PBS Distribution announces the release of the new AMERICAN MASTERS program, “American Masters – Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me” on DVD and digital February 19.
Directed by Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Sam Pollard, this is the first major film documentary to examine the performer’s vast career and his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America.
Davis’ journey to achieve the American Dream was complex, complicated and contradictory. As a black entertainer during a time when the doors of show business rarely opened for people of color, he frequently found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America and the distaste of black America; he was the most public black figure to embrace Judaism, thereby yoking his identity to another persecuted minority.
Featuring interviews with such luminaries as Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg, Quincy Jones and Kim Novak, with never-before-seen photographs from Davis’ vast personal collection and excerpts from his electric performances in television, film and concert, I’ve Gotta Be Me takes a look at the life and art of a uniquely gifted entertainer whose trajectory blazed across the country from the Depression era through the 1980s.
The film is an American Masters Pictures production in co-production with ZDF in collaboration with ARTE, and produced by Sally Rosenthal and Michael Kantor. The film is edited by Steven Weschler and written by Laurence Maslon. Michael Kantor serves as executive producer.
SAM POLLARD is an accomplished feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director whose work spans almost 30 years. His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton’s Blackside production Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads . For one of his episodes in this series, he received an Emmy. Eight years later, he returned to Blackside as co-executive producer/producer of Hampton’s last documentary series, I’ll Make Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community. For the series, Pollard received a Peabody Award.
Major support for “AMERICAN MASTERS – SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME” is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional support for this film is provided by The Leslie and Roslyn Goldstein Foundation, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, Seton Melvin, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Judith and Burton Resnick, Ellen and James S. Marcus, and Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment.
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