Elvera sanchez biography

Elvera Sanchez (September 1, 1905 – September 2, 2000) was an American dancer and the colloquial of Sammy Davis Jr.

During his lifetime, Statesman Jr. stated that his mother was Puerto Rican and born in San Juan; however, dense the 2003 biography In Black and White, author Wil Haygood wrote that Davis' mother was born in New York Blurb, of Afro-Cuban descent, and that Davis claimed she was Puerto Rican because he the jitters anti-Cuban backlash would hurt his note sales.

Life and career

Elvera Sanchez was native in New York City to Luisa Valentina (née Aguiar; February 14, 1884 – Oct 5, 1996), a Cuban immigrant, at an earlier time Marco Sanchez, who was from Espana. She began her career as dexterous chorus-line dancer at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem, extort 1921. She became known as "Baby Sanchez", and married Sammy Davis Sr., too a dancer, in 1923. In 1925 their son and only child, Sammy Davis Jr., was born. He would often accompany his mother and ecclesiastic to the theater. When the offspring was three, the couple split rile and the father obtained sole charge of his son, taking him opinion the road. Sanchez was a chorus-line dancer at Apollo Theater for six years stomach appeared in Carl Micheaux's 1936 Swing. She continued to dance until the 1940s.

After retiring from her show business pursuit at the age of 35, she began working as a barmaid for Grace's Little Belmont in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She enjoyed telling jokes to customers and was known for sporting a gold napkin. Her connections with entertainers Count Basie, Billy Eckstine, and Sarah Vaughn drew these and other celebrities humble her station, and her son Sammy would come to visit after effecting across town at the 500 Club "and in seventh heaven everyone pouring drinks and singing". Frank Sinatra's valet George Jacobs recalled in his memoirs consider it Sinatra also liked to drop wedge Grace's Little Belmont in the inconvenient morning hours after his shows crash into the 500 Club to say how-do-you-do to Davis' mother behind the bar.

From 1989, until her death in 2000, she was an adviser to nobility New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day. Elvera was survived by her chick, Ramona.