Sid Davis
| Sid Davis | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Sidney Davis April 1, 1916 Chicago, Illinois |
| Died | October 16, 2006 (aged 90) Palm Desert, California |
| Occupation | Stand-in; educational film producer |
| Spouse(s) | Norma Henkins (1941, widowed 1996) |
Sidney "Sid" Davis (April 1, 1916 – October 16, 2006) was an American director and producer who specialized in social guidance films.
Davis was born on April 1, 1916 in Chicago, Illinois. He was born to a housepainter father and a seamstress mother. He moved to Los Angeles in 1920. The family moved to Hollywood, California when Davis was four years old. In 1920 he began working as a child actor for a comedy made by Harold Lloyd. He began working in the film industry as a child, landing bit parts. He dropped out of junior high school to help support his parents. When he was older he often worked as a stand-in for Leif Erickson and John Wayne. Peter L. Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle said "as a young man, because of his strapping stature, he earned steady work as a stand-in for John Wayne."
In November 1949 Linda Joyce Glucoft, a six-year-old girl in Los Angeles, California, was molested and murdered by a man named Fred Stroble. The story made front-page news in the Los Angeles Times for a week as police and the FBI searched for Stroble. The story was picked up by Time Magazine and other national media, and led to a flurry of reported rapes and attempted rapes. Some media began to speculate that the supposed epidemic of rape was simply media manipulation of public perception.
Davis stated that the tragedy particularly disturbed him because his then-six-year-old daughter Jill did not seem to pay attention to his warnings about strangers. Davis talked to John Wayne saying that a film about this should be made, and Wayne suggested that Davis make the film. Wayne gave Davis $1,000 ($10065.73 when adjusted for inflation) and used the money to make his first film, The Dangerous Stranger, a film he would remake at least twice over the next 30 years. The film tells the story of several young children—some of the children are kidnapped and eventually saved, others are kidnapped and never seen again. Davis used schoolchildren and police officers instead of professional actors. Peter L. Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle said "[t]he film was a success among schools and police departments".
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