Paramount Pictures to Take on Sammy Davis Jr. Biopic Project

According to Deadline, the biopic about Sammy Davis, Jr. now has been set up at Paramount Pictures, where producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has his overall deal. The project is on the development fast track, soon to be hiring a writer and a director to make the feature film about the dancer-singer-actor-musician to becoming a reality.

The movie will be based in large part on the 1965 memoir Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. that he penned with Jane and Burt Boyar.

Lionel Richie is leading the team including Davis' heirs, di Bonaventura and Mike Menchel.

Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father, Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally. After military service, Davis returned to the trio. Davis became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, he lost his left eye in a car accident, and several years later, he converted to Judaism finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by African-American and Jewish communities.

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

After reuniting with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally. Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award 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. In 2017 he was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame for being the Greatest Entertainer in the World said the founder of the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, Lamont "ShowBoat" Robinson.

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