Despite a flurry of criticism following the Oscars, Sammy Davis Jr.’s daughter Tracy doesn’t have a problem with host Billy Crystal’s blackface impression of her father. “I am 100 percent certain my father was smiling,” she said. EurWeb reports:
The daughter of Sammy Davis Jr.’s second wife has spoken out about the controversy surrounding Billy Crystal’s Oscar bit, in which he portrayed her father in blackface.
While many folks found the sketch uncomfortable, as Twitter reflected almost immediately, Tracy Davis tells The Hollywood Reporter, “I am 100 percent certain that my father is smiling,” adding that it wasn’t Crystal’s first time paying homage to the late Rat Packer, who died in 1990.
As previously reported, Sammy Davis Jr. was one of Crystal’s most popular impersonations during the 1980s. “Billy previously played my father when he was alive, and my father gave Billy his full blessing,” she continues, noting that ”Saturday Night Live gave” the imitation “legendary status.”
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