Alongside Bill Cosby, Dick Gregory, and Nipsey Russell, he was acclaimed by Time in 1965 as "one of the country's foremost celebrated Negro comedians.

[9] In 1949, Cambridge studied medicine at Hofstra College,[2] which he attended for three years before dropping out to pursue a career in acting.

[2] In 1961, he received an Obie award for distinguished performance for his role in Jean Genet's The Blacks, in a cast that also included James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett, Cicely Tyson, Maya Angelou and Raymond St. Jacques.

[11] Cambridge received a 1962 Tony Award nomination as part of the original cast of Purlie Victorious, a play written by and starring Ossie Davis;[11] he was featured in an opening-night cast that also included Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Sorrell Booke, Roger C. Carmel, Helen Martin, and Beah Richards.

He also had a starring role in the 1970 Ossie Davis adaptation of the Chester Himes novel Cotton Comes to Harlem, as well as its 1972 sequel, Come Back, Charleston Blue.

("The Curse of the Snitkins"), The Dick Van Dyke Show ("The Man From My Uncle"), I Spy ("Court of the Lion"), The Monkees ("It's a Nice Place to Visit"), and Police Story ("Year of the Dragon").

[citation needed] Cambridge, along with writer Maya Angelou and actor Hugh Hurd, organized one of the first benefits for Martin Luther King Jr. held in New York City; according to Angelou, it was held at the Village Gate in the late 1950s and raised $9,000 for King's civil rights movement.

[15] (On his 1964 album Ready Or Not, Cambridge joked he was supporting Barry Goldwater, saying that the GOP presidential nominee had "come flat out against slavery...in principle!")

[16] Cambridge died of a heart attack on November 29, 1976, at the age of 43, while on the Burbank, California, set of the ABC television movie Victory at Entebbe, in which he was to portray Idi Amin (he was replaced by Julius Harris).