Burt Boyar

{{Short description|American writer and actor (1927–2018)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Burt Boyar

| image =

| image_size =

| alt =

| caption = Photograph taken by Sammy Davis, Jr.

| birth_name = Burton Anselm Boyar

| birth_date = {{birth date|1927|11|30|mf=yes}}

| birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date|2018|04|04|mf=yes}} (age 90)

| death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.

| occupation = Author, biographer, columnist, actor

| years_active = 1939–2018

| spouse = Jane Boyar (deceased)

| awards =

| website = {{URL|http://www.burtboyar.com}}

}}

Burt Boyar (November 30, 1927 – April 4, 2018{{Cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?pid=188729859|title = Burt Boyar Obituary (1927 - 2018) Los Angeles Times| website=Legacy.com }}) was a Broadway columnist,{{cite book|author=David Hajdu|title=Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture|url=https://archive.org/details/heroesvillainses00hajd|url-access=registration|year=2009|publisher=Da Capo Press|isbn=978-0-306-81833-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/heroesvillainses00hajd/page/35 35]–}} voice actor, and author. He voiced the title character of Archie Andrews for NBC Radio in 1945 {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EwtRbXNca0oC&dq=%22Archie+Andrews,+teenage%22+%22Burt+Bo+yar%22&pg=PA39 |last=Dunning |first=John |author-link=John Dunning (detective fiction author) |title=On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio |date=19 March 1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York, NY |isbn=978-0-19-507678-3 |pages=39–40 |edition=Revised |access-date=2019-12-12}} and co-wrote Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. with wife Jane Boyar and Davis himself.

Boyar's work as a columnist was featured in The Morning Telegraph, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and TV Guide.{{cite journal|author=New York Media, LLC|title=New York Magazine|journal=New York|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8uICAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA4|date=31 August 1970|publisher=New York Media, LLC|pages=4–|issn=0028-7369}} He reached out to Davis for an interview after Mr. Wonderful opened on Broadway in 1956.{{cite book|author=Wil Haygood|title=In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Junior|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xxajAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT12|date=28 May 2014|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-8041-7252-3|pages=12–}}{{cite web|title=Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (1965)|work=Judd Brothers|url=http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/993/Yes%20I%20Can.htm}} They became close friends and after almost a year they began working on the best-selling memoir.{{cite book|author=Boris Kachka|title=Hothouse: The Art of Survival and the Survival of Art at America's Most Celebrated Publishing House, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zP86BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA161|date=12 August 2014|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-1-4516-9191-7|pages=161–}} Later a follow-up book, Why Me?, was published in 1989. Boyer also compiled a book of photographs taken by Davis, entitled Photo by Sammy Davis Jr, which was published in 2007.{{cite book|last1=Boyar|first1=Burt|title=Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr.|date=2007|publisher=Regan Books|location=New York|isbn=9780062273963|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_zSEp4Bl4LwC}}

Boyer's collection of material relating to Sammy Davis Jr. can be found at the Library of Congress.{{cite web|title=Library of Congress, Burt Boyar Collection|url=http://rs5.loc.gov/service/music/eadxmlmusic/eadpdfmusic/2012/mu012010.pdf}}