Sammy White (actor)

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Sammy White (1894-1960) was an American vaudeville song-and-dance comedian who appeared in a few films. With his then-wife, Eva Puck, he appeared in the original 1927 Broadway stage version of the classic musical Show Boat. In the musical, White played the role of comic dancer Frank Schultz, and Puck played the role of Ellie May Chipley, who eventually marries Frank. The two reprised their roles in the first New York revival of the show, in 1932, but by the time the 1936 film version was made, they had divorced, so the role of Ellie went to Queenie Smith, with White repeating his performance as Frank in the film.

White also had a notable supporting role in the Spencer Tracy - Katharine Hepburn film Pat and Mike, as the man to whom Tracy says (when talking about Hepburn), "Not much meat on her, but what there is, is cherce!"

White played himself in the 1957 biopic The Helen Morgan Story, the biography of the famous torch singer who had also appeared in the three productions of Show Boat mentioned above, as the mulatto Julie LaVerne.