Deconstructing Sammy

by Matt Birkbeck

  Shapiro demanded that he be allowed to audit all royalty statements issued since Sammy’s death. Curb initially resisted but eventually gave way to Shapiro’s audit, which by law allowed for a review of a recent two-year period. Shapiro selected an auditing window of 1993 to 1995, but the audit started off slowly, because Curb kept its records in different offices, which took time for Shapiro to track down and compile. But when it was completed, the audit revealed that Sammy was owed over $75,000. Shapiro also determined that Curb had shorted Sammy: the royalty statements amounted to 35 percent less than what Sammy was really owed. The practice had apparently gone on long before Sammy’s death, said Shapiro, but by law he was only allowed to demand shorted monies from the audit window, even though it was clear that Curb had been shorting Sammy’s royalty check for years.

  Shapiro thought it was insulting. Sonny thought it was representative of how Sammy was typically treated. Curb didn’t agree with Shapiro’s assessment and promised a legal battle.

  “We’ll deal with that later,” said Sonny.

  Sonny was busy with other matters in preparation for the final release by the IRS. He hired a writer to complete a book proposal on Altovise’s life, which he planned to sell once the OIC was settled, and he was working with Quincy Jones in preparation for a Sammy musical, in which Altovise could legally take part. Sonny also wanted to prepare Altovise for the onslaught of media questions that would surely follow once the settlement was announced. Sammy Davis Jr. had been out of the public eye for seven years, and Sonny knew there would be great media interest. He also knew that Altovise often had difficulty remaining focused and could not coherently answer random questions about her life. To help her prepare for the expected interviews, Sonny, Calvin, and Ann drew up a lengthy list of questions, many of them deeply personal and probing, and Altovise sat down, pen in hand, to answer.

  Did Sammy ever abuse you?

  Physically, no. Mentally, I think we all fight.

  Did you ever cheat on him?

  No. He knew when I went out with someone. He encouraged it.

  Did Sammy have a dark side? Devil worship or anything like that?

  Sammy was a man who wanted to know about everything. Read about devil worship, read about Shakespeare, art work, poetry, etc. He was interested in devil worship. Went to an occult museum in London. It was a brief passion.

  What about the complaint in the Los Angeles Police Department claiming you stole jewels, furnishings, and other valuables from the estate. Where are those things?

  I don’t know what that was about. IRS said some of those things were mine. Shirley had a caravan of 250 people looking at the house. It was listed by two different realtors. One of the realtors was the cousin of John Climaco.

  Where is Sammy’s glass eye? His guns?

  Bill Choulos in San Francisco is holding his glass eye. Shirley wanted it. Murphy wanted it. Bill said he would keep it safe. IRS took the guns. I gave two or three to Carter, two dueling pistols and a Smith & Wesson. I was a very good shot. I shot someone who got over the fence, saw him on the surveillance camera.

  How much of Sammy’s jewelry do you have?

  If I get Al Carter, I guess I can get the rest of it back.

  Is Manny Sammy’s natural child?

  Don’t want to get into that right now.

  Is Jeff Sammy’s real child?

  No.

  Is Mark Sammy’s natural child?

  Up for grabs. Pass on question.

  How much money do you have now?

  None. Living on SSI and minimum-wage jobs.

  Did you go to Dean Martin’s funeral?

  No.

  Did Frank Sinatra give you money? How much? When? What did you do with it?

  No.

  Didn’t Sammy leave you insurance? How much?

  Yes, one million. I bought a house and the IRS took it.

  Who participated in the orgies at the Summit House?

  No answer.

  We heard you were in a mental institution?

  Every day of my life.

  Who is Al Carter? Did you and he steal money from charities?

  Al Carter was someone Sammy hired to work as a performer. He was a singer with his wife, Patrice. Both were hired. Did we steal from charities, no. Al Carter stole money from me. Quite a bit from me. He said he would hold it and it would be safe.

  Did Sammy have girlfriends?

  Sammy had a lot of friends. Lots of girlfriends.

  Who is John Climaco?

  One of the executors, a lawyer from Cleveland. Don’t know how they met. He was working for the Teamsters. Sammy hired him to represent us and corporation. He got us into a lot of bad deals.

  People say you were a bimbo?

  Thought that only applied to blondes.

  People say you deserve what you got?

  Got the greatest entertainer in the world. Yes, I deserved that.

  Who are the celebrities you still consider your friends?

  Liza Minnelli, Clint Eastwood, Suzanne Pleshette, Madlyn Rhue, Burt Reynolds, Nancy Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, Leslie Uggams, Michael Jackson, Carroll O’Connor, Vidal Sassoon, Fred Hayman of Giorgio’s.

  Sammy liked white women, especially blondes. How do you feel about that? Was he like other black entertainers who like white women?

  Sammy liked all women. He was a womanizer. He would tell a woman walking down the street she looked great today.

  What was the worst time in your life?

  When Sammy isolated himself with the Nixon thing.

  The list and Altovise’s answers were reviewed, critiqued, and updated three days later with additional questions about her relationship with Sammy’s children, which she said was lukewarm, and her and Sammy’s drug use, which she admitted to.

  “Everybody did drugs,” she said.

  Some of Altovise’s answers were honest and poignant while others, particularly those about devil worship, her affairs, and the true parentage of Sammy’s sons, would have to be edited down to “no comment.”

  Sonny also devised a mock television interview and had Altovise sit down and verbally answer a similar list of far-ranging questions. Her answers to more than half of the one hundred questions were a “No comment,” “That’s too personal,” or “I don’t recall.” Clearly, there was work to be done to get Altovise comfortable discussing her life in public. So Sonny hired a “media coach” to help Altovise crystallize her answers to thirty-second sound bites. Near the end of the session at the Hillside, Sonny was told he had an urgent phone call.

  It was the IRS, and the deal was done.

  CHAPTER 14

  Hilliard Elkins was sitting in his office next door to the Majestic Theater in New York when the phone rang. It was Harry Belafonte calling, and he had a special request. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he said, was marching in Selma, Alabama, and Dr. King would be grateful if Sammy would join him in support.

  “We need him, Hilly,” said Harry.

  Civil rights leaders were in the midst of their fifty-five-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital, where Dr. King planned to carry a petition to Governor George Wallace, demanding voting rights. But Wallace had refused a permit for the march and he put the state police and highway patrol on alert, and on the first day, a Sunday, state troopers attacked the marchers using tear gas and batons and clubbed many to the ground. Bloodied and battered, the marchers retreated on that “Bloody Sunday,” but they planned to march again, this time with Dr. King leading the way. They were met by the state troopers, shots were fired, and a white pastor was killed.

  Dr. King sent out a dire message for help, particularly from high-profile people, black or white. And that included Sammy, who had joined Dr. King for several previous events, including the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. That march drew over 500,000 people and was made famous as the occasion on which Dr. King delivered his seminal “I Have a Dream” speech, expressing his vision for a world without racial barriers.
Now Dr. King was calling again, only instead of peaceful protests, Sammy and millions of others saw on television the violence that marred the Selma march.

  At the time, Sammy was starring on Broadway in Golden Boy, a play about a black boxer who falls in love with a white woman, which earned raves from the critics. Despite a rigorous schedule of nightly performances and matinees, Sammy still found time to rehearse, and he was on stage when Hilly took Belafonte’s call in his office next door to the theater.

  It was Hilly who persuaded Sammy to return to Broadway nearly a decade after his success in Mr. Wonderful. Hilly was an agent at the William Morris Agency and one of many with whom Sammy had worked in the 1950s. Hilly sought a career change and turned to producing, and he took a popular 1930s story about a boxer following his ambition but losing his soul and adjusted the role to Sammy and the turbulent racial times.

  The play featured the first kiss on stage between a white woman and a black man, which Hilly dubbed “the assassination scene”—for all the death threats Sammy received. The song lyrics also provided social and political commentary on the state of race relations, with Sammy singing: “Who do you fight/when you want to break out/but your skin is your cage?”

  Following weeks of rehearsals, Golden Boy was a hit, and Sammy was comfortable performing live on Broadway while living in New York with May and his children. So when Hilly walked into the theater to deliver Dr. King’s request, Sammy’s response was cold and direct.

  “No fucking way,” said Sammy, images of bloodied protesters being mauled by Alabama state troopers still fresh in his memory.

  “But Sammy, it’s Dr. King himself that’s asking you,” pleaded Hilly.

  “I’m not going to Selma, Alabama, or anywhere else in the South. I don’t want to get killed,” said Sammy.

  “You’re not going to get hurt. Every major show business celebrity will be there. I’ll be there with you,” said Hilly.

  “Tell you what. Tell them you can’t afford it and we can’t leave the show. Got it?” said Sammy, and returned to his rehearsal.

  Dejected, Hilly walked back to his office next door to the theater. He and Sammy had disagreements before, particularly over Sammy’s burgeoning relationship with Lola Falana. Hilly couldn’t understand it, and he’d ask Sammy, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Waddya mean?”

  “You got a beautiful wife at home. I don’t get it.”

  “Nothing to get.”

  Hilly picked up the phone and called Harry.

  “We have a problem,” said Hilly. “Sammy won’t do it. He’s frightened. He wanted me to tell you we can’t afford to leave the show.”

  “Can you?”

  “Of course we can’t afford it.”

  “Okay,” said Harry. “I have an idea.”

  Minutes later Hilly walked back downstairs into the theater and stood quietly at the front of the stage.

  “What?” said Sammy.

  “Harry bought out the show,” said Hilly.

  “He did what?!” cried Sammy.

  Now Sammy had no choice but to board a plane with Hilly for the quiet yet stressful flight to Alabama.

  President Lyndon Johnson called the events in Selma an “American tragedy” and promised to send a voting rights bill to Congress. And despite objections from Governor Wallace, Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard along with two thousand U.S. Army troops and ordered them to protect the marchers.

  Sammy arrived following a changeover in Atlanta and he and Elkins were met by Bull Connor, Birmingham’s former police chief. He was also a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a self-described segregationist, and currently Alabama’s public service commissioner. Sammy dove into a waiting car, and the drive to meet the marchers, who were nearing Montgomery, was nerve-racking. Racist posters and billboards lined the road, and many people carried handguns and rifles. Sammy and Hilly plunged straight into fear-tinged chaos. Thousands of people had joined the march, which was scheduled to culminate the following day with a speech by Dr. King on the capitol steps. Yet the festive atmosphere and goodwill present during the March on Washington was replaced by sheer terror as rocks, eggs, and other projectiles were thrown at the crowd. State troopers stood ready, dressed in riot gear, and on occasion a car would drive onto the road and into the marchers.

  An impromptu concert was arranged that night, and Sammy joined other performers on a makeshift stage where he sang “God Bless America” before he was escorted to his “blacks-only” hotel. For the final march, Sammy joined Dr. King, Belafonte, Leonard Bernstein, Tony Bennett, and thousands of others in the assembly area, and when they finally arrived at the capitol steps, they were greeted by a Confederate flag flying high above, next to the American flag. Dr. King slowly walked up the stairs of the capitol building, turned to the masses, and delivered another speech that mesmerized the nation. Sammy was awestruck. His shoes were covered in dirt and mud, and his shirt was wet with sweat, but his fear and terror were replaced by inspiration brought on by the sight and words of Dr. King.

  Sammy was deeply moved, and thankful to Hilly that he didn’t miss one precious moment of this historic event. On the flight home to New York, Sammy remained by a window, staring into the sky and smiling, his thoughts still back in Alabama.

  April 24, 1997

  To Whom It May Concern:

  The Internal Revenue Service is providing this letter to Altovise Davis for her use in exercising her rights as the residuary legatee of the Estate of Sammy Davis Jr. Altovise Davis has entered into an Offer in Compromise with the Internal Revenue Service concerning the collection of certain taxes. In that regard, the Internal Revenue Service has or is in the process of releasing all levies made prior to the date of this letter.

  Please cooperate with Altovise Gore Davis, a/k/a/Mrs. Sammy Davis Jr., concerning any and all rights she has as residuary legatee or in any other capacity in exercising control over the assets of the Estate of Sammy Davis Jr. including, but not limited to, the following:

  The rights and claims to the likeness and image of Sammy Davis Jr.

  The rights and claims to the residuals and royalties of Sammy Davis Jr.

  Sincerely yours,

  Los Angeles District Director

  Internal Revenue Service

  Media from around the world carried the news: The estate of Sammy Davis Jr. had finally been settled. After seven long years, Sammy’s name, image, and likeness were returned to his widow. The news stories included quotes from Sonny, who blamed the tax problem on a coal tax-shelter that was disallowed by the IRS in a ruling by the United States Tax Court. Altovise also provided a comment in a two-page press release announcing that “Altovise Gore Davis, widow of Sammy Davis Jr., settles with IRS.”

  “Sammy was a fighter and I know he would have wanted us to reach a settlement with the government rather than declare bankruptcy. He loved this country and the people in it, and recognized his responsibilities as an American. Although I have my personal challenges and still grieve over his loss, it is important that I use my best efforts to amicably resolve the various financial liabilities of Sammy’s estate.”

  The announcement spurred a tidal wave of phone calls and faxes from television and film producers, advertising agencies, entrepreneurs, the famous and not so famous, all now looking to do business with Mrs. Sammy Davis Jr. In the ensuing months dozens of offers, large and small, were presented to Sonny and Altovise. Among those expressing interest was the former Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Magic Johnson, who had a television division at Twentieth-Century Fox, Magic Johnson Entertainment, and wanted to produce a movie based on Sammy’s life story as well as explore other “opportunities” that might be available. Merv Griffin Entertainment was also interested in acquiring the rights to option Altovise’s life story for a film, along with publishing rights to a book. Tri-Star Television producer Stanley Brooks, and Hilliard Elkins, who produced Sammy’s Golden Boy, also vied for film and television rights. Premier Artists Service
s wanted the rights to any available Sammy recordings, while Bill Cosby wanted to finalize a deal to release Two Friends, a video of the 1983 Broadway show by the same name starring Cosby and Sammy. Cosby told stories and jokes, Sammy sang and danced. Cosby already paid a $25,000 advance to Sammy’s Transamerican Entertainment in 1988 and wanted to work out a new deal.

  Others called or sent letters inquiring about a variety of Sammy-related issues, from negotiating record deals to gaining permission for use of Sammy film clips to marketing and licensing. Mark Roesler, who headed Curtis Management Group, sought to represent the legal, marketing, and financial business of the Sammy Davis Jr. estate. Roesler, who had recently testified as an expert witness on behalf of Fred Goldman in the O. J. Simpson civil trial, said he represented a large group of deceased individuals who “shaped the twentieth century,” including Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, and Greta Garbo, and he wanted to add Sammy to his client roster.

  Ron Weisner, who had co-managed Michael Jackson, called to inquire about putting together a box set of Sammy’s music. Weisner said he’d handle everything from getting the record contract to remastering the tapes, creating the package and commemorative book, coordinating all press, and giving Sonny and Altovise a say in the final selection of songs that would be included in the set. In return Weisner sought 10 percent of the gross deal, which he believed could fetch upward of $400,000.