birth defects", which was recently changed to a broader goal of, improving the health of mothers and babies.

The Ontario March of Dimes (OMOD), and March of Dimes Canada established by OMOD, have no affiliation with the March of Dimes.

Legal status and organization

The March of Dimes is a not-for-profit organization with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The foundation is headquartered in White Plains, NY and has 51 chapters across the U.S., including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, which provide public health education, advocacy for mothers and babies, and community service grants and outreach programs. More than 3 million volunteers support the March of Dimes in local communities.

Funding

In 2009, gross contributions to the March of Dimes totaled $214.6 million. Of this amount, 75.4 percent was allocated to program services. Contributions to the March of Dimes are voluntary and include corporate and personal gifts, endowments and bequests.

Mission

The mission of the March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.

Services

The March of Dimes provides mothers, pregnant women and women of childbearing age with educational resources on baby health, pregnancy, preconception and new motherhood, as well as supplying information and support to families affected by prematurity, birth defects, or other infant health problems. March of Dimes volunteers and staff work on a bipartisan basis at federal and state levels to advocate for programs to improve the health of pregnant women, babies, and children such as expanded newborn screening and greater access to health care insurance.

History

The fight against polio

The March of Dimes was founded by Ron Gilreath as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) on January 3, 1938, as a response to epidemics of poliomyelitis (polio) sweeping the country. Polio is a disease that can cause inflammation of the spinal cord that could leave its victims unable to move arms, legs, or even lungs. Gilreath was himself diagnosed with Polio in 1921. It left him unable to move his legs. From those earliest days, the foundation was an alliance between scientists working in their laboratories and volunteers, who raised money to support research, education and help polio victims and their families. Basil O’Connor, an attorney and a close associate of Gilreath, helped establish the foundation. He became its president in 1938, a position he held for more than three decades. His first task was to create a network of local chapters that could raise money and deliver aid—more than 3,100 county chapters were established during his tenure. Jonas Salk, M.D., a grantee of the foundation, began his research on poliovirus at the University of Pittsburgh in 1947. In 1949, the foundation chose Dr. Jonas Salk to lead its research efforts. He first developed a successful vaccine in 1952, which was tested and proven effective in clinical trials in the United States and Canada in 1954 (see Salk Vaccine Field Trial). By April 1955, the Salk vaccine was announced in the news media as “safe, effective and potent” and had been approved for distribution by the U.S. government. In 1957, Albert Bruce Sabin, another foundation grantee, began testing a version of the vaccine in which the infectious part of the virus was inactivated. In 1963, the Sabin vaccine was approved, and by 1965, only 61 cases of paralytic polio were diagnosed in the United States.

Since the discovery and widespread use of the polio vaccines, polio has been eliminated in the Western Hemisphere and in most countries of the world.

Salk Vaccine Field Trial

The Salk polio vaccine trial of 1954, initiated and funded by the March of Dimes, showed statistical evidence that Salk’s killed virus vaccine was up to 90 percent effective in preventing polio. Almost 624,000 American children were injected with either vaccine or placebo, and more than a million others served as observed control subjects. The Salk Vaccine Field Trial was among the largest and most publicized clinical trials in history.

Polio Patient Aid

In the years between 1938 and the approval of the Salk vaccine in 1955, the foundation spent $233 million on polio patient care. In order to serve the entire community and not just the poor, the national office told local chapters that while families were expected to do what they reasonably could financially, the foundation would pay for the cost that could not be met without suffering undue hardship. This policy resulted in more than 80 percent of polio patients in the U.S. receiving significant foundation aid.

A New Mission

With its original goal of eliminating polio accomplished, the March of Dimes faced a choice: to either disband or dedicate its resources to a new mission. Basil O’Connor, president of the March of Dimes at the time, directed his staff to identify strengths and weaknesses of the organization and reformulate its mission. While with the March of Dimes, Apgar played a crucial role in the foundation’s campaign for immunization against rubella, promoted the establishment of birth defect registries, and advocated for making genetic and pregnancy history a part of medical record-keeping for every pregnant woman.

Genetics

The annual “Short Course in Medical and Experimental Mammalian Genetics” was founded in 1960 as a collaboration between The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, with funding from the March of Dimes. The two-week summer course covered all aspects of genetics in relation to health and disease from molecular to populations. Geneticist Victor A. McKusick, M.D. who authored Mendelian Inheritance in Man, created and directed the program, which he intended to fill a gap in existing medical genetics education. March of Dimes continues to sponsor the course, which is held each summer at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.

In 1970, McKusick convinced the March of Dimes to fund the creation of a map of the human genome. The U.S. government got involved in 1985, and in 1988, the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) was established to pursue gene-mapping research, with McKusick as its first president.

March of Dimes

The name “March of Dimes”—coined by vaudeville star Eddie Cantor as a play on contemporary newsreel series “The March of Time”—was originally used for the foundation’s annual fundraising event and gradually became synonymous with that of the organization. It was officially adopted as the organization’s name in 1976, when it became known as the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. In 2007, the name became the March of Dimes Foundation. Vaccination is an effective preventive measure.

The last major U.S. rubella epidemic occurred in 1964–1965, resulting in an estimated 12.5 million cases of rubella and 20,000 cases of CRS in live-born infants. Virginia Apgar, M.D., then serving as vice president of medical affairs at the March of Dimes, testified to the United States Senate Committee of Labor and Public Welfare’s Subcommittee on Health in 1969 about the importance of federal funding of a rubella immunization program before the next epidemic commenced in the United States (expected in 1970 or 1971). She stressed that funding was needed not only for vaccine production, but also for a wide distribution network and an educational campaign. The first vaccines were developed in the late 1960s. A more effective vaccine, licensed in the early 1970s and developed with March of Dimes funding, was the cornerstone of a program to eliminate transmission of rubella from pregnant women to their babies.

With the success of the rubella immunization program, the incidence of endemic rubella has been virtually eliminated in the United States. Work to eradicate the disease globally continues. The March of Dimes has partnered with UNICEF and other organizations to support the establishment of rubella control programs in other parts of the world, including Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Newborn Intensive Care Units & NICU Family Support® Program

In 1976, the March of Dimes published a report titled Toward Improving the Outcome of Pregnancy (TIOP) that called for the creation of a regional system of newborn intensive care units (NICUs) to provide specialized care for preterm babies. The report categorized maternal and neonatal care into three levels of complexity and recommended referral of high-risk patients to hospital facilities with appropriate staffing and resources to handle them. In the 1970s, this level of facility was rare and was primarily found at academic medical centers.

Since that time, the number of neonatologists in the United States has increased and NICUs have become relatively common in many areas. In fact, between 1980 and 1995, the number of NICU beds grew by 138 percent and the number of neonatologists by 268 percent. Today, one in 10 babies born in the United States is admitted to a NICU, many of them because of premature birth. In 1993, March of Dimes readdressed the NICU issue in Toward Improving the Outcome of Pregnancy: The 90s and Beyond (TIOP II). The 1993 report updated care complexity designations from levels I, II and III to basic, specialty and subspecialty, and the criteria were expanded.

In 2001, the March of Dimes introduced a comprehensive national program to provide comfort, support, and information to families with sick or premature babies in the NICU. The NICU Family Support® program, which is implemented at local health care facilities through March of Dimes state chapters, includes educational materials and support groups to connect parents with others who have had a child in the NICU, as well as a professional development component to help NICU staff work effectively with patients’ families. The March of Dimes also created ShareYourStory.org, an online community for NICU families.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

In 1973, March of Dimes-supported researchers Kenneth L. Jones, M.D., and David W. Smith, M.D., at the University of Washington in Seattle discovered a distinct cluster of birth defects seen exclusively in the babies of women who used alcohol while pregnant. Jones and Smith published their findings in the British medical journal The Lancet, naming this medical disorder fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). FAS is categorized as a group of birth defects ranging from mental retardation to various growth and behavioral problems.

In addition to providing grant funding for FAS research over the years, March of Dimes also supported the National Council on Alcoholism in its push for legislation to bring public attention to the dangers of alcohol use by pregnant women. This led to a 1989 law mandating a warning label about the risk of birth defects that alcoholic beverages still carry today.

Pulmonary Surfactant/Nitric Oxide

Surfactant is a chemical produced naturally in human lungs that helps them to inflate. Some babies who are born prematurely do not have enough surfactant in their lungs to breathe properly, resulting in a disorder known as respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). March of Dimes states on its website that the organization has invested more than $12.5 million in research studying this issue.

Through research funded by the March of Dimes in 1985, T. Allen Merritt, M.D., discovered that by treating these babies with surfactant, they have a better chance of survival. The study by Merritt and colleagues, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1986, concluded that “treatment with human surfactant offers promise for improving the survival of very premature infants with a surfactant deficiency and for reducing the pulmonary sequelae of the respiratory distress syndrome.” The first surfactant therapy was approved by the FDA in July 1990. Since surfactant therapy became widespread, infant RDS deaths have dropped from approximately 25,000 deaths each year in the 1960s to just 860 in 2005.

In February 2000, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study coauthored by March of Dimes-funded researcher John P. Kinsella, M.D., that found that babies unable to breathe properly due to high blood pressure in their lungs can avoid treatment with heart-lung machines by receiving small, early doses of inhaled nitric oxide. Kinsella, who was part of the Clinical Inhaled Nitric Oxide Research Group, received March of Dimes support from 1993-1996 to study the vital role of nitric oxide in the regulation of blood flow in the lungs. In 1999, nitric oxide was approved by the FDA for use “in term and near-term infants with hypoxic respiratory failure requiring ventilatory support who have clinical and/or echocardiographic evidence of PPHN.”

Folic Acid Campaign

In 1992, the U.S. Public Health Service began recommending that all women capable of having a baby consume 400 micrograms of folic acid daily beginning before pregnancy and continuing into the first trimester to prevent serious birth defects of the brain and spine known as neural tube defects (NTDs)—specifically spina bifida, a leading cause of childhood paralysis, and anencephaly (missing or incomplete brain and skull).

In support of the PHS recommendation, the March of Dimes, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Council on Folic Acid partnered to launch the National Folic Acid Campaign in 1995. The goal was to lower the incidence of NTDs by at least 30 percent by encouraging women of childbearing age to take a daily multivitamin supplement containing 400 micrograms of folic acid. The campaign included the establishment of state Folic Acid councils that focused on folic acid education on a statewide level. A component of the campaign aimed at improving folic acid intake among Hispanic women of childbearing age was introduced by March of Dimes in 2001.

In addition to educational efforts, the March of Dimes website states that the organization supports research grants to improve understanding of how folic acid prevents NTDs.

March of Dimes is currently a member of the National Council on Folic Acid and serves on the steering committee.

''Annual Gallup Surveys''

From 1995 to 2007, The Gallup Organization, supported by funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), conducted an annual national survey of women’s knowledge and behaviors on folic acid for the March of Dimes.

The CDC analyzed the results of the March of Dimes Gallup surveys conducted from 2003 to 2007. Findings of that analysis included that among all women of childbearing age, those aged 18-24 years had the least awareness regarding folic acid consumption (61%), the least knowledge regarding when folic acid should be taken (6%), and the lowest reported daily use of supplements containing folic acid (30%). Because women in this age group account for nearly one-third of all births in the United States, CDC recommended that promotion of folic acid consumption be targeted to this population.

The most recent survey (2007) reported that only 40 percent of women of childbearing age in the United States take a vitamin with folic acid daily, with only 12 percent realizing that it should be taken before pregnancy. The 2007 results were derived from telephone interviews with a national sample of 2,003 women aged 18 to 45.

Newborn Screening

March of Dimes states on its website that it supports mandated newborn screening of all babies in all states in the U.S. for at least 30 life-threatening conditions for which effective treatment and reliable testing is available to prevent catastrophic consequences to the child.

In 2003, the March of Dimes began releasing an annual, state-by-state report card on each state’s adoption of expanded newborn screening recommended by the American College of Medical Genetics. March of Dimes president Jennifer L. Howse, Ph.D. has stated that this program is intended to inform parents of the tests available in their state, enabling those with affected babies to pursue early treatment.

According to a presentation at the 2005 annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, individual, state-based March of Dimes chapters work with governors, state legislators, health departments, health professionals, and parents to improve state newborn screening programs and to make comprehensive newborn screening programs available to every newborn throughout the country.

Support for research

For its first 17 years, the March of Dimes provided support for the work of many innovative and practical polio researchers and virologists. In the post-World War II years, the number of polio cases in the United States increased sharply, making the cause even more urgent. On April 12, 1955 the Poliomyelitis Vaccine Evaluation Center at the University of Michigan held a news conference announcing to the world that the polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk was "safe, potent, and effective." The largest clinical trial in U.S. history, involving 1.8 million schoolchildren, had shown the vaccine to be 80 to 90 percent effective in preventing paralytic polio. Salk's work as well as that of Albert Sabin who developed the other successful polio vaccine was largely funded by the March of Dimes.

After polio vaccine

After supporting the development of two successful polio vaccines against polio, the organization, rather than going out of business, decided in 1958 to use its charitable infrastructure to serve mothers and babies with a new mission: to prevent premature birth, birth defects and infant mortality. The organization accomplishes this with programs of research, community services, education, and advocacy, along with the annual March for Babies.

Current activities

Prematurity Campaign

In the United States, more than 540,000 babies are born too soon each year. Preterm birth is the leading cause of newborn death, and babies who survive an early birth often face lifetime health challenges, such as breathing problems, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and others. For these reasons, in 2003, the March of Dimes launched a national Prematurity Campaign to raise awareness of this serious problem and help reduce the rate of premature birth. Activities of the campaign include educating women of childbearing age about risk reduction and warning signs of premature birth; providing affected families with information and emotional support; assisting health practitioners to improve risk detection; encouraging investment of more public and private research dollars; and advocacy for expanded access to health coverage for all pregnant women. The American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric & Neonatal Nurses are partners in the campaign.

According to an editorial in the May 2004 issue of the Journal of the National Medical Association, the original goals of the campaign were to raise awareness of the problem from 35 percent to at least 60 percent and to decrease the rate of premature births by at least 15 percent (from 11.9 percent to 10.1 percent). Today, the goal remains to raise awareness and reduce the incidence of premature birth in the United States. The campaign supports research grants through the March of Dimes’ Prematurity Research Initiative, which funds research by not-for-profit institutions into the causes of prematurity.

In 2006, the Institute of Medicine published the report “Preterm Birth: Causes, Consequences and Prevention,” which documented the impact of premature birth on families, the health care system and business, and provided cost estimates. It stated that preterm birth costs the nation more than $26 billion annually. This report was funded in part by March of Dimes.

In 2008, the Prematurity Campaign was extended by the Board of Trustees until 2020, and global targets were set for prematurity prevention.

For the first time in more than 30 years, in 2010 the United States saw its first two-year decline in the preterm birth rate.

Quality Improvement Initiatives

The March of Dimes hosted the Symposium on Quality Improvement to Prevent Prematurity in October 2009. The purpose of the Symposium was to discuss the state of quality initiatives to prevent preterm birth and develop an agenda to decrease the rate of preterm births that are not inevitable or medically necessary. Attendees included health care practitioners, health insurers, policy makers, health purchasers, regulators and concerned citizens. The symposium was a collaborative effort of the March of Dimes, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Nurse-Midwives, and Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses.

On December 15, 2010, the March of Dimes released “Toward Improving the Outcome of Pregnancy III: Enhancing Perinatal Health Through Quality, Safety, and Performance Initiatives,” a new report by a panel of more than 40 maternal and infant health leaders including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, The Joint Commission, the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the March of Dimes.

Global Report on Birth Defects

Published in 2006, the March of Dimes Global Report on Birth Defects was the first to provide a global estimate of the incidence of serious birth defects of genetic or partially genetic origin. The report, in which researchers detail the numbers of affected births in 193 countries, includes recommended steps aimed at addressing health disparities and reducing the toll of infant death in developing countries.

The report’s key findings included: •Every year an estimated 8 million children--6 percent of total births worldwide--are born with a serious birth defect of genetic or partially genetic origin. •Additionally, hundreds of thousands more are born with serious birth defects of post-conception origin due to maternal exposure to environmental agents. •At least 3.3 million children less than 5 years of age die annually because of serious birth defects. •The majority of those who survive may be mentally and physically disabled for life.

White Paper on Prematurity

In 2009, the March of Dimes partnered with the Department of Reproductive Health and Research of the World Health Organization (RHR/WHO) to publish a white paper on the global and regional toll of preterm birth worldwide. This report, which was the first attempt to identify the global scope of premature births and related infant deaths, found that an estimated 13 million infants worldwide are born premature each year and more than one million of them die in their first month of life. Further, premature births account for 9.6 percent of total births and for 28 percent of newborn deaths. The highest rates of premature birth are in Africa, followed by North America (Canada and the United States combined).

''March for Babies''

Established in 1970, the March for Babies, previously called WalkAmerica, is the largest fundraiser of the year for the March of Dimes, as well as the oldest nationwide charitable walking event. In the decades since, many other organizations have used the “walk-athon” format to help raise money. Funds raised by the event support March of Dimes-sponsored research and other programs to prevent premature birth, birth defects and infant mortality.

According to the March of Dimes, March for Babies is held in more than 900 communities across the nation. Every year, 1 million people—including 20,000 company teams, family teams and national sponsors—participate in the event, which has raised more than $1.8 billion since 1970. The March for Babies website states that “family teams walk to celebrate, honor or remember the babies and children who have touched their lives.” Sherri Shepherd, co-host of ABC’s “The View,” celebrity ambassador for the March for Babies and mother to a premature child, kicked off the 2010 March for Babies by ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange.

The March of Dimes states that seventy-six cents of every dollar raised in March for Babies is spent on research and programs to help prevent premature birth, birth defects and infant mortality.

Bikers for Babies March of Dimes’ Bikers for Babies is a motorcycle ride that raises money to fund research grants focused on issues related to premature birth and community programs for families of premature babies. Bikers for Babies rides were held in 33 communities around the nation in 2010. Dee Snider, lead singer for Twisted Sister, served as the 2010 national spokesperson for Bikers for Babies.

Sounds of Pertussis

Once rare in the United States, cases of pertussis (whooping cough) are appearing across the country with greater frequency. To address this issue, the March of Dimes and Sanofi Pasteur launched a national education campaign in 2010 called “Sounds of Pertussis” to raise awareness about the seriousness of pertussis and the need for adult vaccination to prevent infecting babies. NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon is a national spokesperson for the campaign. The campaign recently sponsored a song-writing contest called Sound Off About Pertussis, which was won by Maria Bennett with her original song, “Give Pertussis a Whooping.”

Perinatal Data Center

According to the March of Dimes website, its Perinatal Data Center “works collaboratively with professional colleagues to conduct epidemiologic analyses and to translate findings into new insights.” In 2009, the American Journal of Epidemiology published a key study in which the center participated. Researchers found that the widespread use of fertility drugs probably plays a larger role than previously realized in the problem of premature birth in the United States. The study found that 4.6 percent of live births in 2005 resulted from the use of fertility drugs. Almost 23 percent of babies born as multiples were conceived using fertility drugs alone.

Other initiatives of the March of Dimes Perinatal Data Center include the PeriStats Web site, which provides free access to U.S., state, county, and city maternal and infant health data.

National Ambassador

Every year, a child who is personally affected by the March of Dimes mission acts as a National Ambassador and travels the country to help raise awareness of the prematurity issue. The 2010 March of Dimes National Ambassador is Joshua Hoffman, a 7-year-old who was born premature and spent 3.5 months in the NICU.

Controversy

Animal rights organizations have raised concerns about March of Dimes-funded medical research involving animals. The foundation states it supports the use of non-animal research alternatives wherever possible. March of Dimes grants for research involving animals are awarded only to studies that comply with the highest ethical standards to protect the health and welfare of animal subjects.

Criticism

The March of Dimes has been described as a bureaucracy that has taken on a life of its own through a classic example of a process called goal displacement. Faced with redundancy after Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine, it adopted a new mission, "fighting birth defects", which was recently changed to a vaguer goal of "breakthrough for babies", rather than disbanding.

Charity Navigator has given the organization a rating of one out of four stars based on its financial filings, meaning "Fails to meet industry standards and performs well below most charities in its Cause." It also note that the president Jennifer Howse was paid $633,132 in 2010.

Further reading

Oshinsky, David M. (2005). Polio: an American Story. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195152948.

Rose, David W. (2003). March of Dimes. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0738512532.

Institute of Medicine, July 2006. “Preterm Birth: Causes, Consequences and Prevention.”

External links

March of Dimes question portal

March of Dimes Spanish-language website

March of Dimes Youth

March for Babies

March of Dimes story quilt

March of Dimes online community for NICU families

See also

March for Babies

References

;Notes

Category:Medical and health organizations by medical condition Category:Poliomyelitis Category:Organizations established in 1938 Category:Medical and health organizations based in the United States Category:Non-profit organizations based in the United States Category:Health charities

de:March of Dimes fr:March of Dimes

Coordinates	37°46′45.48″N122°25′9.12″N
bgcolour	silver
name	Hazel Scott
Spouse	Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (m. 1945-1956)
birth date	June 11, 1920
birth place	Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
death date	October 02, 1981
death place	Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City, New York, U.S.
birth name	Hazel Dorothy Scott}}

Hazel Dorothy Scott (June 11, 1920 – October 2, 1981) was a jazz and classical pianist and singer.

Early years

She was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago and raised in New York City from the age of four. Early recognized as a child prodigy, she was awarded scholarships to study classical piano at the Juilliard School from the age of eight. As a teenager, she performed piano and trumpet with her mother’s Alma Long Scott all-girl jazz band which sometimes featured Lil Hardin-Armstrong. By age 16, she regularly performed for radio programs for the Mutual Broadcasting System gaining a reputation as the “hot classicist.” In the mid-1930s she also performed at the Roseland Dance Hall with the Count Basie Orchestra. Her early musical theater appearances in New York included the ''Cotton Club Revue of 1938'', ''Sing Out the News'' and ''The Priorities of 1942''.

Career

Throughout the 1930s and 40s, she performed jazz, blues, ballads, popular (Broadway songs and boogie-woogie) and classical music in various nightclubs. From 1939 to 1943 she was a leading attraction at both the downtown and uptown branches of Café Society. Her performances there created national prestige for the practice of “swinging the classics”.

Scott, in addition to Lena Horne, was one of the first African American women to garner respectable roles in major Hollywood pictures. She performed as herself in several features, notably ''I Dood It'' (MGM 1943) ''Broadway Rhythm'' (MGM 1944) with Lena Horne and in the otherwise all-white cast ''The Heat's On'' (Columbia 1943), ''Something to Shout About'' (Columbia 1943) and ''Rhapsody in Blue'' (Warner Bros 1945). In the 1940s, in addition to her film appearances, she was featured in Café Society’s ''From Bach to Boogie-Woogie'' Carnegie Hall concerts (1941 and 43).

She was the first woman of color to have her own television show, ''The Hazel Scott Show'', which premiered on the DuMont Television Network on July 3, 1950. However, during a period of continued racism in the advertising industry as well as continued economic hardships for jazz musicians in general, the show was canceled in 1950. Some journalists speculated that the show was canceled because of her name's appearance in the ''Red Channels'' published by ''Counterattack''. Scott was tried but not charged by the House Un-American Activities Committee just before her television variety program was canceled on September 29, 1950. Scott remained publicly opposed to McCarthyism and racial segregation throughout her career.

She moved to Paris in the late 1950s, appearing in the French film ‘’Le Desordre et la Nuit’’ (1958) and maintained a steady but difficult career in France and touring throughout Europe until returning to the US in 1967. She continued to play occasionally in nightclubs while also appearing in daytime television until the year of her death. She made her television acting debut on the ABC daytime soap opera "One Life to Live" in 1973 when she performed a wedding song at the nuptials of her onscreen cousin, Carla Gray Hall, portrayed by Ellen Holly.

She recorded as the leader of various groups for Decca, Columbia and Signature, among them a trio that consisted of Bill English and the double bass player Martin Rivera, and another featuring Charles Mingus on bass and Rudie Nichols on drums. Her album ''Relaxed Piano Moods'' on the Debut Record label, with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, is generally the album most highly regarded by critics today.

Marriage

She was married to U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. from 1945 to 1956, by whom she had one child before their divorce, Adam Clayton Powell III.

Death

She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 on October 2, 1981 at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

References

Sources

“Bye-Bye Boogie: Hazel Scott leaves night clubs and moves to concert stage.” ''Ebony'' Nov. 1945: 31-34.

“Café Society Concert.” ''Time Magazine'' 5 May 1941 from Time Magazine’s website.

“Hazel Scott is Queen Once More in Warner’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue.” ''Chicago Defender'' 1 Sep. 1945: 14.

“Hot Classicist.” ''Time Magazine'' 5 Oct. 1941 from ''Time Magazine'': http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,773793,00.html

“Scott, Hazel,” CBY 1943 Obituary, J. McAfee, Jr., JSN, ii/4 (1982), 19

Bogle, Donald. 2001. “The Hazel Scott Show” in ''Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television''. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 15–19.

Chilton, Karen. ''Hazel Scott: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist from Cafe Society to Hollywood to HUAC'' (University of Michigan Press 2008)

Feather, Leonard. 1941. “Swinging the Classics.” ''The New York Times'' May 18: X5.

McGee, Kristin. “Swinging the Classics: Hazel Scott and Hollywood’s Musical-Racial Matrix” in ''Some Liked it Hot: Jazz Women in Film and Television, 1928-1959'' (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press 2009 http://www.upne.com/0-8195-6907-0.html]) 113-133.

Myter-Specner, D.: “Hazel Scott, Jazz Pianist: Boogie-woogie and Beyond,” ''Jazz Research Papers'', x (1990), 75

Reed, Bill. 1998. “The Movies: Hazel Scott” in ''Hot From Harlem: Profiles in Classic African American Entertainment''. Los Angeles: Cellar Door Press, pp. 110–128.

Taubman, E. 1941. “Café Music Heard at Carnegie Hall.” ''The New York Times'' 24 Apr. 24: 24.

Taubman, E. 1943. “Swing feature Soviet Benefit: Café Society assures at least a thousand watches for the Russian Fighting Forces” ''The New York Times'' 12 Apr. 1943: 28.

Taylor, A. “Hazel Scott,” ''Notes and Tones: Musician-to-musician Interviews'' (Liège, Belgium, 1977, rev. and enlarged 2/1993)

External links

Hazel Scott at IMDB

Category:1920 births Category:1981 deaths Category:American jazz pianists Category:American jazz singers Category:African American musicians Category:Cancer deaths in New York Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer Category:Hollywood blacklist Category:Juilliard School alumni Category:Powell family (New York) Category:Spouses of members of the United States House of Representatives Category:American people of Trinidad and Tobago descent Category:Women in jazz

de:Hazel Scott fr:Hazel Scott tl:Hazel Scott

Coordinates	37°46′45.48″N122°25′9.12″N
Name	Sammy Davis, Jr.
Alt	Black-and-white photograph of an elderly African-American man wearing a striped shirt, grey trousers, a watch and various jewelry, sitting hunched on a sofa with a sombre expression.
Birth name	Samuel George Davis, Jr.
Birth date	December 08, 1925
Birth place	Harlem, New York, U.S.
Death date	May 16, 1990
Death place	Beverly Hills, California, U.S. Interred: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
Death cause	Throat cancer
Other names
Occupation	Singer, tap dancer, actor, musician
Years active	1928–1990
Spouse	Loray White (1958-1959)May Britt (1960-1968)Altovise Davis (1970-1990)
Religion	Judaism
Children	Tracey (b. 1961) Mark (b. 1960) Jeff (b. 1964) Manny (b. 1988)
Parents	Sammy Davis, Sr. (father) Elvera Sanchez (mother)
Website	sammydavis-jr.com
Footnotes	}}

Samuel George "Sammy" Davis, Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American entertainer.

Primarily a dancer and singer, Davis started as a child vaudevillian who became known for his performances on Broadway and Las Vegas. He went on to become a world famous recording artist, television and film star. Davis was also a member of Frank Sinatra's "Rat Pack".

At the age of three Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father and "uncle" as the Will Mastin Trio, toured nationally, and after military service, returned to the trio. Davis became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, he lost his left eye in an automobile accident.

Though his film career had begun as a child in 1933, in 1960, he appeared in the first Rat Pack movie, ''Ocean's 11''. After a starring role on Broadway in 1956's ''Mr Wonderful'', Davis returned to the stage in 1964's ''Golden Boy'', and in 1966 had his own TV variety show, ''The Sammy Davis Jr. Show''. Davis's career slowed in the late sixties, but he had a hit record with "The Candy Man", in 1972, and became a star in Las Vegas.

As an African American, Davis was the victim of racism throughout his life, and was a large financial supporter of civil rights causes. Davis had a complex relationship with the African-American community, and attracted criticism after physically embracing Richard Nixon in 1970. One day on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. "Handicap?" he asked. "Talk about handicap — I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew." This was to become a signature comment, recounted in his autobiography, and in countless articles.

After reuniting with Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally, before dying of throat cancer in 1990. He died in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, and his estate was the subject of legal battles.

Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for his television performances. He was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987, and in 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Early life

Samuel George Davis, Jr. was born in New York City, New York, to Sammy Davis, Sr. (1900–1988), an African-American entertainer, and Elvera Sanchez (1905–2000), a tap dancer. During his lifetime, Davis, Jr. stated that his mother was Puerto Rican and born in San Juan; however, in the 2003 biography ''In Black and White'', author Wil Haygood writes that Davis, Jr.'s mother was born in New York City to Cuban American parents, and that Davis, Jr. claimed he was Puerto Rican because he feared anti-Cuban backlash would hurt his record sales.

Davis's parents were vaudeville dancers. As an infant, he was raised by his paternal grandmother. When he was three years old, his parents separated. His father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour. Davis learned to dance from his father and his "uncle" Will Mastin, who led the dance troupe his father worked for. Davis joined the act as a child and they became the Will Mastin Trio. Throughout his career, Davis included the Will Mastin Trio in his billing. Mastin and his father shielded him from racism. Snubs were explained as jealousy, for instance. When Davis served in the United States Army during World War II, however, he was confronted by strong racial prejudice. He later said, "Overnight the world looked different. It wasn't one color any more. I could see the protection I'd gotten all my life from my father and Will. I appreciated their loving hope that I'd never need to know about prejudice and hate, but they were wrong. It was as if I'd walked through a swinging door for eighteen years, a door which they had always secretly held open."

Career

Davis, Jr. was hired to sing the title track for the Universal Pictures film ''Six Bridges to Cross'', recording it on December 2, 1954.

During service in WWII, the Army assigned Davis to an integrated entertainment Special Services unit and he found that the spotlight lessened the prejudice. Even prejudiced white men admired and respected his performances. "My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man's thinking," he said.

After his discharge, Davis rejoined the family dance act, which played at clubs around Portland, Oregon. He began to achieve success on his own and was singled out for praise by critics, releasing several albums. This led to his appearance in the Broadway play ''Mr. Wonderful'' in 1956.

In 1959, Davis became a member of the famous "Rat Pack", led by his friend Frank Sinatra, which included fellow performers such as Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. Initially, Sinatra called the gathering "the Clan", but Sammy voiced his opposition, saying that it reminded people of the racist Ku Klux Klan. Sinatra renamed the group "the Summit", but the media referred to them as the Rat Pack.

Davis was a headliner at The Frontier Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, but he was required (as were all black performers in the 1950s) to lodge in a rooming house on the west side of the city, instead of in the hotels as his white colleagues did. No dressing rooms were provided for black performers, and they had to wait outside by the swimming pool between acts. Davis and other black artists could entertain, but could not stay at the hotels where they performed, gamble in the casinos, nor dine or drink in the hotel restaurants and bars. Davis later refused to work at places which practiced racial segregation.

In 1964, Davis was starring in ''Golden Boy'' at night and shooting his own New York-based afternoon talk show during the day. When he could get a day off from the theater, he would be recording new songs in the studio, or performing live, often at charity benefits as far away as Miami, Chicago, and Las Vegas, or doing television variety specials in Los Angeles. Davis knew he was cheating his family of his company, but he could not help himself; as he later said, he was incapable of standing still.

Although he was still a draw in Las Vegas, Davis's musical career had sputtered by the latter 1960s, although he had a #11 hit (#1 on the Easy Listening singles chart) with "I've Gotta Be Me" in 1969. His effort to update his sound and reconnect with younger people resulted in some embarrassing "hip" musical efforts with the Motown record label. But then, even as his career seemed at its nadir, Sammy had an unexpected hit with "Candy Man". Although he did not particularly care for the song and was chagrined that he was now best known for it, Davis made the most of his opportunity and revitalized his career. Although he enjoyed no more Top 40 hits, he did enjoy popularity with his performance of the theme song from the T.V. series Baretta (1975–1978) which was not released as a single but was given radio play and he remained a live act beyond Vegas for his career. He occasionally landed television and film parts, including cameo visits to the ''All in the Family'' (during which he kisses Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) on the cheek) and, with wife Altovise Davis, on ''Charlie's Angels''. In the 1970s, he appeared in commercials in Japan for Suntory whiskey.

On December 11, 1967, NBC broadcast a musical-variety special entitled ''Movin' With Nancy''. In addition to the Emmy Award-winning musical performances, the show is notable for Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. greeting each other with a kiss, one of the first black-white kisses in U.S. television history.

It's been said Davis had a friendship with Elvis Presley. Davis sang a cover-version of Presley's song "In The Ghetto" and made a cameo-appearance in Presley's concert-movie ''Elvis: That's the Way It Is''. One year later, he made a cameo appearance in a James Bond movie, but the scene he appeared in was deleted.

In Japan, Davis appeared in television commercials for coffee, and in the U.S. he joined Sinatra and Martin in a radio commercial for a Chicago car dealership.

Davis was a fan of the daytime soap operas, particularly the shows produced by the American Broadcasting Company. This led to a cameo appearance on ''General Hospital'' and a recurring role as character Chip Warren on ''One Life to Live'', for which he received a Daytime Emmy nomination in 1980. He was featured on the ''CBS News with Walter Cronkite'' in a profile filed by current CBS News political correspondent Jeff Greenfield about the final episode of ''Love of Life'' in 1980. He was also a game show fan, appearing on the ABC version of ''Family Feud'' in 1979, and hosting a question with Richard Dawson watching from the sidelines. He appeared on ''Tattletales'' with third wife Altovise Davis in the 1970s. He made a cameo during an episode of the NBC version of ''Card Sharks'' in 1981.

In addition to American soaps, he was also a huge fan of the Australian show Prisoner: Cell Block H. Whilst in Melbourne during the mid-eighties he visited the set of the programme, at Grundy's studio in Nunawading, to see production for himself. Arriving in the grounds by helicopter, he toured the studio and met several of the cast, including his favourite actress in the show, Maggie Kirkpatrick. Davis wanted to make an appearance in Prisoner, but the show had ended (in 1986) before this could be arranged.

Davis was an avid photographer who enjoyed shooting family and acquaintances. His body of work was detailed in a 2007 book by Burt Boyar. "Jerry [Lewis] gave me my first important camera, my first 35 millimeter, during the Ciro's period, early '50s", Boyar quotes Davis. "And he hooked me." Davis used a medium format camera later on to capture images. Again quoting Davis, "Nobody interrupts a man taking a picture to ask ... 'What's that nigger doin' here?'". His catalog includes rare photos of his father dancing onstage as part of the Will Mastin Trio and intimate snapshots of close friends Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Nat "King" Cole, and Marilyn Monroe. His political affiliations also were represented, in his images of Robert Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. His most revealing work comes in photographs of wife May Britt and their three children, Tracey, Jeff and Mark.

Davis was an enthusiastic shooter and gun owner. He participated in fast-draw competitions -- Johnny Cash recalled that Sammy was said to be capable of drawing and firing a Colt Single Action revolver in less than a quarter of a second. Davis was skilled at fast and fancy gunspinning, and appeared on TV variety shows showing off this skill. He appeared in Western films and as a guest star on several "Golden Age" T.V. Westerns.

Personal life

Car accident and conversion to Judaism

Davis nearly died in an automobile accident on November 19, 1954 in San Bernardino, California, as he was making a return trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. The accident occurred at a fork in U.S. Highway 66 at Cajon Boulevard and Kendall Drive. Davis lost his left eye as a result; he wore an eye patch for at least six months following the accident. He appeared on ''What's My Line'' wearing the patch. Later, he was fitted for a glass eye, which he wore for the rest of his life.

While in the hospital, Davis' friend, performer Eddie Cantor, told him about the similarities between the Jewish and black cultures. Prompted by this conversation, Davis — who was born to a Catholic mother and Protestant father — began studying the history of Jews. He converted to Judaism several years later. One passage from his readings (from the book ''A History of The Jews'' by Abram L. Sachar), describing the endurance of the Jewish people, intrigued him in particular: "The Jews would not die. Three millennia of prophetic teaching had given them an unwavering spirit of resignation and had created in them a will to live which no disaster could crush". In many ways, the accident marked a turning point in Davis' career, taking him from a well-known entertainer to a national celebrity and icon.

Marriages

In the mid-1950s, Sammy was involved with Kim Novak, a movie star under contract to Columbia Studios. The head of the studio, Harry Cohn, was worried about the negative effect this would have on the studio because of the prevailing taboo against miscegenation. He called his friend, the mobster Johnny Roselli, who was asked to tell Davis that he had to stop the affair with Novak. Roselli arranged for Davis to be kidnapped for a few hours to throw a scare into him. His hastily arranged and soon-dissolved marriage to black dancer Loray White in 1958 was an attempt to quiet the controversy.

In 1960, Davis caused controversy again when he married white Swedish-born actress May Britt. Davis received hate mail while starring in the Broadway musical adaptation of ''Golden Boy'' from 1964-1966 (for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor). At the time Davis appeared in the play, interracial marriages were forbidden by law in 31 US states, and only in 1967 were those laws ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. Davis and Britt had one daughter and adopted two sons. Davis performed almost continuously and spent little time with his wife. They divorced in 1968, after Davis admitted to having had an affair with singer Lola Falana. That year, Davis started dating Altovise Gore, a dancer in ''Golden Boy''. They were married on May 11, 1970 by the Reverend Jesse Jackson. They adopted a child and remained married until Davis's death in 1990.

Political beliefs

Although Davis had been voting Democratic, he felt a lack of respect from the John F. Kennedy presidency. He had been removed from the list of performers for Kennedy's inaugural party (hosted by Davis' close friend Frank Sinatra) because of Davis's recent interracial marriage to May Britt on November 13, 1960, in order to quell any controversy.

In the early 1970s, Davis supported Republican President Richard M. Nixon (and gave the startled President a hug during a live television broadcast). The incident was controversial, and Davis was given a hostile reception by his peers. Previously Davis had won their respect with his performance as Joe Wellington Jr. in ''Golden Boy'' and his participation in the Civil Rights Movement. Nixon invited Davis to sleep in the White House in 1973, which is believed to be the first time an African-American was invited to do so. Davis spent the night in the Queens' Bedroom. Unlike Sinatra, Davis voted Democratic for President again after the Nixon administration, supporting the campaigns of Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988.

Death

Davis died in Beverly Hills, California on May 16, 1990, of complications from throat cancer. Earlier, when he was told that surgery (laryngectomy) offered him the best chance of survival, Davis replied he would rather keep his voice than have a part of his throat removed; he subsequently was treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. However, a few weeks prior to his death his entire larynx was removed during surgery. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California next to his father and Will Mastin.

On May 18, 1990, two days after Davis' death, the neon lights of the Las Vegas strip were darkened for ten minutes, as a tribute to him.

Portrayals

Davis was portrayed by Don Cheadle in the HBO movie ''The Rat Pack'', a made-for-TV movie about the pack of entertainers. Cheadle won a Golden Globe award for his performance.

Davis impersonation has been a regular act in Eddie Griffin's career, be it at stage or TV.

On ''Saturday Night Live'', Davis has been portrayed by Garrett Morris, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal and Tim Meadows.

Davis was portrayed on the popular sketch comedy show ''In Living Color'' by Tommy Davidson, notably a parody of the movie ''Ghost'', in which the ghost of Davis enlists the help of Whoopi Goldberg to communicate with his wife.

David Raynr also portrayed Davis in the miniseries ''Sinatra'', a TV movie about the life of Frank Sinatra.

Davis was portrayed by Keith Powell in an episode of ''30 Rock'' entitled "Subway Hero".

In the 1993 film ''Wayne's World 2'', Tim Meadows portrays Davis in the dream sequence with Michael A. Nickles as Jim Morrison.

He was portrayed by Paul Sharma in the 2003 West End production ''Rat Pack Confidential''.

In September 2009, the musical ''Sammy: Once in a Lifetime'' premiered at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego with book, music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse, and additional songs by Bricusse and Anthony Newley. The title role was played by Broadway Tony Award nominee Obba Babatundé.

Davis was mentioned in British singer Amy Winehouse's Back to Black album on the song Me and Mr. Jones. The lyrics are as follows "Side from Sammy you're my best black Jew."

A black and white portrait of Davis, drawn by Jim Blanchard, adorns the cover of Avant-garde rock band Oxbow's second album "King Of The Jews".

Midwest radio personality Kevin Matthews impersonated Sammy Davis, Jr. many times on his radio show.

Comedian Jim Carrey has portrayed Davis on stage in a stand up routine

He was also recognized in the film Everything is Illuminated (Liev Schreiber, 2005) as the tour guide's pet dog, or "Seeing Eye Bitch", named Samuel Davis, Jr., Jr.

Discography

Honors and awards

Grammy Awards

{|class=wikitable |- ! Year ! Category ! Song ! Result ! Notes |- align=center |2002 |Grammy Hall of Fame Award |"What Kind of Fool Am I?" |Inducted |Recorded in 1962 |- align=center |2001 |Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award | |Winner | |- align=center |1972 |Pop Male Vocalist |"Candy Man" |Nominee | |- align=center |1962 |Record of the Year |"What Kind of Fool Am I" |Nominee | |- align=center |1962 |Male Solo Vocal Performance |"What Kind of Fool Am I" |Nominee | |}

Emmy Awards

{|class=wikitable ! Year ! Category ! Program ! Result |- align=center | |Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy |''Sammy Davis Jr.'s 60th Anniversary Celebration'' |Winner |- align=center |1989 |Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series |''The Cosby Show'' |Nominee |- align=center |1980 |Outstanding Cameo Appearance in a Daytime Drama Series |''One Life to Live'' |Nominee |- align=center |1966 |Outstanding Variety Special |''The Swinging World of Sammy Davis Jr.'' |Nominee |- align=center |1956 |Best Specialty Act — Single or Group |Sammy Davis Jr. |Nominee |}

Other honors

{|class=wikitable |- ! Year ! Category ! Organization ! Program ! Result |- align=center |2008 |International Civil RightsWalk of Fame |Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site | |Inducted |- align=center |2006 |Las Vegas Walk of Stars |front of Riviera Hotel | |Inducted |- align=center |1989 |NAACP Image Award |NAACP | |Winner |- align=center |1987 |Kennedy Center Honors |John F. Kennedy Center forthe Performing Arts | |Honoree |- align=center |1977 |Best TV Actor — Musical/Comedy |Golden Globe |''Sammy and Company'' (1975) |Nominee |- align=center |1974 |Special Citation Award |National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences | |Winner |- align=center |1968 |NAACP Spingarn Medal Award |NAACP | |Winner |- align=center |1965 |Best Actor — Musical |Tony Award |''Golden Boy'' |Nominee |- align=center |1960 |Hollywood Walk of Fame | | |Star at 6254 Hollywood Blvd. |}

Filmography

''Rufus Jones for President'' (1933)

''Seasoned Greetings'' (1933)

''Sweet and Low'' (1947)

''Meet Me in Las Vegas'' (1956)

''Anna Lucasta'' (1959)

''Porgy and Bess'' (1959)

''Ocean's Eleven'' (1960)

''Pepe'' (1960)

''Sergeants 3'' (1962)

''The Threepenny Opera'' (1962)

''Convicts 4'' (1962)

''Johnny Cool'' (1963)

''Robin and the 7 Hoods'' (1964)

''Nightmare in the Sun'' (1965)

''The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World'' (1965)(title song)

''A Man Called Adam'' (1966)

''Alice in Wonderland (or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?)'' (1966)

''Salt and Pepper'' (1968)

''The Fall'' (1969)

''Sweet Charity'' (1969)

''One More Time'' (1970)

''Elvis: That's the Way It Is'' (1970)

''Diamonds Are Forever'' (1971; deleted scene)

''Save the Children'' (1973)

''Gone with the West'' (1975)

''Sammy Stops the World'' (1978)

''The Cannonball Run'' (1981)

''Heidi's Song'' (1982)

''Cracking Up'' (1983)

''Broadway Danny Rose'' (1984)

''Cannonball Run II'' (1984)

''Alice in Wonderland'' (1985)

''That's Dancing!'' (1985)

''Knights of the City'' (1986)

''The Perils of P.K.'' (1986)

''Moon Over Parador'' (1988)

''Tap'' (1989)

''The Kid Who Loved Christmas'' (1990, last role)

Stage

''Mr. Wonderful'' (1957), musical

''Golden Boy'' (1964), musical - Tony Nomination for Best Actor in a Musical

''Sammy'' (1974), special performance featuring Davis with the Nicholas Brothers

''Stop the World - I Want to Get Off'' (1978) musical revival

TV

''The Rifleman'' - In the episode "Two Ounces of Tin (#4.21)" (19 February 1962),Davis portrays Tip Corey and he has a reputation as a ruthless killer. Micah tells him to ride out of town and Corey refuses and delivers Micah an ultimatum...take his badge off and throw it into the dirt by sundown or he'll kill him. Lucas convinces Micah that Corey won't be back by sundown so Micah leaves on business and Lucas pins on the badge. The threat still holds and Corey delivers his ultimatum to Lucas.

''Ben Casey'' - In the episode "Allie" (1963), Davis portrays Allie Burns, a professional baseball player who loses his eye in an accident.

''The Patty Duke Show'' In "Will the Real Sammy Davis Please Hang Up?" (1965), Davis plays himself. Patty needs to arrange for a Hollywood star to perform at her high school prom. Davis notices Patty wearing a sandwich sign asking for help from any Hollywood star. Sammy wants to help Patty out but Davis' agent does not like the idea and does not contact Patty. Davis contacts Patty by phone but she does not believe it is him. He then arrives at the prom and performs.

''I Dream of Jeannie'' - In the episode "The Greatest Entertainer in the World" (1967), Tony needs Davis to entertain for General Peterson's 10th anniversary at NASA, but he is previously booked. Jeannie comes to the rescue by creating a duplicate of Davis.

''All in the Family'' - In "Sammy's Visit" (1972), Davis plays himself. He leaves his briefcase in Archie Bunker's cab and goes to Archie's house to retrieve it. He meets Archie, Edith, Mike, Gloria, and Lionel Jefferson. When Davis and Archie talk, Davis quickly discovers that Archie is prejudiced, even though Archie believes that he is not. During a family conversation Archie has before Sammy arrives, Archie tells the others to avoid mentioning Sammy's glass eye. Archie then asks Sammy, "Would you like cream and sugar in your eye?" meaning to say coffee. At the end of the show, Munson, the owner of the cab who brings back the briefcase, takes a photo of Archie and Sammy. Right before the camera flashes, Davis kisses Archie on the cheek, to Archie's surprise. Davis returns in the 1980 episode "The Return of Sammy" in ''Archie Bunker's Place''.

''The Jeffersons'' In "What Makes Sammy Run?" (1984), Davis plays himself, where he is staying at an apartment directly next door to the Jeffersons'. Only Louise knows he is there, and Sammy asks her to hide his presence until he leaves.

''Gimme a Break'' - in "The Lookalike" (1985)

''The Cosby Show'' - In "No Way, Baby" (1989), Davis plays Ray Palomino, the grandfather of one of Dr. Huxtable's patients; Ray turns out to be hiding the fact that he is illiterate.

See also

Rat Pack

Jews and Judaism in the African diaspora

List of notable Hispanics from the United States

References

Further reading

Autobiographies

''Yes, I Can'' (with Burt and Jane Boyar) (1965) ISBN 0-374-52268-5

''Why Me?'' (with Burt and Jane Boyar) (1980) ISBN 0-446-36025-2

''Sammy'' (with Burt and Jane Boyar) (2000) ISBN 0-374-29355-4; consolidates the two previous books and includes additional material

''Hollywood in a Suitcase'' (1980) ISBN 0-425-05091-2

Biographies

Haygood, Wil. (2003) ''In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr''. Billboard Books. ISBN 9780823083954

Birkbeck, Matt. (2008) ''Deconstructing Sammy''. Amistad. ISBN 9780061450662

Silber, Jr., Arthur (2003) "Sammy Davis, Jr: Me and My Shadow, Samart Enterprises, ISBN 0965567559

Other

''Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr.'' (Burt Boyar) (2007) ISBN 0-061-14605-6

External links

Discography of Sammy Davis, Jr.'s Recording Career

Obituary, NY Times, May 17, 1990 ''Sammy Davis Jr. Dies at 64; Top Showman Broke Barriers''

Sammy Davis Jr. talks to draft dodgers in Canada, CBC Archives

Category:African American actors Category:African American dancers Category:African American musicians Category:American impressionists (entertainers) Category:American jazz singers Category:American male singers Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American soap opera actors Category:American tap dancers Category:American people with disabilities Category:African-American Jews Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Charly Records artists Category:Converts to Judaism Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer Category:Decca Records artists Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish American musicians Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:People from Harlem Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:Vaudeville performers Category:1925 births Category:1990 deaths Category:Spingarn Medal winners

bg:Сами Дейвис cs:Sammy Davis, Jr. da:Sammy Davis Jr. de:Sammy Davis junior es:Sammy Davis, Jr. fr:Sammy Davis Jr. hr:Sammy Davis Jr. id:Sammy Davis, Jr. it:Sammy Davis Jr. he:סמי דייוויס ג'וניור hu:Sammy Davis Jr. nl:Sammy Davis jr. ja:サミー・デイヴィスJr. no:Sammy Davis jr. pl:Sammy Davis Jr. pt:Sammy Davis, Jr. ro:Sammy Davis Jr. ru:Дэвис, Сэмми simple:Sammy Davis, Jr. sh:Sammy Davis Junior fi:Sammy Davis Jr. sv:Sammy Davis, Jr. tr:Sammy Davis, Jr.

Coordinates	37°46′45.48″N122°25′9.12″N
Name	Ed Hale
Background	solo_singer
Alias	Eddie Darling
Origin	New York City, New York, Miami, Florida, United States, Paris, France
Genre	Britpop, Power Pop, Singer-songwriter, Modern rock, World music
Occupation	Singer-Songwriter, Musician, Record producer, Peace Activist, Entrepreneur, Writer
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, piano, bass
Label	Dying Van Gogh
Associated acts	Transcendence (band) Broken Spectacles (band)
Website	www.edhale.com , www.transcendence.com }}

Ed Hale is a writer, singer-songwriter, musician, populist blogger, activist, and controversial YouTube star. He was formerly known as Eddie Darling, and is currently the lead singer of the popular American Britpop and modern rock musical group Transcendence. He also performs, records and releases solo albums. He is currently signed to the Dying Van Gogh record label. Hale is often alternatively called "The Ambassador" by fans and in the press. The nickname was given to Hale by friend and video-gaming industry maven Michael Nichols due to Hale's love of travel, exploring other cultures, and his penchant for singing and speaking in multiple languages. Along with his native English, Hale also speaks Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French and Persian.

Personal life

Hale is a second generation American who is half English and half Italian. He was born in Paris, France while his father was serving in the military. Hale started playing piano on his own at age four, allegedly inspired by seeing the film Sound of Music for the first time. Music would come naturally to Hale, as he comes from a long line of world-class musicians including his great uncle, the famous Sands Hotel bandleader, producer and arranger Antonio Morelli. However, it has been reported that Hale got his start in music after his mother spoke with renowned psychic Micki Dahne who recommended that she buy her creative yet troubled son a guitar in order to "keep him out of trouble, out of jail, and alive long enough to see his eighteenth birthday".

Music career

Hale released his first album, ''Eddie'', at the age of 17 on the Alarming Talent record label under the moniker Eddie Darling. He was discovered while still in high school by author and talent agent Murray Silver who penned the book ''Great Balls of Fire - The Jerry Lee Lewis Story'' and produced the Eddie album. Hale's first professional live concert performance was opening for the band R.E.M. at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia for 5,000 people. It was after this fertile period as a nationally recognized solo recording artist that Hale formed the band Broken Spectacles.

Broken Spectacles - formed with childhood friend Matthew Sabatella, got their name from the cover of the Yoko Ono album Season of Glass, which featured a photo of the shattered and blood-stained glasses of slain Beatle's singer John Lennon. The band's debut album was engineered and produced by famed audio engineer and producer Brendan O'Brien . A failed attempt by legendary Peter Gabriel drummer Jerry Marotta to produce the band's second album produced mixed results and was never completed, though Hale has stated that working with Marotta was one of the most important and influential experiences in his musical career.

After the breakup of Broken Spectacles, Hale toured the East Coast as a solo artist and ended up moving to New York City. While there he recorded 12 demos for Sony Records which were never officially released by the record label. Ten of those demos were eventually remixed and digitally remastered and released on the ''Acoustic In New York'' album in 2000. It was also at this time that Hale discovered World Music, especially the MPB and Tropicalismo music of Brazil and went to live in Brazil to study the language of Portuguese and learn how to play Bossa Nova, doing several live performances and appearing on Brazilian television.

The original name for Ed Hale's second group was Ed Hale and The Troubadours of Transcendence. The name was shortened to Ed Hale and Transcendence for the band's debut album ''Rise and Shine'' released in 2002, and eventually shortened to simply Transcendence by the band's second album ''Sleep With You''. The group originally had eleven members and was meant to be performing and recording what Hale was then calling "Planet Music."

Ed Hale and Transcendence first caught national attention by combining World Music themes with an eccentric modern rock that they called "planet music." Hale's consciousness raising lyrics and the fact that he sang in no less than five languages on the band's debut album ''Rise and Shine'' - sometimes within the same song - also added to the group's unique appeal. The song ''Better Luck Next Time'' from that album is still played often on college and rock radio in the United States and Europe. Their second album became the group's biggest seller and shot up to #24 on the ''Billboard'' Rock Specialty Show Charts and yielded two minor hits for the group - ''Superhero Girl'' and ''Girls'' The band is consistently played on college and commercial rock radio stations around the United States and the UK, were invited to tour Europe in 2003, and have released four albums in the last six years: including ''Rise and Shine'', ''Sleep With You'', and the album ''Nothing Is Cohesive'' (2004). In 2008 they released the b-sides and rarities album ''The City of Lost Children'', in anticipation of two new albums they were meant to release in 2009—the rock opera ''All Your Heroes Become Villains'' and garage rocker ''The Great Mistake'', which got held up by the ever increasing problems in the music industry, specifically with the group's distribution company. Dying Van Gogh Records has recently announced that the long awaited two new albums will be officially released in 2011 under the artist name Ed Hale and the Transcendence. Songs by Transcendence meanwhile are often heard on a variety of television shows on VH1 and MTV and in many films.

In July 2010 Hale released his latest solo album ''Ballad On Third Avenue'' receiving both critical acclaim and the greatest commercial success of his musical career thus far. The album debuted on college radio's CMJ Most Added Chart at #14 in its first week, peaked at #140 on the CMJ Top 200 Chart where it stayed for six months. The album also garnered Hale further radio success, this time in two new formats for the artist, Hot AC and Triple A, with the first single from the album ''I Walk Alone.'' Hale toured both the East and West Coast of the United States in 2009 and 2010 performing at several International Pop Overthrow Festivals in various cities from Boston to Los Angeles to Vancouver in Canada. He is now said to be in the recording studio in New York recording his followup album, this time with Ex Norwegian front-man Roger Houdaille in the producer's seat. Dying Van Gogh Records also announced plans to release two deluxe boxed archive collections of older material from Hale's early days as a recording artist in the latter half of 2011. ''Spectacularly Broken'' is a two-disc set of nearly everything Hale recorded during his tenure with the band Broken Spectacles digitally remastered; and ''Goodbye Eddie Darling'' is the tentative title of a collection of home demo recordings that were recently discovered from the same period.

Activism

Outspoken social and political activism are also one of Hale's major occupations. Again perhaps an aspect that can be attributed to his lineage. Hale is the nephew of feminist activist, political analyst, lobbyist, and grassroots organizer Eleanor Smeal, who served as the only two-term president of the National Organization for Women in the 1980s. In 2003 Hale set up an alternative media headquarters in Miami to house leading activists and demonstrators from all over the country to protest and give voice to opposition to the Free Trade of the Americas FTAA meetings that were being held in the city.

In 2008, Hale embarked on a Peace Delegation to the country of Iran with The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) where he and 12 other Americans, including Rolling Stone contributing editor Robert Dreyfuss and writer Larry Beinhart met with leading government officials including former President Mohammad Khatami and leading religious clerics to discuss ways to improve US/Iranian relations and increase peace between the two countries. The film department at Siena College in New York is currently creating a one-hour documentary about Hale and his trip to Iran.

A few months later, Hale appeared at the 2008 United Nations General Assembly Meeting in New York City to attend a private conference with Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other leading figures of the US peace movement. Hale is also scheduled to participate in a similar two week peace delegation trip to Israel/Palestine in 2009 with the Interfaith Peace-Builders organization.

Two of his newest projects include the non-profit website www.TuneInTurnOnHelp.org which funnels attention and monies to various causes and charities, and www.PeaceWithIran.com, a website that attempts to act as a vehicle for journalists and alternative press coverage of Iran, and to expose more Westerners to the Iranian culture. Hale made two volunteer trips to the post-Hurricane Katrina Gulf Coast helping to rebuild homes in 2006, and in 2009 he took two more volunteer trips to a remote village outside of the city Cartagena in the country of Colombia to help build a church and community center there. Hale also works locally with the New York City Mission Society volunteering with underprivileged children from the Bronx and Harlem and regularly volunteers with a local Food Bank, Covenant House, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and is a Red Cross Disaster Relief volunteer.

Business, professional, and entrepreneurial career

Alongside his music career and social and political activism, Hale has also achieved success as an entrepreneur. He has founded several companies in various industries including a recording studio, The Garden of Eden health food store, and the vitamin manufacturing company Ageless Foundation Laboratories which he sold to the Naturade company in 2005. Obsessed with life extension and anti-aging sciences Hale developed the UltramMax-HGH, eventually becoming UltraMax-Gold, line of products which were the basis of the Ageless Foundation company.

Hale was frequently interviewed in Health Industry related magazines and journals about anti-aging and business when he was active in that industry, and he also hosted The Now Age Radio Show (WWNN) for two years which featured prominent guests in the field of health and longevity sciences such as Dr. Ray Sahelian and Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw. The products he developed brought the controversial nutrient HGH mass market exposure and today can be found in health food stores all over America and in seven other countries. Hale is also known to be active in real estate investment in The Hale Daniel Corporation, a Florida company. He founded and still presides over the multi-media company Transcendent Media Group Inc. - which acts as a record company that is home to artists of various musical styles from rock to Americana to hip hop, a web design firm, and a television production company. Hale also owns a clothing line which specializes in t-shirts. Hale refers to his various forays into business as a hobby and another outlet to express his creativity. He is the founder of two non-profits and his newest business venture is a company called Optum Consulting, a New York based business consulting firm with team-consultants in different cities all over the world.

Ed Hale currently lives in New York City and Seattle, Washington. In 2010 he married Nahal Mishel-Ghashghai.

Discography

Solo albums

1990 - ''Eddie''

1995 - ''Spectacularly Broken''

1997 - ''Acoustic in New York''

2009 - ''Ballad on Third Avenue''

Ed Hale and The Transcendence

2002 - ''The Journey: Remix EP''

2002 - ''Rise and Shine''

2011 - ''All Your Heroes Become Villains''

2011 - ''The Great Mistake''

Transcendence

2003 - ''The Girls EP''

2003 - ''Veronica: Single''

2003 - ''Sleep With You''

2005 - ''Nothing is Cohesive''

2008 - ''The City of Lost Children: Rarities''

References

External links

Ed Hale official site

Ed Hale at AllMusic

Ed Hale record label site

Transcendence official site

Tune In Turn On Help Out non-profit site

Peace With Iran non-profit site

Category:American male singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Coordinates	37°46′45.48″N122°25′9.12″N
Width	200px
Team	New Refer
Number	12
Position	Quarterback
Birth date	May 31, 1943
Birth place	Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania
Heightft	6
Heightin	2
Weight	200
Debutyear	1965
Debutteam	New York Jets
Finalteam	Los Angeles Rams
Finalyear	1977
Highlights	Rated #100 NFL Player of all-time by NFL.com 5× AFL All-Star selection (1965, 1967, 1968, 1969) 1x Pro Bowl selection (1972) 3× First-team All-AFL selection (1967, 1968, 1969) 1x All-Pro selection (1972) 1× Second-team All-AFL (1966) American Football League Champion (1968) Super Bowl Champion (III) AFL All-Time Team 2× AFL MVP (1968, 1969) 2× UPI AFL Player of the Year (1968, 1969) Bronze Medallion (New York City award) (1969) 1974 NFL Comeback Player of the Year New York Jets #12 retired
Hof	161
College	University of Alabama
Draftyear	1965
Draftround	1
Draftpick	12
Teams	AFL New York Jets (1965-1969) NFL New York Jets (1970-1976) NFL Los Angeles Rams (1977)
Statseason	1977
Stat1label	Pass attempts
Stat1value	3,762
Stat2label	Pass completions
Stat2value	1,886
Stat3label	Percentage
Stat3value	50.1
Stat4label	TD-INT
Stat4value	173–220
Stat5label	Passing yards
Stat5value	27,663
Stat6label	QB Rating
Stat6value	65.5
Nfl	NAM415291 }}

Joseph William "Joe" Namath (; born May 31, 1943), nicknamed "Broadway Joe" or "Joe Willie", is a former American football quarterback. He played college football for the University of Alabama under coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and his assistant, Howard Schnellenberger, from 1962–1964, and professional football in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) during the 1960s and 1970s. Namath was an American Football League icon and played for that league's New York Jets for most of his professional career but finished his career with the NFL's Los Angeles Rams. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1985.

Namath retired after playing in 140 games 62 wins, 63 losses and 4 ties. In his career he threw 173 touchdowns, 220 interceptions, and completed 1,886 passes for 27,663 yards. During his thirteen years in the AFL and NFL he played for three division champions (the 1968 and 1969 AFL East Champion Jets and the 1977 NFC West Champion Rams), earned one league championship (1968 AFL Championship), and one "world championship" (Super Bowl III).

In 1999, he was ranked number 96 on ''The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. He was the only player on the list to have spent a majority of his career with the Jets.

He is perhaps best known for boldly guaranteeing a Jets' victory over Don Shula's NFL Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III (1969) and then making good on his boast.

Early life and family

Namath's Hungarian-born grandfather, known as A.J. to his family and friends, came to Ellis Island and worked in the coal and steel industries of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. While growing up, Joe was close to both of his parents, who were divorced. Following his parents' split, Joe lived with his mother, Rose.

He was born and reared in Beaver Falls in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, thirty miles from Pittsburgh, growing up in the city's Lower End neighborhood. He was a standout in football, basketball and baseball. In an age where dunks were still uncommon in high school basketball, Namath regularly dunked in games. Coached by Larry Bruno at Beaver Falls, Namath's football team won the WPIAL Class AA championship with a 10-0 record in 1960. Coach Bruno would later be his presenter in Canton to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Upon graduation, he received offers from six Major League Baseball teams, including the Yankees, Mets, Indians, Reds, Pirates and Phillies, but football prevailed. Namath has told interviewers that he wanted to sign with the Pirates and play baseball like his idol, Roberto Clemente, but elected to play football because his mother wanted him to get a college education. Ironically, Namath would not graduate until 2006 when he returned to college in an online program.

Namath had many offers from Division I college football programs, including Penn State, Ohio State, Alabama, and Notre Dame, but initially decided upon the University of Maryland after being heavily recruited by Maryland Assistant Roland Arrigoni. He was rejected by Maryland because his college-board scores were just below the school's requirements. After ample recruiting by the University of Alabama's head football coach, Bear Bryant, Namath accepted a full scholarship there. Bryant stated his decision to recruit Namath was "the best coaching decision I ever made."

College football career

Between 1962–64, Namath played for the Alabama Crimson Tide football program under coach Paul "Bear" Bryant. A year after being suspended for the final two games of the season, he led the Crimson Tide to a National Championship in 1964. During his time at Alabama, Namath led the team to a 29–4 record over 3 seasons.

Bryant would one day call Namath "the greatest athlete I ever coached." While some speculated on what was anticipated to be a stormy relationship between a freedom-loving player and an iron-fisted coach, Namath returned Bryant's praise, often referring to him as "not only the smartest coach I ever knew, but the man who taught me the meaning of integrity." When Namath was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985, he broke down during his induction speech upon mentioning Bryant, who died from a heart attack in 1983. Namath wouldn't receive his college degree until 2007, having left early to pursue his professional career.

Namath's time at Alabama would be a culture shock for him. With Beaver Falls' Lower End neighborhood having been (and still is as of 2010) predominantly African American, Namath would attend Alabama at the height of the Civil Rights movement in the Southern United States (especially the Deep South) and often got into fights with his white teammates and other white Southerners when defending African-Americans.

Statistics

{| class=wikitable style="text-align:center;" ! rowspan=2|Season !! colspan=6|Passing !! colspan=4|Rushing |- !Comp !! Att !! Yards !! Comp% !! TD !! INT !! Carries !! Yards |- | 1962 | 76 || 146 || 1192 || 52.1 || 13 || 8 || 70 || 321 |- | 1963 | 63 || 128 || 765 || 49.2 || 7 || 7 || 76 || 201 |- | 1964 | 64 || 100 || 756 || 64.0 || 5 || 4 || 44 || 133 |- ! Career Total ! 203 || 374 || 2713 || 54.3 || 25 || 19 || 190 || 655 |}

Professional Football career

Despite suffering a serious knee injury in his senior year at Alabama, Namath was drafted by both the National Football League and the upstart American Football League. The two competing leagues held their respective drafts on the same day—November 28, 1964.

The NFL's St. Louis Cardinals selected Namath 12th overall in their draft, while the Jets selected him with the AFL's first overall pick. He elected to sign with the Jets, who were under the direction of Hall of Fame owner Sonny Werblin, for a salary of $427,000 (a pro football record at the time) and never put on a Cardinals uniform.

Namath was the American Football League Rookie of the year in 1965 and became the first professional quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards in a season (1967) when he threw for 4,007 yards. This was a feat that remained a record for the 14-game seasons that were played during that time. He was a four-time American Football League All-Star, in 1965, 1967, 1968, and 1969, although he was plagued with knee injuries through much of his career and underwent four pioneering knee operations by Dr. James A. Nicholas. On some occasions, Namath had to have his knee drained at halftime so that he could finish a game. Later in life, long after he left football, he had to have knee replacement surgery on both legs.

In the 1968 AFL title game, Namath threw three touchdown passes to lead New York to a 27-23 win over the defending American Football League Champion Oakland Raiders. His performance in the 1968 season earned him the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year. He was an AFC-NFC Pro Bowler in 1972. Besides having the Hall of Fame distinction, he is a member of the Jets' all-time team and the American Football League All-Time Team.

Third AFL-NFL World Championship Game (Super Bowl III)

The apex of his career was his performance in the Jets' January 1969 16-7 win over the Baltimore Colts in the third World Championship Game after the AFL-NFL merger. Namath was named MVP of Super Bowl III. This win would make him the first and only quarterback to ever start and win a national championship game in college, and to start and win a major professional league championship and a World Championship. (Joe Montana started and won a national college championship and a Super Bowl that was then the NFL championship.) The Colts were touted as "the greatest football team in history". Former NFL star and coach Norm Van Brocklin ridiculed the AFL before the game, saying "This will be Namath's first Professional Football game." Writers from NFL cities insisted it would take the AFL several more years to be truly competitive with the NFL. Much of the hype surrounding the game was related to how it would either prove or disprove the proposition that the AFL teams were truly worthy of being allowed to merge with the NFL; the first two such games had resulted in blowout victories for the NFL champion in the two previous years, the Green Bay Packers, and the Colts were even more favored by media figures and handicappers than the Packers had been.

Three days before the game, Namath responded to a heckler with the now-famous line: "We're gonna win the game. I guarantee it." His words eventually made headlines across the country, but were dismissed by most observers as mere bravado.

In the game, however, Namath backed up his boast and showed that his success against tough American Football League competition had more than prepared him to take on the NFL. The Colts' vaunted defense was unable to contain the Jets' running or passing game, while their ineffective offense gave up four interceptions to the Jets. Namath was the game's MVP, completing eight passes to George Sauer alone, for 133 yards. Namath acquired legendary status for American Football League fans as the symbol of their league's legitimacy. When he was asked by reporters after the game whether the Colts' defense was the ''"toughest he had ever faced"'', Namath responded ''"That would be the Buffalo Bills' defense."'' The American Football League's Bills had intercepted Namath five times, three for touchdowns, in the Bills' only win that 1968 AFL season.

Bachelors III

After the season, Namath opened a popular Upper East Side bar called "Bachelors III", with plans to open branches in Florida and Boston. To protect the league's reputation, the NFL Commissioner, Pete Rozelle, ordered Namath to divest himself of his interest in the bar. Namath reacted defiantly, retiring from football during a teary news conference. Down at the NFL offices panic ensued. His presence on Sunday afternoons meant millions of dollars in television ad revenue. Working through intermediaries, a meeting between Namath and Rozelle was arranged. It lasted well into the night, and in the end the antagonists reached a compromise. Namath would sell his share of the New York Bachelors III only. He would retain his shares of the Boston and Fort Lauderdale locations, as well as any that might open in the future (Tuscaloosa, Alabama). After missing most of training camp, Namath came out of retirement and reported to the Jets.

''Monday Night Football'''s inaugural game

The head of ABC's televised sports, Roone Arledge, made sure that ''Monday Night Football'''s inaugural game would feature Namath and the New York Jets in a game against the Cleveland Browns in Cleveland Municipal Stadium. A record crowd of 85,703 and a huge television audience (but not shown in Cleveland, due to unconditional blackout rules at the time) watched the Jets set a team record for penalties and lose on a late Namath interception.

Injuries

After not missing a single game because of injury in his first five years in the league, Namath played in just 28 of a 58 possible games because of various injuries between 1970 and 1973 as the Jets struggled with records of 4–10, 6–8, 7–7, and 4–10. His most memorable moment in those four seasons came on September 24, 1972 in Baltimore, when he and boyhood idol Johnny Unitas combined for 872 passing yards. Namath bombed the Colts for 496 yards and six touchdowns in a 44-34 victory, New York's first victory over Baltimore since Super Bowl III. In that same game, Unitas threw for 376 yards and three touchdowns. This game is considered by many NFL experts to be the finest display of passing in a single game in league history.

Improving the Jets' level of play

When he played, Namath always managed to improve the Jets' level of play. In a 1974 game against city rival New York Giants (played at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut as Yankee Stadium was closed for a massive renovation and Giants Stadium was under construction), Namath scored a game-tying touchdown on a five-yard bootleg, and then hit Emerson Boozer with a touchdown pass in overtime to lift the Jets to a 26-20 victory (the first regular season game in NFL history to be decided in overtime), launching New York on a six-game winning streak to end the 1974 season at 7-7.

Los Angeles Rams

In the twilight of his career, Namath was waived by the Jets to facilitate his move to the Los Angeles Rams when a trade couldn't be worked out. He was signed by the Rams on May 12, 1977. Namath hoped to revitalize his flagging career, but by this point his effectiveness as a quarterback was greatly reduced by his knee injuries, a bad hamstring and the general ravages of a long period of time playing professional football, as well as his "hard and fast" lifestyle. After playing well in a 2-1 start, Namath took a beating on a cold, windy, and rainy Monday night game in a one point loss at the Chicago Bears and was through for the regular season.

He did not play again, but redemption and a Hollywood ending was there for the taking. After a disastrous three quarters of turnovers and only trailing by seven points in the opening round of the play-offs, head coach Chuck Knox seemed ready to pull Pat Haden and insert Namath. Rams assistant coach Kay Stephenson said Joe looked great warming-up in the third quarter and advised Knox to put him in. The television audience was on the edge of their seats as it appeared Namath would replace Pat Haden and save the Rams' season. But Knox hesitated. Haden's problems continued and the Rams lost to the Vikings by a score of 14-7 in a sea of mud at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Namath retired from the Rams after a single season.

Hall of Fame legacy

Joe Namath is in the Professional Football Hall of Fame. While his career statistics are not exceptional, Namath was the game's first true media superstar and Namath was the first quarterback to throw for 4,000 yards during the 14 game 1967 season. This feat was not to be achieved again until Dan Fouts topped 4,000 yards during the 1979 season in a 16 game season. Namath threw for 4,000 yards under old rules that gave much less protection to both the quarterback and receivers. Namath's play on the field in the years before his knees seriously limited his mobility helped evolve the quarterback position and the NFL style of play from a run oriented ball control game to today's more open passing style. Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh stated that Namath was "the most beautiful, accurate, stylish passer with the quickest release I've ever seen." Hall of Fame coach Don Shula stated that Namath was "one of the 3 smartest quarterbacks of all time."

Movie and television career

Namath went on to a minor career as an actor in several movies, including ''C.C. and Company'' with Ann-Margret and William Smith in 1970, and he starred in a brief 1978 television series, ''The Waverly Wonders''. He guest-starred on many television shows, including ''Married... with Children'', ''Here's Lucy'', ''The Brady Bunch'', ''The Flip Wilson Show'', ''Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In'', ''The Dean Martin Show'', ''The Simpsons'', ''The A-Team'', ''ALF'' and ''The John Larroquette Show''. He was guest host on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' several times, as well as hosting his own show, the 1969 cult classic ''The Joe Namath Show'' (co-hosted by Dick Schaap) with its eclectic guest pairings and open-bar attitude. He appeared as T.J. on ''The A-Team''. On''The A-Team'', his character T.J. was punched by Mr. T and verbally threatened by former football star Jim Brown in one episode during season 5 of the series.

He also served as a color commentator on broadcasts of NFL games for a while, including the 1985 season of ''Monday Night Football'', but never seemed to be particularly comfortable in this role and was accused of being over-critical of then current players.

Namath also auditioned to host the 1988 revival of the classic game show Family Feud for CBS, but that role went to Ray Combs.

Known as "Broadway Joe", he made his only appearance on Broadway as a cast replacement in a revival of ''The Caine Mutiny Court Martial''. He has also appeared in summerstock productions of ''Damn Yankees'' and ''Fiddler on the Roof''.

Later and current life

In November, 2006 the biography ''Namath'' by Mark Kriegel was published by Rugged Land Books. Shortly thereafter the book was on the New York Times extended Bestseller List (#23). In conjunction with the release of the book Namath was interviewed for the November 19, 2006 edition of ''60 Minutes'' on CBS television.

In 2006, Namath enrolled in the University of Alabama's External Degree program (he was 15 credits shy of graduating when he left Alabama in 1965). He earned his B.A. degree in interdisciplinary studies on December 15, 2007 from the University of Alabama at the age of 64, fulfilling a promise he had made to his daughter, who also graduated from his alma mater.

A recent documentary about Namath's hometown of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, includes a segment on Namath and why the city has celebrated its ties to him. In 2009, he would present the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the winning team of Super Bowl XLIII forty years after winning Super Bowl III. Coincidentally, the team he would present the trophy to was his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers, with NBC Sports (which had the broadcasting rights to Super Bowl XLIII) introducing him as "Hall of Fame quarterback and Pennsylvania native Joe Namath."

Namath currently lives in the village of Tequesta, Florida. He continues to serve as an unofficial spokesman and goodwill ambassador for the Jets.

Icon and advertisements

Namath's nickname "Broadway Joe" was given to him by Sherman Plunkett, a Jets teammate. The "Joe Willie Namath" moniker, Namath's full given name, was popularized by sportscaster Howard Cosell. He originated the fad of wearing a full-length fur coat on the sidelines, a habit which was adopted by many players after him. The NFL has since banned this, requiring all team personnel (players, coaches, athletic trainers, etc.) to wear league-approved team apparel. Namath stood out from other AFL and NFL players by wearing low-cut white shoes rather than traditional black high-tops (thus the nickname "Joe Willie Whiteshoes"). Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end L. C. Greenwood paid tribute to Namath when wearing gold shoes in the seventies. Today, the NFL often fines players for not wearing shoes that match those of their teammates.

Namath also appeared in television advertisements both during and after his playing career, most notably for Noxzema shaving cream (in which he was shaved by a then-unknown Farrah Fawcett (video clip)) and pantyhose; both commercials contributed to his becoming something of a pop-culture icon. He has appeared in advertising as recently as 2003.

Namath also opened several bars under the name Broadway Joe's in both New York City and in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (location of the University of Alabama). These continue today with moderate success.

Namath spent many years appearing as a booster for golf tournaments and other good causes, such as youth camps, including football camps, and lately for arthritis. He has served as a March of Dimes volunteer for over 40 years. Most recently he was the March of Dimes' WalkAmerica Honorary Chair from 1998–2007. He also holds a celebrity golf outing annually on Long Island, New York to benefit the March of Dimes.

Namath made many notable remarks during the NFL Films presentation of NFL 75 Seasons. Recounting his 1969 Super Bowl performance, he said "It was such a feeling of elation, joy, tickling explosions inside, the teammates we did it, we were #1." "The same three words keep coming back: 'We did it. WE DID IT.'" Namath's infectious and genuine joy at recounting this made it natural for NFL Films to feature this quote in advertisements for its series.

Talking about the Raiders he said, "You were always playing a tough football team, and some of the guys cheated. Some of the guys kicked and bit and hit ya in the back, some of that kind of stuff, hit ya in the back of the head, and it's on film."

Talking about "The Guarantee," Namath said, "[I]t was not planned, it wasn't premeditated; it was just anger and frustration, and I really believed we were gonna win the game."

Speaking about teamwork, Namath said: "Life isn't always easy, and football isn't always easy. Football convinced me that life is a team game."

See also

List of NFL quarterbacks who have passed for 400 or more yards in a game

List of American Football League players

Gunslinger

References

External links

Joe Namath article, Encyclopedia of Alabama

Video highlights

Winning TD pass in 1968 AFL championship game vs Oakland

Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:American Football League All-Star players Category:American Football League Most Valuable Players Category:American Football League Rookies of the Year Category:Alabama Crimson Tide football players Category:American Conference Pro Bowl players Category:Players of American football from Pennsylvania Category:American football quarterbacks Category:National Football League announcers Category:Big 33 Football Classic alumni Category:American people of Hungarian descent Category:American players of American football of Hungarian descent Category:Los Angeles Rams players Category:New York Jets players Category:National Football League players with retired numbers Category:New York Jets (AFL) players Category:People from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees Category:Super Bowl MVPs Category:University of Alabama alumni Category:American Football League All-Time Team Category:College football announcers Category:American Football League Champions Category:People from Beaver County, Pennsylvania

de:Joe Namath es:Joe Namath fr:Joe Namath ja:ジョー・ネイマス pt:Joe Namath simple:Joe Namath sv:Joe Namath tl:Joe Namath