Elvera Sanchez was an American dancer and the mother of Sammy Davis Junior. and Ramona.
Background
During his lifetime, Davis Junior. 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 Junior."s mother was born in New York City, of Afro-Cuban, descent, and that Davis Junior. claimed she was Puerto Rican because he feared anti-Cuban backlash would hurt his record sales.
Career
Elvera Sanchez was born in New York City, to Luisa Valentina (Aguiar) and Marco Sanchez, from Spain. She began her career as a chorus-line dancer at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem, in 1921. Sanchez was a chorus-line dancer at Apollo Theater for six years and appeared in Carl Micheaux"s 1936 Swing.
She continued to dance until the 1940s.
After retiring from the stage, she worked as a waitress and became something of a house celebrity at Gracie"s Little Belmonte, a popular bar on Kentucky Avenue, a street of glittering black clubs in Atlantic City. Telling jokes and carrying a special gold napkin, Mississippi
Davis was often visited at her station by star performers like Count Basie when they finished their acts. From 1989, until her death in 2000, she was an adviser to the New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day.
Her father was Marco Sanchez.
Her mother, Luisa Valentina (née Aguiar), died in 1996, at the age of 112.