Will Mastin
*Will Mastin was born on this date in 1878. He was a Black dancer and singer.
According to the 1880 Federal Census of Enumeration and the California Death Index, Mastin was born in Madison, Alabama, to a single mother named Sally Mastin. As a vaudeville and television act, Mastin led the Will Mastin Trio. The Trio’s original members were Sammy Davis Sr., Howard M. Colbert Jr., and Mastin. Howard M. Colbert Jr. was Sammy Davis Jr.'s tap-dance teacher, who treated him much as an uncle.
Colbert left the Trio in December 1941 to join the United States Army during World War II. Sammy Davis Jr., then 16, became part of the main vaudeville act, replacing Colbert. The three appeared in the 1947 musical short film Sweet and Low and the 1956 Broadway musical Mr. Wonderful.
According to the California Death Index, Will Mastin died on March 14, 1979, at age 100. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, near Sammy Davis Sr. and Sammy Davis Jr. The epitaph on his tomb says only, "He Was A Vaudevillian;" it does not provide birth and death dates.
