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

by Davis, Sammy

  I closed the dressing room door. “Y’know, Dad, Massey, I’ve been thinking, I’ve got some ideas, things we need.”

  Will hung up his coat. “Like what?”

  “Well, the first thing is our own conductor.”

  “Have you any idea what it’d cost to have our own man?”

  “Massey, please, hear me out. I’ve got a lot going for me—I dance, I do jokes, impressions, and I play the instruments, right? If one thing dies I could keep switching until I find the thing that’ll entertain them. But I’m wasting my versatility by being tied to a routine, I’m not getting the most mileage out of it if I can’t use each thing when it’ll work best. Now, if I had my own conductor, a guy who knows the act backwards, then, as soon as I see what I need I’d give him a cue and wham, we’d swing right into what I need when I need it. Tonight was the perfect example. When I got to the impressions the people just weren’t ready for them.”

  “Well … they hadn’t quite settled down as much as would’ve been best. But once you got started …”

  “Meanwhile I completely lost the value of the first two or three guys I did. I was dying to switch our order and do the drums in that spot and then the impressions. But I was stuck to the way the band had rehearsed it. It’s ridiculous! I can’t do the same show for a dinner crowd that I do for the hard drinkers. Every audience is different, what’s great one night dies the next, so I’ve got to have the flexibility to give them exactly what they want at that moment. But I can’t know what it’ll be until I get out there and feel them.”

  Will put up his hands. “Hold on, now, and let’s come down to facts. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be dandy to have our own man. But a good conductor comes high, maybe four or five hundred a week. We’ve gotten by all our lives without one….”

  “We can’t just ‘get by’ any more. The people aren’t going to excuse the rough edges like they did when we were coming up. We’re right on the brink of being headliners and if we’re gonna get inside then we’ve gotta come in like we rate it. We need the little touches, the professionalism.”

  “You said there was a couple of things? What else?”

  “A press agent. Now before you tell me I’m crazy, take Buffalo, we’ve got only two weeks there, right? So, we should have a good man arrive ahead of us with his hands full of our New York reviews—someone like Jess Rand, the kid who works for the press agent here—he should hit every newspaper and radio and TV guy around, setting up interviews and appearances, everything he can. Then I get to town a few days early, I make six or seven stops a day and by the time we open, the papers are full of us.”

  Will was smiling. “Sammy, you’re not crazy. You’re just ahead of yourself.”

  “Massey, let’s be honest, take five hundred away from the four thousand we’ll be making in Buffalo and you know we’ve lived on a lot less than $3500 a week. Hey, do you realize what a guy like Jess Rand could do with a human interest thing like that? ‘The same act that got $40 a week and a meal returns to Harry Altman’s Town Casino at $4000 per week just a few years later!’ Can’t you see it in the papers?”

  “I can. But I’d rather see it in the bank. Now’s the time for us t’put some aside in case something happens and we don’t keep working.”

  “No! You’re dead wrong. Now’s the time to put on the pressure and use everything we’ve got so that nothing does happen except us getting bigger.”

  He was shaking his head, sitting there like an adding machine. I’d made no impression on him at all.

  I stood in the wings rooting for Jackie Miles to get big laughs. We were a tough act to follow, particularly for a guy who did his soft, quiet type of humor. The Janis Paige story had spread throughout the industry and plenty of headliners didn’t want us on the bill with them. Jackie was tremendously “hot” and easily in a position to tell Bill Miller, “Hey, cut those guys down to twelve minutes. I worked a long time to get where I am. I don’t have to work that hard—to follow an act like that!” But we were told that he’d said to Bill Miller, “Give ‘em their heads. Let the kid do as much time as he wants.”

  Jess Rand came backstage with Danny Stradella. He was about my height and he seemed so young that it was hard to imagine him the owner of Danny’s Hideaway, a restaurant that was constantly mentioned in the columns as a celebrities’ hangout. He was tremendously warm and invited me to come there for dinner. He insisted. “Make it tomorrow night before the show, will you? Bring Jess. He’ll show you where it is.”

  I met Jess at Hanson’s drugstore at six o’clock and we took a cab across town toward East 45th Street. He said, “I’ve got great news, chicky. I set up an interview for you with the Associated Press.”

  “I’m sorry, Jess. What’d you say?”

  “I got you an interview with the Associated Press.”

  “Sounds great. Does Danny’s have a doorman?”

  “Sure. What afternoon this week can you make it?”

  “Make what?”

  “Listen, this is a fantastic break. It’ll run in hundreds of papers.”

  “… Jess, I’m sorry. I’ve got some things on my mind. Can we talk about it later? Maybe at dinner?”

  “Well, sure … anything wrong?”

  “No, everything’s swinging.” We rode a few blocks in silence. “Jess? What’s it like inside?”

  “Inside what?”

  “Danny’s.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s sporty—celebrity pictures on the walls, no menus, good food, steaks and Italian, very homey.”

  “Hey, wouldn’t it be a shakeup if Danny forgot he invited us?”

  “You kidding?”

  “Well, he might’ve been a little high last night.”

  “Naah.”

  The doorman held the door for us. I spotted Danny standing at a little desk. He rushed over and grabbed my hand. “I’m glad you could make it.” He walked me to a table in the front corner. A young guy with a cane and the Herbert Marshall walk came over. Danny said, “This is Cliff Cochrane, my press agent.” We shook hands and he said, “I hear you’re doing great across the river. The whole town’s talking about you guys.”

  A heavy-set, red-faced man was coming straight at me. My stomach tightened. About three feet away, he began smiling. “Mr. Davis, may I shake your hand? I was at your opening the other night and I never enjoyed anything so much.”

  I finished my main course and asked for a check. Pete the headwaiter came over. “Compliments of Mr. Danny.” On the way out I thanked him but he brushed it off. “Cut it out, willya? Thank you for coming in.” He put his arm around my shoulders and walked us to the door. “Now, don’t be a stranger. Please, I want you to think of this as your home away from home—y’know what I mean?”

  Danny and Marty Mills caught the late show that night and drove me back to New York. Marty said, “How about a sandwich?”

  The last thing I wanted was to be the cause of an incident somewhere. Especially in front of Danny. He thought of me as a winner….

  He was saying “Let’s go over to Longchamps, at 59th and Madison. They’re open all night. Most of the kids from the shows drop in. We’ll have some laughs.”

  As we reached the East Side I asked them to let me out at 61st Street. “I’ll meet you in a little while. There’s something I’ve gotta do.”

  “We’ll wait for you in the car.”

  “No, please. You guys go ahead. Everything’s fine, no problems.”

  They had to think I was crazy but they dropped me at Fifth Avenue and 61st. I started walking toward a dark building as if I really had something to do there. When they were out of sight I looked for a phone so I could call Longchamps and leave word I couldn’t make it. But I was repulsed by the indignity of backing away. It was the defeat of everything I wanted. I killed twenty minutes walking around the block, and headed for the restaurant. At least if it’s a turn-away maybe nobody’ll see it.

  I looked through the plate-glass window. Marty was sitting at the table talking t
o someone, but his eyes were glued to the entrance. By the time I went through the revolving door he was at my side, leading me to our table. Four showgirls from the Riviera were sitting there with Danny. I pointed to a table for two right next to it. “Let’s you and me take this one.” I didn’t wait for him to answer. He shrugged, not understanding, but he sat with me.

  Danny gaped at us. “What the hell are y’doing?”

  I gave it a Jack Benny reading. “I hope you won’t take it personally but I can’t sit with those girls. They’re only in the chorus and I’m a star! I mean, you understand—” The girls laughed and I played it like I had something private to tell Marty and somehow I got lucky and Danny wasn’t insulted. Or, maybe he understood.

  In the middle of our spot on the Sullivan show the coaxial cable broke for the first time in television history and every screen in America was blacked out. Only the sound remained on. We didn’t find out about it until we were off the air. My father and Will, everybody, treated it like it was a disaster. But to me it seemed that it had worked for us. Ed Sullivan told us he’d book us again, which was gravy, and the next day’s papers were full of stories about what had happened, they ran my picture captioned “The Mystery Guest,” “The Invisible Man?” and “The Little Man Who Wasn’t There,” and people all over the country were saying, “Some guy was on Ed Sullivan’s program when the picture went off and I’d have sworn it was James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart talking to Edward G. Robinson. You never heard anything like it….” It drew more attention and caused more talk about us than there could possibly have been if everything had gone smoothly.

  Passing the musicians’ rehearsal room between shows, I was stopped by the sound of somebody noodling on the clarinet, real music, creative, sensitive, a man daydreaming through a horn. It was Morty Stevens. A guy I’d thought of as just a hack in a show band was a musician when he wasn’t tied down to corny arrangements of popular songs. He saw me and stopped, and self-consciously began drying the reed.

  I sat down next to him. “You ever do any arrangements? I mean original stuff? I’ve been thinking about doing some straight singing in the act. If I could get the right arrangement of ‘Birth of the Blues’ it would work beautifully for me. You want to take a shot at it?”

  “And how! I’d love to hear you do some straight singing. You do everybody else and you sound better than they do.”

  “Crazy. Here’s the way I picture doing it—I don’t want to tell you how to arrange …”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Well, the thing is I don’t want to stand there like ‘Hey, look at me, I’m a singer.’ First of all that’s not what people come to see me for, and secondly I don’t kid myself I’m about to be a Frank Sinatra. So I’ve got to do it like no straight singer would. I want the freedom to move with it, to drop in a few dance steps if I feel I need them, maybe switch to impressions in the chorus, and instead of bluesy like Harry Richman does it, I want it to be loud enough and exciting enough to shatter the glassware.”

  Three days later he played it for me on the piano in the rehearsal room, and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He was such a quiet guy but the arrangement went like a mad man. As I listened he suddenly became somebody I wanted to know better. The one thing I really respected was talent and he had it coming out of his ears. He’d taken my basic ideas of how I wanted to perform it and developed it with a complete understanding of my voice and my kind of performing, tailoring it for me so that I could really go with it.

  My father sailed his hat across the dressing room onto the hook. “Wow, what a number! Hell, they was still stuck to the ceiling five minutes after you’d done it.”

  Will nodded. “That’s a great piece of material.”

  “Yeah, but it’s too powerful to do in the middle of the act. I was left hanging with stuff that wasn’t nearly strong enough to follow it. I’ll have the band change the order around. It’ll be fantastic for the closing. Damn! If we’d had our own conductor tonight I’d have cut off the last five minutes and gone off on all that excitement! Massey, we’ve got to get our own man! We can’t put it off any longer.”

  “We can put it off ‘til we’ve got the money to pay for one.”

  “We’ve gotta find the money for this. Take it out of my piece, I don’t care where it comes from, I’m going to talk to Morty Stevens about coming with us.”

  “Morty Stevens? What’s he ever done but one song?”

  “He hasn’t done much but I think he’s good. Really good. Okay, so he doesn’t have the experience of an older guy but that also means I won’t be up against: ‘Well, this is how it’s always been done.’ ”

  Will almost laughed. “He ain’t no conductor. Anyway, this is a colored act. We don’t need no white people in it.”

  I jumped out of my chair. “Whattya mean this is a colored act? It’s not a colored act or a white act. It’s just a plain ‘act.’ ”

  Will was out of his chair, too. “I’m the boss of this act and what I say goes and don’t you forget it! This is a colored act and it’s gonna stay a colored act until I die.”

  “For God’s sake, Will, what’s the difference? If he’s good he’s good. That’s all we should think about.”

  “Don’t tell me what I should think about. My thinking kept you in food and clothes all your life and it got us up to $1500 a week and more to follow….”

  I had to get out of there. I wandered around the parking lot and kicked a few tires. He had sixty years of one-way thinking and nothing I could say was going to change him.

  He was sitting in his chair, staring at the wall. He looked up as I came in and I put out my hand. “I’m sorry, Massey.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Sammy. I guess sometimes I lose track of how you’re a full-grown man. I don’t intend for it to come out like I’m the boss and you gotta do it my way. You’ve a right to your say same as Big Sam and me.”

  Milton Berle was at center ringside, watching, appraising, as performers will. Occasionally his head would nod like he was saying to himself, “Yeah, that’s good,” and I put extra steam into everything I did, because as a performer his little nods or the lack of them told me far more than a layman’s applause.

  I dressed quickly, knowing that he’d give us the courtesy of stopping back to say hello.

  After we’d spoken about the performance for a few minutes, he said, “Hey, you talk pretty good!” But he didn’t mean it entirely as a compliment. In going for articulation I had slipped into the British thing again, but by this time I was practically the Prince of Wales and he was warning me against it. There was no excuse for making the same mistake again.

  Berle lit a cigar. “Lemme suggest something to you. Y’know the line you did when the drunk heckled you? The way you’re doing it now, it’s ‘If you’re ever in California, I hope you’ll come by my house and take some drowning lessons in my pool.’ It’s a cute line, but you’re not getting the most out of it. Switch it around. Frame it as a straight invitation, like, ‘If you’re ever in California, sir, I do hope you’ll come by and use my pool.’ A guy has been heckling you and you say something nice to him? This confuses the audience, and they’re waiting. Now you hit him with the punch line: ‘I’d love to give you some drowning lessons!’ The element of surprise has to get you a bigger laugh. Also, the joke phrase is ‘drowning lessons’ so let those be the last words. You can’t follow them with ‘in my pool,’ or you’re stepping on your own laugh. You force them to pause to listen and if they can’t laugh the second they want to you’ll lose part of it.”

  “I’m not about to argue with you on how to do a line.”

  “If you do I’ll break your arm. There’s one other thing. When you get a guy who starts throwing lines at you like that, don’t go for him right away. Ignore him the first couple of times. Let the audience become disgusted with him so that by the time you finally belt him they’ll be rooting for you and you almost can’t miss.”

  He stood up to leave and we shook hands.
“I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Berle—”

  “The name is Milton. Listen, I’m going down to Lindy’s. You feel like a sandwich?”

  Danny had been coming by every night. He was waiting for me in his car with Marty and Cliff. “You guys better go without me tonight. I’m sorry, but Milton Berle asked me to join him at Lindy’s.”

  Marty gave me a wink. Danny said, “Hey, that’s pretty good.”

  I sighed, “Yes, it’s a little sit-around-and-have-a-sandwich. Just us stars.”

  He smiled. “I’ll give you a star—right between the eyes. See you tomorrow at dinner.”

  The doorman at Lindy’s spotted Berle’s limousine pulling up, rushed to the curb, opened the door and I stepped out. Milton gestured for me to go ahead of him and I spun through the revolving door. He introduced me to the guys who’d been waiting for him, and made a place for me next to him. Everybody at the table focused attention on me. “Caught the act,” “tremendous,” “where do you play after the Riviera?” They were press agents, personal managers, comedy writers, all Broadway pros who were on close terms with a lot of stars and they knew I was just a “kid who’s moving up” but they treated me almost as if I were already there, giving me far more attention and acceptance than I really rated. It seemed that as much as the world loves a winner it reaches out all the more for a contender.

  Suddenly Berle stood up and shouted at me. “Okay, out! out! I don’t need you to steal my audience.”

  As we left there an hour later Milton offered me a lift but the world was beautiful and I felt like walking in it. I headed downtown, crossed 51st Street and as I passed the Capitol Theater, I thought about Frank. I’d read that he was in town and I was wondering where he was staying and how I could get in touch with him, when I looked across the street and there he was. I started to run after him and call out to him but I stopped, my arm in the air. He was slowly walking down Broadway with no hat on and his collar up—and not a soul was paying attention to him. This was the man who only a few years ago had tied up traffic all over Times Square. Thousands of people had been stepping all over each other trying to get a look at him. Now the same man was walking down the same street and nobody gave a damn. God, how could it happen?