May Britt, the Swedish actor whose marriage to Sammy Davis Jr in 1960 was the subject of controversy due to US attitudes towards interracial marriage, has died at 91.
Her son Mark Davis confirmed the news to the Hollywood Reporter, saying his mother died on 11 December of natural causes at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana medical center in Los Angeles.
Born Maj-Britt Wilkens in Sweden in 1934, Britt fell into acting by chance: while working as a photographer’s assistant in Stockholm, she was scouted by Italian film-makers Carlo Ponti and Mario Soldati and cast as the lead in the 1953 Italian adventure movie Jolanda, the Daughter of the Black Corsair. A string of Italian films followed, until she landed a part in King Vidor’s lavish 1956 screen adaptation of War and Peace, starring Audrey Hepburn.
Her performance caught the eye of the head of 20th Century Fox, Buddy Adler, and a contract with the studio followed. Britt emigrated to the US in the late 1950s and starred opposite Marlon Brando in war movie The Young Lions, and Robert Mitchum in The Hunters, before landing her breakthrough role as the young cabaret entertainer Lola-Lola in 1959’s The Blue Angel.
The same year, she appeared on the cover of Life magazine, with the headline “May Britt: Star With a New Style”.
Britt married her first husband, the real estate scion Edward Gregson, in 1958, but the marriage was short-lived and the couple separated in late 1959.
She met Sammy Davis Jr the same year, and the couple were married in November 1960, Britt converting to Judaism ahead of the wedding. At the time, interracial marriage was still banned in the majority of US states, and the couple received negative press, harassment and death threats.
Davis, who campaigned for presidential hopeful John Kennedy in 1960, had agreed to postpone his wedding to Britt until after the 1960 election in order to not stoke controversy. The newly married couple were subsequently disinvited from the inauguration gala in 1961, Kennedy not wanting to alienate conservative congressmen.
Reflecting on the backlash to her parents’ relationship, their daughter, Tracey Davis, told CBS in 2014: “It was very difficult … there were death threats, there were bad words written on our car, they looked for bombs, we had armed guards.”
After the marriage, Britt stopped acting. 20th Century Fox declined to renew her contract, and her studio career ended. “She threw herself into her family,” Tracey told CBS, “but it was difficult for my mom, because what she did for a living came to an end.”
Britt later said she never regretted the loss of her career. “I loved Sammy and I had the chance to marry the man I loved,” she told Vanity Fair in 1999.
Britt and Davis were together for seven years, and besides their daughter Tracey, born 1961, they had two adoptive sons, Mark and Jeff. Tracey said “there was a lot of love in the house” growing up.
The two separated in 1967 and divorced in 1968, amid rumours of an affair between Davis and dancer Lola Falana.
After her marriage to Davis ended, Britt resumed acting, taking smaller roles in episodes of The Danny Thomas Hour, Mission: Impossible, The Most Deadly Game and The Partners, and starring in the 1976 horror movie Haunts. Per IMDb, her final role was in 1988, in an episode of the sci-fi and detective series Probe.
In 1993 she married Lennart Ringquist, an entertainment executive and horse breeder. He died in January 2017.
In addition to her sons, Britt is survived by her sister, Margot, and her grandchildren, Andrew, Ryan, Sam, Montana, Greer and Chase. Her daughter, Tracey, died in November 2020 at the age of 59.
