Foxy

by Pam Grier

  I clutched my flowers and wine and wandered the property. No one else was holding anything except drinks, and the entire length of the spacious backyard had been tented. My jaw dropped as I looked at the elegant tables and hundreds of people who, I learned later, were giving Sammy gifts like diamond watches and cashmere sweaters. I handed my little presents to a secretary, happy to be rid of them, and checked out the other guests.

  When I say that everyone who was anyone was gathered there, I’m talking about the likes of Liza Minnelli and her husband, Jack Haley Jr., whom I already knew from our night at the Troubadour with John Lennon. Then I spotted Elizabeth Taylor. All the women were wearing such luxurious gowns and jewels that I felt grossly underdressed. But when I ran into Altovise, who greeted me warmly, she didn’t flinch at what I was wearing to her million-dollar birthday party. Ever the lady, she thanked me for coming and introduced me to Sammy. When I went to shake his hand, my fingers were trembling. How could I not be in awe of this legendary performer who took a moment to shake my hand and welcome me to his home? And he didn’t even know me. I thought I could die happy after this night.

  When it was time for dinner, gloved waiters served us lobster, filet mignon, and bottle after bottle of the finest champagne. Altovise was kind enough to seat me near her because I didn’t know many people, and she promised to take me out shopping with her and the girls. Was she talking about Liza and Barbra? Did they shop anywhere besides Armani and Chanel?

  I spent the early part of the evening watching people and sharing little bits of myself with anyone who was interested. People there were interested when I described my country life, where I fished and hunted in Wyoming and skied in Aspen. They must have thought that a “sistah” who was so outdoorsy was intriguing.

  When I decided it was time to leave, I found Altovise to thank her for a gorgeous evening. I told her how impeccable her taste was, and the next thing I knew, she said, “Would you like to come over next weekend? I’m having a few people over for dinner and a movie. It’ll be more intimate, a small party, so we’ll have a chance to talk.”

  “Small?” I said smiling. “Are we talking about a hundred of your closest friends?”

  She laughed. “No, no. It’ll be ten or twelve people in the dining room.”

  “What should I wear?”

  “It’ll just be casual,” she said.

  “Casual?” I teased. “Like going from tails to a tux?”

  “I’ll be wearing slacks and a sweater,” she said. “How does that sound?”

  “I’d love to come,” I said. “Should I bring a casserole? Or I could bake a lemon meringue pie.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said. “The food will be prepared. Just come and enjoy yourself.”

  When I arrived back at the estate the next week, Altovise was wearing slacks and a sweater, just like she had promised, and about a dozen people were gathered. What a group it was! Liz Taylor had on a lovely casual dress. Sammy was dressed in slacks and a shirt. The house, now much emptier, contained his amazing history in diaries of his life. He had been embraced by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, who supported one another and never allowed Sammy to be forced through a back door because he was black. They were his best friends, and he appreciated their constant support.

  I sat down to dinner with a table full of A-list producers, directors, and actors. I just sat back and listened to all the gossip, wondering how I got so lucky to be where I was. When we were through eating, Sammy stood to indicate that we were shifting into the movie portion of the evening. He had a large screening room, and he loved getting his friends together to watch first-run movies, partly because they couldn’t go into movie theaters without being swarmed for autographs.

  I had gotten up to follow the crowd out when Sammy suddenly grabbed my hand. “Are you having a good time?” he asked me.

  “I am, Mr. Davis,” I said. “It was so kind of you to invite me. I can’t wait to see the movie.”

  “I’d like to show you something first,” he said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  He exerted some pressure on my arm and kept holding on to me while I stood beside him. Then he got his face much too close to mine when he said, “Follow me.”

  Feeling somewhat overpowered, I prayed for Altovise to come and rescue me. Before tonight, I would have jumped at the chance to be shown around by Sammy Davis Jr., but his manner was invasive, and it felt like he was coming on to me. I stopped short and searched desperately for options. There was a luxurious couch and on it were sitting Liza Minnelli and Elizabeth Taylor. I put him off for a moment, searching for Altovise. I couldn’t find her, so I sat on the sofa between Liza and Liz and said quietly, “Excuse me, but I need to ask you something. Is Sammy always like this with women? In front of his wife?”

  Liz laughed and said, “Oh, yes, it’s nothing,”

  “Don’t take it seriously,” said Liza.

  “Well,” I said, “when do I tell him no? And when do I get kicked out of the house? Or do I just ignore it and he’ll stop?”

  “He’ll stop,” said Liza, “when—” She was interrupted as Sammy came over and grabbed onto my arm. “There you are,” he said, “I said I wanted to show you something.”

  “I’m in the middle of a conversation,” I said. “I’d like to stay here.”

  “No,” he said in an angry tone.

  “Okay,” I said, afraid he would go off on me in front of everyone. I got up. “Where’s Altovise?” I added. “Can she come with us?”

  She was nowhere to be found, and Sammy insisted on showing me some photographs hanging in a living room so large my whole apartment could have fit in it. He pointed out his various awards, including one from the queen. It was mesmerizing, but I couldn’t relax because Sammy was getting more and more touchy-feely. When he started to walk me farther into the house, I pulled back. “I’d really like to go watch the movie,” I said.

  “I’m not going to do anything to you,” he said, sounding very irritable. “I just want to show you my—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to go to the ladies’ room.”

  I felt his eyes ogling my butt as I walked into the safety of the powder room. I stared into the mirror and tried to get my thoughts together. I could imagine the headline news at eleven:

  ACTRESS PAM GRIER KNOCKS OUT SAMMY DAVIS JR’S OTHER EYE.

  I wondered about Altovise. I’d already seen Sammy’s flirtation escalate several notches during the night, and she was right there in the same room. Did she allow it? Did it hurt her feelings? Did she have to allow it? I didn’t know their boundaries or agreements. I may have been the new kid in the crowd, but I was not about to be the new meat.

  I was wondering how long I could get away with hiding in the restroom when Altovise walked in. I was so relieved to see her, I spoke up. “Altovise,” I said, “I really want to apologize.”

  She looked confused.

  I went on, “Sammy is making me feel really uncomfortable. I don’t know if he’s hitting on me, but he’s being very intimate. I don’t know what to do. I think I have to leave, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Does he do this with everyone?”

  “Yeah, he does,” she said. “That’s just Sammy.”

  “Well, you know what?” I continued. “I think that’s very disrespectful to you. I have to go, because I don’t like how he’s acting with me in front of you.”

  One look at this wonderful woman told me everything. It was clear she and her husband had an arrangement. Maybe that was a negotiation that she had to make. But in her eyes, I saw how much she appreciated what I had said and how much she valued the respect.

  “How can I get out of here without Sammy seeing me?” I said.

  While we were figuring out how to distract Sammy so I could get away, Liza Minnelli came into the ladies’ room. She heard us talking and said conspiratorially, “Jack and I are about to leave. If you take Sammy to another part of the house, Altovise, we can drive Pam to her c
ar.”

  That was the plan. Altovise left the powder room to find Sammy standing there, waiting for me to come back out. She guided Sammy to the kitchen while I ran outside with Liza. When Jack pulled up front in their Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce, I jumped into the back and lay down across the seat. Liza threw her full-length sable coat over me in case Sammy saw us leaving, and they drove me to my car.

  It turned out that I never saw Sammy again, but I continued to get together with Altovise until recently—she passed away on March 14, 2009. I had been looking forward to contacting her just before she died. I imagined reading this chapter to her, and I could see her eyes light up with laughter. It didn’t happen; she passed away when I least expected it, but I dedicate this chapter to her. I hope she knows how much I still love her and how much I always respected her as a woman, a wife, a mother, a dancer, and an all-around human being.

  CHAPTER 28

  Haunting

  The eighties was a peak decade for my career. Among the many opportunities I was given, I played the Dust Witch in the 1983 film of the Ray Bradbury classic Something Wicked This Way Comes, starring Jason Robards, Diane Ladd, and Jonathan Pryce.

  I also performed in the Sam Shepard play Fool for Love at the newly opened Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles. The run lasted close to nine months, and the show ran for ninety minutes with no intermission. The work was so physically demanding, I lost three pounds each night, I broke two fingers, and one evening, when Richard Lawson’s character pushed my head against the spurs that hung from his belt, my face was punctured in five places. I had to rush offstage, but since the play demanded that, for the sake of momentum, the curtain never be lowered, I continued to say my lines offstage while the stage manager cleaned and bandaged my face. When I got back onstage, still bleeding, the audience was impressed with what they thought were special effects.

  And then there was the night when I pulled a gun on my co-star and he smacked me so hard I hit the floor and bounced. My jaw swelled up so much I couldn’t talk, but I managed to make it through the scene. When we got offstage, he tearfully apologized again and again, but I really didn’t mind. It was all in a night’s work. In fact, I worked so hard in that role, I won the NAACP Image Award for best actress in a play.

  I kept the announcement they sent, because I was so proud to receive the award.

  JANUARY 9, 1987

  PAM GRIER

  FOOL FOR LOVE

  CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE THE RECIPIENT OF THE 19th ANNUAL NAACP IMAGE AWARD

  On December 14, 1986, the BEVERLY HILLS/HOLLYWOOD NAACP announced the recipients of the 19th ANNUAL IMAGE AWARDS.

  The IMAGE AWARD is made annually to individuals who have contributed to projecting positive images of Black People in their respective areas of endeavor. It is our way of paying tribute to and giving recognition of outstanding and/or meritorious performances.

  Your trophy will be delivered under separate cover in approximately thirty days. Attached you will find a souvenir program for the event.

  The NBC television network will air the 19th ANNUAL IMAGE AWARDS on Saturday, January 17, 1987, in a 90-minute star-studded special at 11:30 PM.

  Again, congratulations and continued success.

  It was signed by Willis Edwards, President, and Marva J. Smith, Chairperson.

  I couldn’t have been more proud. I won the award but it was later stolen from my home.

  Then, in 1986, I got a role in Above the Law, a film starring Steven Seagal that shot in Chicago. Following that, I did Rocket Gibraltar in 1987, with film icon Burt Lancaster. This one shot in Westhampton Beach, New York, and was directed by Dan Petrie, who had directed me in Fort Apache, the Bronx. My scenes in Rocket Gibraltar ended up on the cutting room floor due to the alleged controversy of the interracial love story. I remember when Dan Petrie and his wife invited me to dinner and he told me that my scenes would be cut because he feared repercussions from the interracial love scenes. I was very disappointed. It wasn’t every day I got to work with a great actor like Burt Lancaster. I had liked Burt and his wife so much, I had loved working with him, but there was nothing I could do about it. I took it in stride, since I had met a young actor named Macaulay Culkin in that movie, and Kevin Spacey, who was hot and a brilliant conversationalist. In the end, although I was hardly in the movie at all, I got a great deal out of it, anyway. In fact, all was moving along relatively well, and my life had never looked more promising, it seemed, until I got a call that rocked my world.

  My adopted sister, Krista, had had a bout with breast cancer in the early eighties. Married with a child and working as a flight attendant, she’d been forced to undergo a mastectomy, which had saved her life. But her husband had devastated her when he told her that since she had lost a breast, he no longer found her attractive. Back then, the doctors did not do instant reconstruction like they do today when they remove a breast. Now Krista not only had to fight to stay alive, but she also had to face the fact that her selfish husband no longer desired her as a woman.

  Her husband didn’t leave her or throw her out right then, but a huge emotional separation occurred, and they were never the same again. They eventually divorced after her cancer had gone into remission, and Krista was elated to find a new man who was quite religious and didn’t care that she was missing a breast. He simply adored her, and she told me over and over how happy she was to have met a wonderful man who not only accepted her as she was but also got her children to church every Sunday. “I’m learning about God,” she told me, “and so is my boy. We do things as a family, and I feel more human than ever before.”

  She was as happy as I’d ever seen her when her cancer suddenly returned, years after the first bout. As upsetting as the diagnosis was, at least she was with a man who loved her. But it seemed that her new husband’s church, which she had joined, was an offshoot of Christian Science, and they did not allow any drugs or medical attention whatsoever. Prayer was what they touted. If you were ill, it was God’s will, and prayer was the only method of healing that was tolerated. If you didn’t heal, that was God’s will, too.

  Krista had come to a terrible crossroads. Her husband, whom she’d previously adored, was adamant that she follow the ways of the church. But what about her boy? Shouldn’t she do everything within her power to stay alive for her son? At the same time, my mom, her adopted mom, was suffering nerve damage from a previous surgery, and she had excruciating pain in both wrists. Krista, who had always been more devoted to my mom than to her own mother, Mennon, was no longer able to take care of her since they were both in bad shape. It felt like my family was falling apart, and there was little that anyone could do.

  I was in rehearsal in San Diego for a Terrence McNally play, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, when Krista got really sick. Because she had refused treatment, her cancer had metastasized to the bone and she was in constant pain. With more than one hundred fifty tumors, she told me she felt as if someone were sticking an ice pick into her chest and twisting it all day and night. All the while, her husband, the supposed love of her life, refused to get her any pain medications.

  Krista had been looking forward to coming to San Diego for my opening. She knew that I had agreed to gain some weight for the part and that I had a scene where I fell out of bed, nude, with only a sheet covering my body. It was risqué, and I visited Krista just before the rehearsals started. She wanted to know everything, and she assured me she’d be there for the opening, whatever it took. As I watched her determination and courage in the midst of her pain, my love and admiration for her only grew stronger. She was my confidante, my mentor, my sister, and my friend, and I couldn’t imagine life without her. Who would I tell my secrets to? Who would give me advice on men and relationships?

  During the course of her illness, my mom and I fought to get control of her from her husband. We tried to sneak pain medications to her, but he made sure to cut off access. Now all we could do was talk on the phone, and pretty soon he started te
lling us Krista was asleep whenever we called. One time, Krista called me, sobbing that she had made a huge mistake. She had refused treatment and now she was dying a hard, painful death with no pain meds. “If I’d known how painful this was going to be,” she wailed, “I’d have divorced my husband and left the church as soon as the cancer returned.”

  Now it was too late. One day Krista called me and Mom in tears, pleading with us to come and help her. When we drove over there, her husband met us at the door.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked suspiciously, wary that we were bringing her the forbidden drugs that might ease her pain.

  “Krista called us,” I said. “She asked us to come by.”

  “She didn’t call you,” he said. “She’s asleep.”

  “She did call us,” Mom said. “Can we just come in and visit for a few minutes?”

  “No, she didn’t call you,” he repeated. “She’s asleep. Please go away.” He closed the door.

  Mom and I sat in the car for a while and sobbed. Since there were no cell phones back then, I drove Mom to a pay phone where we tried to call Krista. Of course, there was no answer. The religious man who previously had adored his wife now refused to allow anyone to see her. One day, my cousin headed over there and tried to rip the door off the hinges. He didn’t get very far before someone told Krista’s husband what was going on. He rushed back home from church to stop the crime. We were all at our wit’s end, starting to commit criminal acts to see our beloved Krista.

  Terrified and enraged, I had to return to San Diego to rehearse. I tried to throw myself into my work to drown out the sorrow, but it came and got me anyway. I was onstage in the middle of rehearsal when Krista’s son, fifteen, disgusted and horrified to watch his mother suffer with no relief, got hold of a gun and mortally shot himself. His note to his mother read, “I’ll meet you in heaven.”