Sammy White (actor)
Sammy White, born Samuel Kwait on May 28, 1894, in Providence, Rhode Island, was an American vaudeville dancer, comedian, and occasional film actor. He started performing in 1906 and became known for his song-and-dance routines.
On stage, White teamed with Eva Puck as the vaudeville duo Puck and White. They appeared together on Broadway in Schubert Gaieties of 1919. The pair starred in the original Broadway production of Show Boat in 1927, with White playing the comic dancer Frank Schultz and Puck as Ellie May Chipley. They also reprised these roles in the 1932 Broadway revival. By the time the 1936 film version of Show Boat was made, White and Puck had divorced, and Ellie was played by Queenie Smith while White again portrayed Frank.
White later married Broadway actress Beatrice Curtis (1906–1963), the daughter of vaudeville actress Anna Chandler. He continued to appear in Show Boat, reprising Frank in a 1948 New York City Center revival.
In film, White had a notable supporting role in Pat and Mike (1952), starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, where he delivers the line, “Not much meat on her, but what there is, is cherce!” He and Puck also appeared in a short film made by Lee De Forest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process, the comic routine “Opera Vs. Jazz,” shown at the Rivoli Theatre in New York on April 15, 1923; the short is preserved at the Library of Congress.
White appeared as himself in The Helen Morgan Story (1957), a biopic about the torch singer who originated the role of Julie LaVerne in Show Boat. Sammy White died on March 3, 1960, in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 65.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 01:59 (CET).