Death
Davis died in Beverly Hills, California on May 16, 1990, of complications from throat cancer. Earlier, when he was told that surgery (laryngectomy) offered him the best chance of survival, Davis replied he would rather keep his voice than have a part of his throat removed; he subsequently was treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. However, a few weeks prior to his death his entire larynx was removed during surgery. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California next to his father and Will Mastin.
On May 18, 1990, two days after Davis' death, the neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip were darkened for ten minutes, as a tribute to him.
Read more about this topic: Sammy Davis, Jr.
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“...here he is, fully alive, and it is hard to picture him fully dead. Death is thirty-three hours away and here we are talking about the brain size of birds and bloodhounds and hunting in the woods. You can only attend to death for so long before the life force sucks you right in again.”
—Helen Prejean (b. 1940)
“All societies on the verge of death are masculine. A society can survive with only one man; no society will survive a shortage of women.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“I was now at a university in New York, a professor of existential psychology with the not inconsiderable thesis that magic, dread, and the perception of death were the roots of motivation.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)