Godfrey MacArthur Cambridge was born in New York City on February 26, 1933, to Alexander and Sarah Cambridge, both immigrants from British Guiana. His father worked as a day laborer, his mother as a garment worker. His parents disapproved of the New York City school system, so as a child he was sent to live with his grandparents in Nova Scotia. He did not return to the city until he was thirteen, when he entered Flushing High School.
In 1949, he won a scholarship to Hofstra University, where he enrolled to study medicine. After three years, he abandoned that path and left school to pursue acting. His breakthrough came in 1956 with a performance in the off-Broadway production of Take a Giant Step. That performance opened doors to television and Broadway roles, and Cambridge began working the local comedy club circuit as a stand-up.
He kept his day jobs while building his career, driving a cab, teaching judo, and working as a clerk for the New York City Housing Authority. In 1961, he performed in the off-Broadway production of The Blacks and won an Obie Award for his work. The following year, he earned a Tony nomination for his role in Ossie Davis’s play Purlie Victorious. But national fame arrived in 1964, when he appeared on The Jack Paar Show.
The appearance made him a household name, led to bookings in the top comedy clubs, and landed him a contract with Epic Records. By 1965, he was earning up to $4,000 a week, headlining at venues like San Francisco’s Hungry I and Hollywood’s Crescendo. His stand-up was marked by biting sarcasm and topical humor, the kind that resonated strongly with audiences of that era. He recorded four bestselling comedy albums, one of which included his riff on the White Knight laundry commercial: “That N’ed White knight on the horse goes by and turns everything white.
Lord, I hope he never passes me. ”
Cambridge’s film career ran parallel to his success on stage and in nightclubs. He appeared in The Last Angry Man in 1959, The Troublemaker in 1964, The President’s Analyst in 1967, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In 1970, he starred in Cotton Comes to Harlem and then The Watermelon Man.
On television, he appeared in Car 54, Where Are You, The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy, The Monkees, and Police Story. One of his most acclaimed performances came alongside Tom Bosley in the Night Gallery episode “Make Me Laugh,” directed by Steven Spielberg, a story about a failed comedian who gets a quick fix from a genie. His largest television audience, however, likely came from a series of comical commercials for Jockey brand underwear. Cambridge also engaged with the civil rights movement.
He helped organize one of the first benefit concerts for Martin Luther King Jr. in New York City. Held at the Village Gate in the late 1950s, the event raised $9,000 for King’s movement. He married actress Barbara Ann Teer in 1962; the couple divorced three years later.
In 1972, he married Audriano Meyers. By the 1970s, Cambridge had largely stepped back from public life, working only occasionally. On November 29, 1976, at age 43, he died of a heart attack while filming the ABC television movie Victory at Entebbe in Burbank, California. He had been cast to play Idi Amin but was replaced by Julius Harris.
Amin himself later claimed that Cambridge’s death was divine punishment. Cambridge was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. Godfrey Cambridge was a performer who bridged comedy and drama with ease, and who used his platform to support causes larger than entertainment.
His career spanned stage, screen, records, and commercials, and his sudden death cut short a talent that had already left a lasting mark on American comedy and film.