How Sammy Davis Jr. Lost An Eye

May 2024 · 2 minute read

Per the Beacon Journal, the impact caused his face to hit the steering wheel, which featured a conical horn button in the center. Striking that protrusion popped his left eye out of the socket, fractured his face, and injured his back. The force also catapulted his head forward, and he broke his jaw. Boss and Roth suffered broken bones after being thrown backward. Davis lost his eye and spent eight days in the hospital. The accident caused Ford to change El Dorado's newly discovered design flaw. "It has no functional purpose, just to look cool," said Henry Ford Museum curator Matt Anderson (via CBS News).

"Lying flat on your back in the hospital for eight days, you are bound to think about serious things. And I couldn't get over how lucky I was. God must have had his arms around me. Otherwise, I would be blind today," Davis later told the Associated Press, as quoted by the Beacon Journal.

Losing his eye certainly didn't affect his personal or professional life. In fact, his interracial relationships with his second wife May Britt and actress Kim Novak were more of a threat to his life and career than his missing eye, but he refused to let ignorance run his life (via Smithsonian Magazine). His dance style — a mix of street style and vaudeville-style — influenced Michael Jackson's and Gregory Hines' dance moves. Sammy Davis Jr. continued to perform until shortly before his death on May 16, 1990, from throat cancer.

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