Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr.

by Davis, Sammy

  In Seattle, after our fourth show, the musicians would sit in with a college band run by a kid named Quincy Jones. I went along with them and we played, sang, and experimented with new things until dawn.

  There was a note under my door when I got home one morning. “Wake me whenever you come in. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. Will.”

  I heard the springs of his bed creak, then his slippers swooshing across the floor. He opened the door, rubbing his eyes, smiling. “Go get Big Sam.”

  I looked from one to the other. “Okay, now we have a pajama party. What’s it all about?”

  Will said, “We’re booked as the opening act at El Rancho Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. For five hundred dollars a week.” He smiled, pleased. “Mose Gastin, now let me hear you say we’re going to be buried.”

  The trade papers were bursting with news about Las Vegas. It was starting to become a show town. El Rancho and the Last Frontier were the first luxury hotels and there was talk about new hotels being planned to go up near them.

  My father was heating coffee on the hot plate. “The word is they’re payin’ acts twice as much as anywheres else. Free suites and food tabs.” Will said, “They’re out to make it the number one show town.” I listened to them like I was watching a ping-pong game. “… flyin’ customers in …” “Variety says …” “The whole business is watching what’s happening in Vegas.”

  I walked over to Will. “Massey, I’m going to do those impressions.”

  He got out of bed and stared out the window. I knew by his long silence that he wasn’t going to fight me. Finally, “Sammy, I don’t think you can get away with it. Still, you’re a third of the trio and you’ve seen a lot of show business so I won’t stop you. I’m just going to hope you’re right.”

  I looked around backstage while we waited to rehearse. The band was the biggest we’d ever worked with, the floor of the stage was springy and slick, the lighting was the most modern I’d ever seen. I was standing next to the stage manager. I asked, “Do I have it right about our rooms, that they’re a part of our deal here?”

  The manager came over to us as we finished rehearsing. “Sorry. We can’t let you have rooms here. House rules. You’ll have to find a place in the—uh, on the other side of town.”

  I picked up our suitcases. “Let’s go, Dad, Will.”

  The hotels we’d passed in the town itself looked awful compared to El Rancho but even they were out of bounds to us. The cab driver said, “There’s a woman name of Cartwright over in Westside takes in you people.”

  It was Tobacco Road. A three- or four-year-old baby, naked, was standing in front of a shack made of wooden crates and cardboard that was unfit for human life. None of us spoke.

  The driver sounded almost embarrassed. “Guess y’can’t say a lot for housing out here. Been hardly any call for labor ‘round these parts. Just a handful of porters and dishwashers they use over on the Strip. Not much cause for you people t’come to Vegas.”

  The cab stopped in front of one of the few decent houses. A woman was standing in the doorway. “Come right in, folks. You boys with one of the shows? Well, I got three nice rooms for you.”

  When she told us the price Will almost choked. “But that’s probably twice what it would cost at El Rancho Vegas.”

  “Then why don’t you go live at El Rancho Vegas?”

  “Pay her the money, Massey. It’s not important.”

  Will counted out the first week’s rent. My father smiled sardonically at her. “Looks like if the ofays don’t get us, then our own will.”

  “Business is business. I’ve got my own troubles.”

  My father followed me into my room. “Not half bad.” I nodded and started unpacking. He sat down and I could feel him watching me. I threw a shirt into a drawer and slammed it closed. “All right, Dad, for God’s sake what is it?”

  “That’s what it is. Exactly what you’re doin’, eatin’ yourself up, grindin’ your teeth. Y’can’t let it get t’you, Poppa. I know how you feels. But the fact is, when it comes time to lay your head down at night what’s the difference if it’s here or in a room at El Rancho?”

  “Dad, I don’t give a damn about their lousy rooms, I really don’t. Right now, the only thing in this world that I want is their stage!”

  As I danced, I did Satchmo. I shuffled across the stage like Step’n Fetchit. Then I spun around and came back doing the Jimmy Cagney walk to the center of the stage and stood there, facing my father and Will, doing Cagney’s legs-apart stance, the face, and then “All right … you dirty rats!” For a moment there was no sound from out front—then they roared.

  In the wings Will smiled warmly. “I’m glad I was wrong, Sammy.” My father laughed and hugged me. “Poppa, you was great!” He put me down. “Whattya say we get dressed after the next show and go look around the casino. I got fifty dollars that’s bustin’ t’grow into a hundred.”

  We went out the stage door and around the building. The desert all around us was as dark as night can be but the casino was blazing with light. The door opened and as some people came out there was an outpour of sounds such as I’d never before heard: slot machines clanging, dealers droning, a woman shrieking with joy—and behind it all, a background of the liveliest, gayest music I’d ever heard. As I held the door open for my father, my head went in all directions to slot machines, dice tables, waiters rushing around with drinks, a man carrying a tray full of silver dollars.

  I saw a hand on my father’s shoulder. A deputy sheriff was holding him, shaking his head.

  We rode to Mrs. Cartwright’s in silence. They got out of the cab and I continued on downtown where there was a movie theater, where for a few hours I could lose myself in other people’s lives.

  A hand gripped my arm like a circle of steel, yanking me out of my seat, half-dragging me out to the lobby. “What’re you, boy? A wise guy?” He was a sheriff, wearing a star badge and the big Western hat. His hand came up from nowhere and slapped across my face. He’d done it effortlessly but my jaw felt like it had been torn loose from my head. “Speak up when I talk to you!”

  “What’d I do?”

  “Don’t bull me, boy. You know the law.”

  When I explained I’d just gotten to town and had never been there before, he pointed to a sign. “Coloreds sit in the last three rows. You’re in Nevada now, not New York. Mind our rules and you’ll be treated square. Go on back and enjoy the movie, boy.”

  I had no choice but to go in. A Mickey Rooney picture was on. After a while I glanced up to catch a song he was doing and I looked away, still steaming. Then I looked up again and I forgot the cop and the theater and the rules and I was dancing across the campus in a college musical. An hour later I was Danny Kaye git-gat-gattling my way through the army. Then the lights went on and I was sitting in the last row of an almost empty movie theater, and again I was a Negro in a Jim Crow town.

  I went back to Mrs. Cartwright’s and slammed her dirty, gouging door and swore to myself that someday it would be different. I tried reading but I couldn’t keep my mind on the book. I felt closed in so I went out for a walk but the sight of all the poorness drove me back to my room. I stared out the window at the glow of the lights from the Strip in the distance until it faded into the morning sun.

  I should have been tired the next night but as eight o’clock drew near I was vibrating with energy and I couldn’t wait to get on the stage. I worked with the strength of ten men.

  We did our shows and went out to get a cab to Mrs. Cartwright’s. I looked away from the lights of the casino but I couldn’t avoid hearing the sounds. Night after night I had to pass that door to get a cab. Once, between shows, I stood around the corner where nobody would see me, and waited for the door to open so I could catch the short bursts of gaiety that escaped as people went in and came out. I sat on the ground for an hour, listening and wondering what it must be like to be able to just walk in anywhere.

  My father looked into my room, smiling. “Hey, P
oppa, you wanta come out and wrap yourself around some of the best barbecue you’ll ever taste? Then after lunch we could look in on the bar. It’s a real nice place. They got a Keeno game goin’ and we can double our money.” He was selling me, as he had been every day for a week.

  “Thanks, Dad. You go ahead.”

  “Hell, son, come on and get some laughs outa life.”

  “I’m happy, Dad.”

  “No you ain’t.”

  “The hell I’m not.”

  “The hell you is. You sit here all day listening to them records when already you sound more like them people than they do. Then you’re blowin’ the horn….”

  “And I’m getting pretty good. Here, listen….”

  “I know.” He tapped on the wall, causing a hollow knocking sound, and smiled. “This ain’t exactly made outa three-foot-thick cement.” He sat down on the bed. “Poppa, you do impressions, you dance, you play drums and trumpet, but you don’t know doodly squat about livin’. You’re not havin’ your fun.”

  “I will, Dad. Bet your life on it. I will!”

  He gave me a frustrated look. “Okay, son. I don’t know how t’help you. So just tell me….”

  I watched him walking down the street toward the commercial section of Westside. There were a few decent places over there and under other conditions I could have enjoyed them, but the idea that I was being told, “That’s your side of town, stay there,” that those were the only places I was allowed in, made it impossible for me to go near them.

  He looked back and saw me in the window and waved, offering me a chance to change my mind. I waved back and he turned and kept walking. I picked up the trumpet and started playing.

  There was no bus or train out of Vegas until morning but I gladly paid fifty dollars to a musician for a lift into L.A. an hour after we closed. He dropped me a block from the Morris and I walked toward the hotel. Everywhere I looked were the dregs of Los Angeles, as if every pimp and dope peddler in town had suddenly moved onto Fifth Street. I reached the Morris but kept walking, faster, almost running. I saw an empty cab and ran into the street to flag him down.

  When we’d gone a few blocks, I began to feel the pressure easing, and I didn’t have to hold my breath any more.

  “Made up your mind yet, buddy?”

  “Yes. The Sunset Colonial, please.” Lots of performers stayed there and I knew they’d take me. It was on Sunset Strip, in Hollywood, and it was more expensive but I knew that no matter what I had to do—or do without—I was never going back to Fifth Street.

  I went over to the Frank Sinatra show and sent my name in. I was “the kid” to him and he let me watch rehearsals every week. I sat around the studio, absorbing everything that was happening, inhaling the atmosphere of the Big Time like it was clean, delicious, fresh air.

  I figured if I spent my time at places where show people hung out, maybe I’d make a connection that could do us some good. There was a club called Billy Berg’s where I could get Cokes at the bar. Mel Tormé came in all the time. He had the Mel-Tones and he was dating Ava Gardner. I made it my business to meet him and we became friends. Frankie Laine sang there every Sunday night for twenty dollars at the jam sessions. We’d sit at the bar and he’d have a beer and say, “I’m just waiting for that break to come along.”

  Through Jesse Price, a drummer, I made a connection at Capitol Records and got a contract for fifty dollars a side.

  Will shrugged. “You sure didn’t get yourself much of a deal. The thing to have is a royalty, something that’d come to about a nickel apiece for every record they sell.”

  “Massey, when I’m Bing Crosby I’ll ask for royalties. Right now what I want is this opening.”

  At the studio, I listened to the band running through the music: thirty-two bars of clichés, with all the musical riffs lifted from other people’s hits. The conductor was swinging his baton with all the enthusiasm of a guy painting a house, and the band of staff musicians who ground out one session after another for no-names like me was playing like I was number 428. I knew I was lucky just to be getting the chance but I couldn’t help hearing the contrast between this and the fresh, vital sound of the Hit Parade band.

  Mama’s kitchen was the warmest room because it had no windows, but even so, my father and I wore overcoats and had the oven on low. The refrigerator, unplugged to save electricity, was open, scrubbed clean, and empty except for some ads my father had clipped from magazines: pictures of a roast beef, eggs, butter, sausage, and a bottle of milk.

  It was 1946 and everybody else was rich and happy, tearing up their ration stamps and ordering their first new cars in five years. We, however, were bringing down the National Prosperity Average. We’d left L.A., plodding our way across the country, barely making expenses at the same old clubs, finally limping into New York and up to Harlem where Mama was still on relief. We were a great big help, starving on occasional one-nighters and listening to Jack Eigen telling us he was at the goddamned Copa.

  Nathan Crawford’s factory had laid off a lot of men and forced him to take a cut to twenty-five dollars a week, but still he came stumbling into Mama’s place every Friday, doing his drunk act and giving her at least ten or fifteen dollars, never letting on how rough things were for him. We watched it week after week, unable to find sufficient words to say to this man who was actually keeping Mama alive.

  My father was tapping Variety with the back of his hand. “Accordin’ to this, the Chicago clubs are usin’ acts by the hundreds. I heard the same thing from some of the boys. The sayin’ is ‘You can burp and get booked.’ ”

  “It’s a long walk, Dad.” I was skimming through Metronome, hoping maybe Capitol had taken an ad.

  I took Variety out of my father’s hands, stood up, and bowed. “Metronome has picked me, your son and heir, as The Most Outstanding New Personality of The Year.’ Plus, ‘The Way You Looked Tonight’ has been chosen Record of the Year.”

  He read it and we screamed with laughter. He took an iron washer out of his pocket. It was the size of a quarter and we’d been using them to get cigarettes out of machines. He stood, ceremoniously. “Mr. Davis, I presents you with the first Iron Record ever given out in music. It’s a honor which means: you sings good even if you sells bad.”

  I went downtown to Metronome to thank them, hoping they’d write more about me. I saw Barry Ulanov and George Simon, the editors, and sure enough they said they’d like to do a story on me, but they suggested I ask Billy Eckstine, who was playing the Paramount, to pose for a picture with me to give the story name value. He was a friend of the family and it was embarrassing to ask this kind of a favor, but I called him.

  He posed with me the next afternoon between shows and I started to leave. “Thanks a lot, B. I really appreciate it.”

  “Thanks for what? C’mon up and sit with me awhile.” I followed him to the star dressing room, we had coffee and he asked how things were going for us.

  There was no point in trying to kid him. He’d know we had to be in trouble or we wouldn’t be taking the one-nighters. “No good. We just can’t seem to get off the ground. I’m getting some good write-ups on the records but they’re not selling.”

  “You meeting the rent?”

  “We’re hungry, B.”

  He shook his head compassionately. “It’s rough.”

  I thought about asking him for a loan. Pride is great but Mama and my father were at home with an empty icebox and not twenty cents between them, and I knew it would be like twelve times Christmas if I came back with a few dollars for food. “B, if you could lend me five dollars, I’d sure appreciate it.”

  He looked at his watch, a gold and diamond one that must have cost $500. “Come on downstairs and watch the show.”

  I stood in the wings waiting for him to go on. I shouldn’t have asked him. Maybe he was broke, or maybe he just didn’t want to lend me any money. It seemed that it would be nothing to him but you never know about people when it comes to money. He’d been great about
taking the picture but that hadn’t cost him anything. What the hell, why shouldn’t he have done it? Not that he needed it, but it couldn’t hurt him any to have his picture in Metronome again. He was onstage and I could see the spotlight bouncing off a diamond ring he was wearing. We could eat on that for a year … he’s got a helluva nerve keeping me on the string like this for a few lousy dollars, humiliating me, making me stand here like a moocher. It’s a lesson I won’t forget: keep your problems to yourself unless you know the guy you’re telling them to is going to help you. I started to walk out, to show him I didn’t need him. But I did need him.

  I watched him work. He was everything I was not: tall and good-looking and sure of himself, and he had every right to be. He was a giant in the business, as hot as the news yet to come, and they were packing the place to see him. Everything he wore was made to order for him and it all had its own style. He reeked of success. And the way he handled himself. What a pro!

  As he came off I said, “Great show, B. Thanks a lot for the picture. I’ve gotta cut and get uptown, now.”

  “Here, wait a minute, you forgot this.”

  I left, hating myself for misjudging him, disgusted with myself for being so nowhere that I had to bum a few dollars from a man I didn’t even know that well. When I was on the street I took it out of my pocket. It was a hundred-dollar bill. He’d known we were in trouble, but he had the sensitivity not to show it by offering me money. Instead he’d opened the subject so I could ask him if I chose to.

  We hit Chicago laughing and scratching and ready to go. Will went out every day, from club to club, agent to agent, but we might as well have been out of town. People were standing in line for entertainment but after two months of stagnating at the old Ritz Hotel on Chicago’s South Side we still hadn’t been able to get on a stage.

  Ossie Wilson, an old friend of my father’s, was keeping us off the streets, standing for the ten dollars a week rent on our rooms. He was running poker games and depending on whether he won or lost, we ate or starved. He hit a losing streak for eight days and the only thing Will, my dad, and I had to eat was a Mr. Goodbar apiece and a So-Grape. Occasionally his girl friend brought us the leftovers from their dinner, but after another week he was still on a losing streak and it reached the point where we were down to filling ourselves with water. The pain of hunger was almost matched by the excruciating frustration of idle hours, of knowing all the entertainment we had welled up inside us, while the radio taunted us with all the sounds of the life for which we were so starved. Night after night we listened to interview shows hysterical with the atmosphere of a nightclub boom, and we sat there endlessly wondering how it was possible we couldn’t get into it.