May Britt, 91, Dies; Her Marriage to Sammy Davis Jr. Sparked Outrage

Movies|May Britt, 91, Dies; Her Marriage to Sammy Davis Jr. Sparked Outrage

May Britt, the Swedish-born actress whose marriage to the Black entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. in 1960 drew racist reactions in Hollywood and elsewhere, all while the civil rights movement was gathering momentum, died on Dec. 11 in Los Angeles. She was 91.

Her son Mark Davis confirmed the death, in a hospital.

Ms. Britt, whose first name was pronounced “My,” was an up-and-coming movie star when she met Mr. Davis at a Los Angeles nightclub in 1959.

The civil rights movement was then making gains against school segregation and workplace discrimination but having far less impact regarding the laws and mores around intimate relationships. Interracial marriage, while legal in California, was still illegal in many American states — it wasn’t until 1967 that it was legalized nationwide by the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia — and interracial dating was considered taboo even in supposedly liberal places like Hollywood.

After Ms. Britt and Mr. Davis began dating, they became the target of death threats, streams of hate mail and neo-Nazi pickets outside venues where Mr. Davis was performing. The reaction grew only more intense when they announced their engagement in July 1960.

The intolerance spread into that year’s presidential campaign, during which Mr. Davis was a vocal supporter of Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Democratic nominee. At the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in July, Mr. Davis was booed by delegates from Southern states.

“You know as well as I do why they booed,” Mr. Davis told a reporter from United Press International.