When Davis published his first memoir, Yes I Can, in 1965, it was a critical and popular success -- acclaimed for a candor and thoughtfulness rare in celebrity autobiographies and for its painful evocation of life as a black performer in segregated America. Davis's 1980 memoir, Why Me?, laid bare Davis's troubled relationship with the Kennedys, his ambivalence toward the black pride movement, the end of his marriage to Britt (and his complex open marriage with Altovise Davis), and his flamboyant, self-loathing misbehavior, from ruinous extravagance to flirtations with Satanism.

Davis's co-writer Burt Boyar has revised Davis's memoirs, incorporating material from unpublished interviews, and has added a new prologue and epilogue. The result is not only the life story of one of the most popular entertainers of his era, but also a testament to Davis's role as an unacknowledged -- and often uncomfortable -- leader in the struggle for racial equality.