Sammy Davis, Jr. with talk show host Sam Levenson and tennis legend Althea Gibson at piano at a Bon Voyage party for Ms. Gibson at Birdland Nightclub in New York City. Ms. Gibson was set to leave for Wimbledon in the next few days. Photo by Fred Morgan/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images.
Quincy Jones at work at a Sarah Vaughan recording session in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1963. Photo: Lebrecht Music & Arts/Corbis.
That’s right #Oscars audience, STAND UP for Dame Shirley Bassey! She is 76 today and still as gorgeous as she was in this 1960 photo where she is being fitted for a new sheath dress, covered with 156,000 diamante stones (weighing in at 28 pounds), by designer Douglas Darnell. Photo by Peter Hall/Keystone Features/Getty Images.
Dorothy Dandridge presenting an Oscar at New York’s Century Theater on March 30, 1955. She was nominated for Best Actress for her role in Carmen Jones but lost to Grace Kelly who won for Country Girl. Photo: Ebony
Diahann Carroll with designers Bob Mackie and Ray Aghayan as they make adjustments on the cape and dress she wore for the 1975 Academy Awards. Ms. Carroll was nominated in the Best Actress category for her role in the film, “Claudine.” Photo: Isaac Sutton for EBONY.
Diana Ross, in a custom satin tuxedo designed by Bob Mackie and his partner, Ray Aghayan, at the Academy Awards on March 27, 1973. Ms. Ross, a Best Actress nominee that year for her role in “Lady Sings the Blues” is flanked by her then husband, Robert Silberstein, and her parents, Ernestine and Fred Ross, Sr. Photo: Ron Galella/WireImage.
Cicely Tyson answers a reporter’s questions on the red carpet as she arrives at the #Oscars on March 27, 1973. Ms. Tyson was nominated in the Best Actress category for her role in the film, “Sounder”. She and Diana Ross made history that year as the first Black actresses nominated in the Best Actress category in the same year (Liza Minnelli won for her role in “Cabaret”). I am not sure if he was with Ms. Tyson that evening, but Dance Theater of Harlem founder Arthur Mitchell is to her right in this picture. Photo: Frank Diernhammer/Conde Nast Archives.
Sidney Poitier and Nat “King” Cole cutting up at the 1963 #Oscars at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, April 8, 1963. One of my favorite pictures EVER! Photo: Michael Ochs Archives, Corbis.
Nina Simone would have turned 80 years old today. Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, she changed her name to Nina Simone (“Nina” meaning “little one” and “Simone” after the actress Simone Signoret) after she began singing in bars early in her career, something her Methodist minister mother none too subtly referred to as “working in the fires of hell.” This photo I am sharing today is my favorite of Ms. Simone, a stunning shot by Pittsburgh photography icon Charles “Teenie” Harris, circa 1965.
Happy 86th Birthday to absolutely magisterial Sidney Poitier! In this 1965 photo, Mr. Poitier is on the set of “The Slender Thread,” a 1966 film he did with Anne Bancroft (Sydney Pollack’s directorial debut - and Quincy Jones did the music!) Photo: Cat’s Collection/Corbis.
Happy Birthday William Smokey Robinson! Can you believe he turns 73 today? In this photo, he is standing in front of Motown’s original office in Detroit, around 1967. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives.
Happy 82nd Birthday Toni Morrison!!! Chester Higgins, Jr. captured her here sometime in the 1970s. Photo: Getty.
