Sammy Davis Jr.

by Tracey Davis

  On his 1961 trip to London Pop was presented to the Queen Mother at a Royal Command Performance. He was overwhelmed by the honor.

  “We left early, first thing, flying out of Detroit to Washington. We got in and it was early in the morning and it was already happening. The streets were alive and buzzing. . . .

  “I was scared. You know, wonder what’s going to happen? The anticipation of what was going to happen. They were saying things like, if ten thousand people show up it’ll be something. You know, maybe twenty thousand at best. And all the police! Within around three hours of arriving, you knew there was not going to be a riot. Everybody was smiling. And the malcontents were kept so far away that they couldn’t interfere. You saw everybody, you saw them all. Lerone Bennett and a few other of the guys from Johnson Publications, Ebony, and Jet, a few of the photographers, black and white photographers that I knew. We were standing on the steps before the speakers started. Then King got there. And I’m standing, looking down from Lincoln down to the Washington Monument, and going, it’s going to be a good day, man, and everybody started smiling and you knew there ain’t going to be no trouble. This is going to be great. This is what we prayed for. And it was like a virus that spread among the people. It was everybody. I saw little vignettes of things. People touching, holding hands, probably black people who had never touched white people, or hugged or had a physical line of communication before in their lives. And vice versa. White people who had never been next to a poor, humble black woman and her child that she’s holding and everybody had love, it was unbelievable. It really was an unbelievable day, and I remember somebody saying to me, come on, sit on the podium. And I said, no—I can’t see from the podium. I want to see it. I want to be out front. And one of the guys from Ebony said, well, Sam, come sit down here. And I went down like in the first, second row, because I was taking pictures and I wanted to be where I could see what was happening, as opposed to being up there looking out at the people. And then afterwards I came up and there were some pictures taken and I walked up to Martin, and everybody was crying, and I just remember saying, thank you. Thank you. And I couldn’t say any more than that. And he grabbed me and hugged me and I hugged him, and they swept him away.

  With Martin Luther King outside of Pop’s dressing room at the Majestic Theater in New York, 1965

  The 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington. Pop is being interviewed with Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP.

  Writer James Baldwin, my father, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dad in 1962, in his prime, putting on someone else’s records at a press luncheon.

  “It was a monumental day in many respects. First of all, more than any single incident, the galvanizing of what the Civil Rights Movement was about was that day. It showed that we could live together, the black and whites and Hispanics and everybody else, that we should be pulling together.

  “I think it was the most American day in the history of our country, save for perhaps the Battle of Bunker Hill. Or, maybe the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s to be put on that level, for me, it’s on the level of that kind of an occasion.

  Twenty years later to the day of the march we all went back. And we recaptured it, the affection, and to see people who had been there twenty years earlier and to see the people who now were there, the young faces, it was joyous. A couple of kids came up to me and said, Sam? You were here before. Is this what it was like? I said: Yeah. Keep it going, man, keep it going.

  My father and Peter Lawford in the 1968 film Salt & Pepper

  My father was feeling in good spirits. “Okay, I got a good Lessie Lee story. I remember after your mom and I got divorced—we’ll save that for another day—your mother eventually moved the family to Lake Tahoe. I would do a Harrah’s show and ride my three-wheel chopper over to visit with you kids. Your mother would say all excited, ‘Oh look, here comes your father on a motorcycle!’ and Lessie Lee would mutter under her breath, ‘Fool!’” My father laughed hard.

  “Lessie Lee is just a character. Mom always said she knew from the first minute she met Lessie Lee that she was the one to help with the kids and stay with our family for a lifetime,” I said.

  In June 1963, Pop was in Vegas working. Lessie Lee was caring for me and my brother Mark. My mother went off to attend the premiere of Cleopatra. She was part of the fourth night charity event or something. There was my mother in the audience, watching the film, when someone tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Your house has been robbed.”

  “Oh my God, really?” Mom exclaimed.

  As the story goes, three men posed as policemen and forced their way into our home on Evanview Drive. The doorbell rang, Lessie Lee looked through the peephole, saw police officers, and opened up the door. They tied up Lessie Lee, took a $15,000 diamond necklace, loads of other jewelry, and at least seven jeweled watches. Thank God, me and Mark were safe, being so young. Lessie Lee was scared out of her mind, poor thing.

  “Pop, remember the robbery on Evanview? Is that why you moved to David O. Selznick’s mansion in Beverly Hills?” I asked my father.

  “Well, we were planning to move, anyway. Your mother was looking for another house. It didn’t happen right away, because I remember late that year after the robbery we entertained Bing Crosby and his wife, the actress Kathryn Grant, for dinner and a film in our screening room. We called the screening room ‘the playhouse’ on Evanview Drive. But one day I was out of town working, and your mother called and said, ‘I found this house, it is simply elegant, pure class, doesn’t scream gaudy, just breathtaking and homey.’ So I told your mother, ‘Get it!’” Pop said.

  “Sight unseen?” I asked my dad.

  “Sight unseen!” Pop said.

  “Geez, Pop, you were generous!” I said.

  “It cost a fortune back in the day, but happy wife, happy life,” Pop said.

  My father would not be the only celebrity to own producer David O. Selznick’s former mansion over the decades. Ed McMahon and George Hamilton are among the house’s other former owners. In 2010, it went on the market at $15.9 million.

  The 1934 mansion was designed by Roland Coate and built in Beverly Hills for Selznick, who won a Best Picture Oscar for Gone With the Wind. It was a simple, traditional house, with all the trimmings of sheer elegance. The house had seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms with more than three-quarters of an acre of manicured grounds including a pool. It had a two-story entry, a formal living room, and a dining room with multiple fireplaces with original Greek keystone-shaped marble. The house had a walk-in bar in the family room, a library, a billiards room, an office, and two maids’ quarters.

  With Cicely Tyson in the 1966 movie A Man Called Adam

  Judy Garland appeared on Dad’s show in 1966 and they performed a memorable musical routine dressed as hobos, just as she had done with Fred Astaire in the film Easter Parade.

  The nurse came out to check on my father. She suggested that it might be time for Pop to go inside and rest. Together we assisted father inside and up to his bedroom. I gave Pop a kiss on the forehead.

  “I had fun today, Popsicle,” I told my father.

  “Me, too, Trace Face.” Pop grinned.

  “See you tomorrow. Get some rest. I love you,” I said.

  “I love you more, baby. Bring me brownies.” Pop smiled, then his eyes widened as a new memory came to mind.

  “Brownies. Sit down for a sec, I got a story I want to share before you take off,” Pop chuckled, “A laced brownie story.”

  “This ought to be good. . . .” I sat back down.

  “Well, you know how focused I was onstage. Something would happen when I walked on stage, there was that magic line, and poof that focus was there. Except one time. Someone had sent me some brownies and I didn’t know they had put something in them.”

  “I was munching on these brownies about a half hour before I had to get onstage. And I’m getting stoned. Totally wasted. So Murphy Bennett or Shirley Rhodes, someone co
mes in and says, ‘what are you eating?’ I’m like, ‘uhmm, these are good, real good,’ licking my lips. They took one of the brownies, cracked it in half, and saw a marijuana stem sticking out of it. I hear, ‘You got pot in here, someone cooked—oh, get this crap out of here!’ I thought, no wonder I am feeling funny.”

  “Oh, Pop, that’s classic!” I said laughing.

  “I can hear the guy backstage saying, ‘You’re on in fifteen, Sammy!’ I said, ‘What can I do to come down?’ Someone in the room said, ‘Why don’t you drink some hot soup?’ Good idea, I think. I love soup, right? They get me some tomato soup, and I drink it out of this big mug. The thing I didn’t know is that if you eat marijuana and you drink hot soup, you go through the ceiling. Now by the time the guy announces, ‘On in five,’ I’m flying high as a kite: ‘Yeah baby! I’ll be there! Don’t worry about it! I’ll be there! I’m gonna be there!’”

  “Funny!” I’m cracking up now.

  “I walked on the stage. I did the opening number, a second number, and I turned to the audience and said, ‘I know I have been on a long time, so may I say good night.’ I walked off the stage, thinking I had done an hour and twenty minutes. Not. And the audience at the O’Keith Center in Toronto, well, let’s just say, I never played back there again.” Pop laughed.

  “Don’t eat what fans send you, Pop,” I said, chuckling.

  “No joke. Okay, now get your pregnant butt out of here! Love ya, baby!”

  “Love ya, too!” And off I went, hollering behind me, “See you for breakfast, I’ll bring the brownies!”

  In my car on the way home, I thought about the Rat Pack. I remembered a story my father told me about their last tour together. It was March of 1988. Frank had said that Sammy was sixty-two, and he’s the kid. Frank was seventy-two and Dean was seventy. Frank said at their ages the only annual event they could hope for was their birthdays. But Frank and my father were determined to do a final tour, and it was all in an effort to save their buddy Dean. Dean, who always found humor in everything and was extremely funny, had just lost his son, Dean Paul Martin, in a plane crash. He was extremely depressed, in a state like his friends had never seen him. Pop said, “Dean didn’t need the money from a final tour, he had plenty, lived humbly, dressed simply.” When he would do a show in Vegas, he would bring one tuxedo, one shirt—no makeup, no accessories in his dressing room. The only jewelry he wore was a watch he had designed himself and a flashy pinky ring given to him by Frank. Dean was a simple, happy, humorous man until the death of his son. Pop and Frank thought hitting a tour would restore his spirits.

  Mom and Dad enjoying a screening of Sergeants 3 back in 1961.

  Dean didn’t want to do the final tour, but wasn’t about to let his buddies down. They held a major press conference with local newspapers, TV networks, radio, magazine, and foreign press. The plan was to do about thirty cities, in two parts. The Rat Pack would work March and April of ’88, take a few months off to play Vegas dates, then finish up part two in September and October. Frank, as he often did onstage, told my father to start it off. “Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for coming here today . . .” and Dean piped in from behind saying, “Is there any way we can call the whole thing off?” The press roared. Pop continued that they wanted to officially announce that they would be together again, the first time since Vegas in the ’60s. Frank didn’t miss a beat, “And definitely the last time.” The press roared. The chemistry, the rapport between Frank, Dean, and Sammy, was back. The love was deep, the humor was there, and the hip banter cheered Dean up, just as they had hoped.

  The first two rehearsals were held at my father’s house. Pop would say, “Frank, all kidding aside, we still think of you as Chairman of the Board.” Dean would respond with, “Yeah, Frank. You’re the chairman and we’re bored.” Or sometimes you would hear my father on a mic offstage after Frank finished a song, “It’s wonderful that a man of that age can still sing like that.” And Dean would reply, “But let’s go out and help him before his oxygen runs out.” Dean was smiling, happy, distracted.

  By the time they hit New York, the orchestra was rehearsing under Morty Stevens—the crew was back on track. Dean was joking with the stage hands and tech crew about Frank always sticking his finger in his food. He told Frank, “Everything I ate last night tasted like your finger.” Frank would play back, poking his finger in something else, “Here, Dean, you should eat this.” The clowning was back, and Dean was feeling strong.

  At one point Shirley announced to my father that there were not enough black musicians in the orchestra. Frank took control and summoned over the contractor. “What the fuck is this snow-white orchestra? That stinks!” The contractor said it was too late to change them, that it would cost way too much. Frank said, “Bullshit! I want at least thirty percent black musicians. Pay what you have to. Fix it!” That was Frank, always took the bull by the horns.

  Throughout the final tour, marquees read, “Frank, Sammy, Dean. SOLD OUT.” Dean did not last the entire tour and retired from show business shortly after, but the shows he did perform made the whole tour worth their while. My father and Frank accomplished their goal. They made Dean smile and laugh again, as audiences throughout the country stood up, applauded, and begged for encores. The Rat Pack were like blood brothers who looked out for each other till death do them part.

  Dad stands in front of a poster for his 1964 Broadway hit Golden Boy.

  CHAPTER 4

  ICON

  I arrived at Pop’s house the next morning, only to find him fast asleep. I sat outside in a chaise lounge with some of Lessie Lee’s famous fried chicken and a glass of Coke. I looked around at the plush garden oasis my pop worked so hard for, and thought, “Wow, my father really is a megastar.”

  At the peak of his career Pop was a living legend, in high demand with a performance schedule that never waned. As one of the world’s top nightclub entertainers, my father reveled in the adulation he strove so hard to win.

  Between 1961 and 1968 alone, he starred in numerous Rat Pack films as well as other movies, produced sixteen albums that generated at least eight hit singles, and won Emmy nominations for two television variety shows, one entitled, The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show. He had first hit Broadway as a star in the 1956 musical Mr. Wonderful, then again in 1964 with Golden Boy. In 1972, Pop had a hit record with “The Candy Man,” and became a star in Las Vegas. All of this and more earned him the nickname “Mr. Show Business.”

  In Golden Boy, Dad played the role of a Harlem prizefighter who breaks out of the projects to become a famous star. The playwright of the original 1937 story was Clifford Odets, who recruited his buddy, William Gibson, to upgrade it to the composition of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams.

  Pop hit Broadway with a bang in Golden Boy.

  With Golden Boy costar Kenneth Tobey

  On stage in Golden Boy: Paula Wayne, Kenneth Tobey, Dad, Charles Welch, and Ted Beniades

  Pop injured his ankle during the run of Golden Boy in 1968 but he went on anyway. Here he is with actors Lon Satton and Gloria de Haven before a performance at the London Palladium.

  While my father was starring in the play, my family lived in a plush apartment at 3½ East Ninety-Third Street, just off of Fifth Avenue. My parents enrolled me and Mark at Dalton. Jeff was just a baby. I remember the first day of school and not wanting to let go of my mother’s hand. Mom also enrolled me in toddler ballet classes at Juilliard. I ran all over the dance studio. A donkey on my feet, I was more of an athlete than a ballerina, and was delighted when the ballet phase mercifully ceased.

  Mom told a story about one Halloween in New York during this time, when she attended a costume party with my father at a nightclub. Pop had never gone trick-or-treating as a child, so celebrating Halloween at a costume party was as close as he would ever get to reliving the “normal” childhood he was deprived of. Pop hired a top makeup artist to turn my mother into Vampira, and Pop into the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Mom said, “the makeup artist was so good
, we thought for sure no one would notice us in our disguises.” My parents drove to the costume party. Mom had fake blood dripping down her mouth, and a truck driver pulled up at a red light and said, “Hi, Sammy!” Cover blown.

  “Hey, Trace Face, you get uglier every time I see you!” Pop said as the nurse assisted him dragging an IV into the chaise lounge next to mine. He had his hand over his trachea tube.

  “Well, look who is up? How you feeling today, Pop?” I asked.

  “The cancer monster robbed me of my sleep last night, but feeling a bit better today, sweetie. How are you feeling, Pregasuarus?”

  “Like a Pregasaurus,” I replied.

  “I see Lessie Lee hooked you up!” Pop noticed my empty fried chicken plate. “I thought I was the superstar around here, but when people walk in this house, first thing out of their mouths is, ‘Hey, Ms. Jackson, whatcha cooking back there?’ I say, ‘Yeah, she made her fried chicken. Hang on I’ll get you some!” Pop laughed.

  “Pop, I know you always call Vegas home, Los Angeles your home away from home, but how did you like living in New York when you were on Broadway?” I asked.

  “Loved Broadway, but as a Broadway star, in New York, I was not shielded from racism, Trace. It was no longer about beatings like I endured in the military. I was standing in the middle of a social revolution. Posh liberals would accept me into their homes as the ‘token colored star’ yet come and go talking about how ‘spics’ have ruined New York. It was a new kind of racism. Social microaggressions.