{"id":356813,"date":"2025-12-18T21:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/356813\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T21:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:58:08","slug":"swedish-actress-wife-of-sammy-davis-jr-was-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/356813\/","title":{"rendered":"Swedish Actress, Wife of Sammy Davis Jr. Was 91"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMay Britt, the statuesque Swedish actress who starred in such films as\u00a0The Blue Angel\u00a0and\u00a0Murder, Inc. before becoming the second wife of legendary entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.<\/a>, has died. She was 91.<\/p>\n

\n\tBritt died\u00a0Dec. 11 of natural causes at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, her son Mark Davis told The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpotted and signed by famed Italian producer Carlo Ponti when she was 18, Britt starred in several films in Italy before she was screen-tested in Rome and signed to a contract by 20th Century in 1957.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe portrayed the wife of a pilot (Lee Phillips) in the Korean War drama\u00a0The Hunters\u00a0(1958), starring Robert Mitchum, then was a love interest of Marlon Brando<\/a>\u2018s German officer in the World War II-set\u00a0The Young Lions\u00a0(1958), directed by Edward Dmytryk.<\/p>\n

\n\tOften described as a warmer, more approachable Greta Garbo, Britt came to fame when she starred as the scandalous cabaret entertainer Lola-Lola in Dmytryk\u2019s\u00a0The Blue Angel\u00a0(1959).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film was a remake of a 1930 drama that had ignited the career of the original Lola, Marlene Dietrich<\/a>, and most everyone in Hollywood at the time thought Marilyn Monroe was getting the part.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe then played another singer-dancer, Eadie Collins, the ill-fated wife of a singer (Stuart Whitman<\/a>) menaced by New York mobsters, in\u00a0Murder, Inc.\u00a0(1960).<\/p>\n

\n\tBritt and Davis first met after he performed at the Mocambo nightclub on the Sunset Strip and invited her to a party, according to the 2014 book\u00a0Sammy Davis: A Personal Journey With My Father, written by Tracey Davis, their daughter.<\/p>\n

\n\tSoon after, Davis broke off his engagement to Canadian dancer Joan Stuart. Britt converted to Judaism (her fiance had converted in 1961), and he announced to the press in June 1960 while in England that they were engaged.<\/p>\n

\n\tBritt and Davis were married by a rabbi on Nov. 13, 1960, at his home on Evanview Drive in Los Angeles, followed by a reception for about 200 guests at the Beverly Hilton. Frank Sinatra<\/a>, Davis\u2019 partner in the Rat Pack, served as the best man. She was 26, he was 34.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time, interracial marriages were illegal in 31 states, and coincidentally or not, Fox elected not to renew her contract shortly after their engagement was announced. They received death threats throughout their relationship and at times employed 24-hour armed guards to protect them.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmid reports linking Davis to singer-dancer-actress Lola Falana, the couple divorced in December 1968, but their daughter told the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/a>\u00a0in 2014 that her parents never fell out of love.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen she asked her dad why they broke up, Davis replied, \u201cI just couldn\u2019t be what she wanted to me to be. A family man. My performance schedule was rigorous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMay Britt with Curd J\u00fcrgens in 1959\u2019s \u2018The Blue Angel.\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Fox Film Corp.\/courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tThe older of two daughters,\u00a0Majbritt Wilkens was born on March 22, 1934, in Liding\u00f6, Sweden, on the outskirts of Stockholm. Her father, Hugo, was a postal clerk and her mother, Hillevi, a housewife.<\/p>\n

\n\tWorking as a photographer\u2019s assistant when she was 18, she was spotted in Stockholm by Ponti, who signed her to a contract and cast her in leading roles in the 1953 films\u00a0The Unfaithfuls\u00a0(with Gina Lollobrigida),\u00a0Jolanda la Figlia del Corsaro Nero\u00a0and\u00a0The Devil Is a Woman.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 5-foot-8 Britt also starred with Anthony Quinn in\u00a0Fatal Desire\u00a0(1953) and in\u00a0Modern Virgin\u00a0(1954) with Vittorio De Sica before Fox chief Buddy Adler spotted her in King Vidor\u2019s\u00a0War and Peace\u00a0(1956), starring Andrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn America, Britt showed off her singing and dancing skills in both\u00a0Blue Angel\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Murder, Inc.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tOne month after she met him, Britt married Edwin Gregson, a Stanford student and son of a real estate mogul, in February 1958 in Tijuana. She appeared on the cover of\u00a0Life\u00a0magazine in August 1959 \u2014 the cover line was \u201cMay Britt: Star With a New Style\u201d \u2014 with an article describing her as a Hollywood ingenue who enjoyed motorcycles and played tennis in the morning in a see-through nightdress.<\/p>\n

\n\tA month after the story appeared, she and Gregson separated, and they finalized their divorce in September 1960.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMay Britt and husband Sammy Davis Jr. outside the Shubert Theater in New York in 1965.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Everett<\/p>\n

\n\tDavis, meanwhile, had hurriedly married Black dancer Loray White at the Sands in Las Vegas in January 1958 after gangsters, with instructions from Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn, had reportedly threatened his life because he was dating white actress and studio star Kim Novak<\/a>. He paid White a lump sum (said to be between $10,000 and $25,000) to marry him and act as his wife.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSammy had already lost one eye in an accident and Harry Cohn threatened to take out the other one,\u201d Novak told\u00a0The Guardian<\/a>\u00a0in a 2021 interview. \u201cI\u2019m sure he would have gotten his gangster friends to do it. Cohn was definitely in with the mob.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDavis and White lived together only briefly and divorced in April 1959.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the insistence of Sinatra, who had campaigned to get John Kennedy elected president, Davis and Britt agreed to postpone their wedding for about a month until after the election, even though the invitations had been mailed, to avoid harming Kennedy\u2019s chances. Davis had campaigned for JFK as well.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was disappointing, but I was prepared for anything, I knew what I was getting into,\u201d Britt said in her daughter\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Kennedy won, Davis and Britt were disinvited to the inauguration gala three days before it was to be held, with JFK not wanting to alienate Southern congressmen by hosting the interracial couple. In 1963, they were asked to leave a White House reception for African-American leaders.<\/p>\n

\n\tTheir daughter, Tracey, was born in July 1961, and the couple went on to adopt sons Mark and Jeff, with the family living in a Beverly Hills mansion once owned by\u00a0Gone With the Wind\u00a0producer David O. Selznick.<\/p>\n

\n\tBritt gave up her career while married to Davis and did very little acting after they divorced. She showed up on episodes of\u00a0The Danny Thomas Hour,\u00a0Mission: Impossible,\u00a0The Most Deadly Game\u00a0and\u00a0The Partners and starred in the 1976 horror film\u00a0Haunts.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe told\u00a0Vanity Fair<\/a>\u00a0in 1999 that she had no regrets. \u201cI loved Sammy, and I had the chance to marry the man I loved,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavis wed dancer Altovise Gore in May 1970 in a Philadelphia courthouse ceremony that was officiated by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. They were together until his death on May 16, 1990, from throat cancer at age 64.<\/p>\n

\n\tBritt didn\u2019t get married again until May 1993, when she wed Lennart Ringquist, an entertainment executive and horse breeder (his former wife, Penny Chenery, bred and owned Triple Crown winner Secretariat). He died in January 2017.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to her sons, survivors include her sister, Margot, and her grandchildren, Andrew, Ryan, Sam, Montana, Greer and Chase. Tracey Davis died in November 2020 after a short illness at age 59.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May Britt, the statuesque Swedish actress who starred in such films as\u00a0The Blue Angel\u00a0and\u00a0Murder, Inc. before becoming the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[176809,236,88,17934,80677,78270,140319,2337,10756,78271],"class_list":{"0":"post-356813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-audrey-hepburn","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-frank-sinatra","12":"tag-henry-fonda","13":"tag-kim-novak","14":"tag-marlene-dietrich","15":"tag-marlon-brando","16":"tag-obituaries","17":"tag-sammy-davis-jr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}