February 15, 2019 • 50 mins
From the age of three Sammy Davis, Jr. did it all better than anyone else - singing, dancing, acting, even gun spinning. Mo talks to friends and family about what drove him to keep performing, even after the car crash that nearly killed him. Featuring Carol Burnett, Chita Rivera, Kim Novak, Dionne Warwick and more.Learn more about the Mobituaries book: http://bit.ly/MobituariesBook
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This episode is about a man who has been called
the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century. Jeez, look at that.
So naturally I wanted to talk to a car expert. Yeah,
that's a gorgeous vehicle, beautifully restore. I'm with my friend
Matt Anderson, he's the curator of transportation at the Henry
Ford Museum, and we're in a suburb of Detroit looking
(00:26):
at a stunning, shiny red nineteen fifty three Cadillac El
Dorado with the car's owner, Neil Porter. A lot of
the parts of the car were handbuilt. The wrap around
windshield is cool. The curve in the glass, this is
the very first of the wrap around windshields nineteen fifty three. Bottom.
Neil invited me to sit behind the wheel for you
to get in. These seats are what leather not final.
(00:51):
This is one heck of a car. The height of luxury.
And get this point out that, like power windows were
a big deal in the late seventies, but there's a
prominent design flaw. Let's talk about the steering wheel. Yeah.
One of the things he noticed is that at the
center of the steering wheel of the hub, there looks
like the nose cone on a missile. Almost that's right
(01:13):
jutting out from the center of the steering wheel is
a comical chrome protrusion and straight at the driver's face.
It has no functional purpose. It's simply there to kind
of look cool. And cool certainly describes the man who
was driving his own El Dorado in the wee small
hours of November nineteenth, nineteen fifty four. Sammy Davis Junior
(01:37):
was a twenty eight year old, fast rising nightclub performer, singer,
comic and boy What a dancer heading from a show
in Vegas to a recording gig in Los Angeles when
he collided with another car in San Bernardino, California, and
the left side of his face collided with that steering wheel.
(01:57):
The car had no seatbelts. This is what caused Sammy
Davis Junior to lose his eye and his accident, and
he did not have time to react it out of
the way, so he went flying. His head came and
hit against that protrusion and it went right into his
left eye socket, in fact, knocked the eye out of
the socket. My father had been calling the middle of
(02:20):
the night to go to Saint Bernardine's Hospital, to take
care of a man who had a very serious car
accident and injured his eye and needed some help. Nancy
Gallab was the daughter of the late doctor Frederick Hall.
He was the surgeon who rushed to the hospital to
work on Sammy. Nancy was thirteen years old at the time,
and so what my father basically did was to save
(02:44):
Sammy from losing the other eye. But the first question
that Sammy purportedly asking my dad was were his legs? Okay, wow,
that's very telling, right, Yes, I thought that was pointed. Also,
the traumatic event opens Sammy's autobiography, Yes I Can. Here's
a passage read by his co author Bert Boyar as
(03:06):
I ran my hand over my cheek. I felt my
eye hanging there by a string. Frantically, I tried to
stuff it back in, like if I could do that,
it would stay there and nobody would know. The ground
went out from underman. I was on my knees. Don't
let me go blind, Please, God, don't take it all away. Now,
when Sammy says don't take it all away, he's not
praying for his life, at least not the way you
(03:28):
or I might be. He's talking about his life in showbiz,
all the beautiful things, all the plans, the laughs. They
were lying out there, smashed, just like the car. Sammy
spent almost two weeks in the San Bernardino hospital recovering.
Later on, he'd famously be fitted for a glass eye,
(03:49):
and the outpouring of love was almost like a memorial service.
There was a telegram from Marilyn Monroe which just thrilled Sammy.
Two pieces, Eddie Canter, Jackie Robinson, Ella Fitzgerald. They all
sent telegrams, even the waiters at the Hollywood nightclub Serros,
where he'd become an overnight sensation just three years before.
(04:16):
The admiration of his friends and peers mattered, But in
a life of dramatic ups and downs, was the adulation
of audiences that would sustain him, in the words of
one friend, nourish him. And he gave those audiences everything
he had. I've got a lot of living. This is
(04:37):
what he was trained to do. It was in every
atom of his DNA. It's what he did. He did
it well, he did it graciously, He did it gratefully,
and he wasn't trying to bludgeon anybody over the head,
and he wasn't distant performance. It's just what he did,
it's who he was. I gotta be me. Who's me,
the world's greatest entertainer, Sammy Davis Junior. I'm Morocca, and
(05:00):
this is mobituaries, this moment Sammy Davis Junior, May sixteenth,
nineteen ninety death of the entertainer. I think that it's
(05:23):
probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's
probably an odd thing to say. My friends rallied around
me and convinced me that it was still a lot
to be done and that I probably probably wouldn't matter.
And as it turned out, that's Sammy Davis Junior talking
about the crash that nearly killed him. I'm not surprised
by the outpouring of love at that hospital. I've been
(05:43):
a correspondent on CBS Sunday Morning for over ten years now.
I've interviewed probably over a hundred celebrities, and there's one
name that's popped up more than any other, Sammy Davis Junior.
Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown told me about his
friend's command over an audience when he was on stage.
(06:06):
You would be overwhelmed. Kim Novak and Nancy Sinatra each
talked about what a joy Sammy was to be around.
He was such a fun person. Sammy was part of
the family. LeVar Burton and Ben Vereen revered Sammy as
a role model. It wasn't all the time that I,
you know, saw people on TV who looked like me.
(06:27):
If there was a black actor in on TV in
those days, we'd watched Sammy would come on on The
Ed Sullivan Show and do everything. And I was everything.
He did everything. Yes, when the subject turns to Sammy,
the superlatives start flying easily. The greatest. He was everything.
(06:48):
He could play any instrument, he could sing, he could
dance like a maniac. That's Broadway legend, Cheetah Rivera. Is
there anyone like Sammy Davis Junior today? I have not
ever seen anybody. I just never saw anything like him
in my life. It says it right there on his
tombstone in Hollywood's Forest Lawn, the entertainer. He did it all.
(07:13):
Daddy was a new sensation, got himself a congregation, built
up quite an operation down band. He did singing, dancing, acting, comedy.
He was at least a quadruple threat quintuple if you
count his gun spinning routine a plus. It helped that
he started early. I won an amateur contest at the
(07:35):
Stanley Theater in Philadelphia when I was three and a
half years old, singing I'll be glad when You're dead,
You rascal. You that seven year old Sammy singing the
same song in the movie musical short Rufus Jones for President.
(07:57):
Sammy Davis Junior was born in harle One in nineteen
twenty five. His mother, Elvera Sanchez, was Latin and a dancer.
His father was a Hoffer. His parents split up early,
and just when most kids start school, Sammy hit the
road the vaudeville circuit with his father, Sam Senior, and
Will Maston, a family friend he called his uncle. They
(08:19):
were billed as the Will Maston Trio. Here's Sammy reminiscing
with his father in a nineteen seventy three TV special
What Place Leo? Who were playing minsks Miss Berlin's House
forty second Street doing Jilson right And I used to
have a cigar and I was passing off as a midget.
(08:43):
Imitet did but you were five. The trio was a success,
but it was the diminutive Sammy Davis Junior even as
an adult. He was just five foot five who stood out.
Shirley McClain remembered Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra sneaking her
into ceros to see this dynamo who was dancing and
(09:06):
singing and performing in the middle of a trio. She
told this story onstage to Sammy had a tribute show
in his honor in nineteen eighty nine, towards the end
of his life. The two people on either side of
you were terrific. But I could not believe my eyes
and my ears never had so much come out of
(09:27):
something so small for so long. She's right. There was
a light that came out of him that made it
impossible not to look at him, that made him more
than the sum of his mad individual talents. Let's talk
about his impressions, which I loved, his Bogey perfect. I'd
like to say that it's really been a pleasure in
(09:49):
attaining all of you nice folk. Shot. It's really been
one of the great thrills for my time. His Cagney
spot on yashwing, that great h all, A love that's
in you, you dirty rat. And I've listened to his
marvelously muttering Marlon Brando a million baby kisses. I will
(10:14):
personally delive if you will only sing this morning roof
all the day. His friend, the Oscar winning songwriter Leslie
Brickis told me that growing up, Sammy spent a lot
of time in movie theaters. It became sort of his school,
since he never spent a single day in an actual school.
(10:35):
He used to speak along with the actors, imitating them,
you know, Carrie Grant or Humphrey Bogat. He learned the accents.
He'd do the voice with them, and that's how he
perfected it. He couldn't let anything go by. There's this
bit I've seen from an old Julie Andrews Variety show.
Julie Andrews Variety Show. Don't you just love the sound
(10:55):
of that? Anyway? On the show, Sammy and the impressionist
Rich Little engage in a friendly competition. Why don't we
forget about impressions and just see Sammy sings as Nat
King Cole. I just found joy. I'm happy all you
lay the bar. Rich does Liberacci, I'm Parabi and Sammy
(11:23):
does his Jerry Lewis to Riches, Dean Martin, you and me,
you know watching it, and Rich Little is technically better,
but Sammy is just better. I'd rather watch Sammy, So
(11:45):
what's happening there? The genius of Sammy's when he imitated someone,
He imitated them from the inside out, and rich Little
imitates someone from the outside end, and Sammy gets to
the essence of that person. This is Larry Maslon. He's
the writer and co producer of the film American Masters,
Sammy Davis Junior. I've got to Be Me, and he's
super smart. Nobody imitated musicians and singers the way sam
(12:09):
is really interesting because you've got to be able to
have the talent of channeling them and have their talent
as well, right right right where you're Sammy's talent as
a singer is often well undersung. It's not so much
that he had a technically beautiful voice, but cliche alert.
(12:31):
He knew how to make a song his own. And
in this episode, we're going to use three of the
songs he famously sang to tell his story. Whether I'm right, Oh,
whether I'm Larry Maslon calls I've got to Be Me
(12:54):
the ultimate Sammy song. I mean, it's it's everything, and
that's who he was. I gotta be And yet the
song wasn't written for Sammy or settle for us as
long as there's a much. Steve Lawrence sang it first
(13:24):
in a musical called Golden Rainbow, about a single dad
living in Vegas. The musical also starred Steve's wife, Evie
Gourmet incredible voice. Anyway, Steve thought this song, written by
Walter Marx, might be more powerful coming from his friend.
The lyric content was like whether I'm right, whether I'm wrong,
(13:44):
whether I find a place in this world will never belonged.
It interpreted this black man in the society at that time,
this man who is different than everybody else. I called him.
I said, sam You're going to do this your own
way and better. It meant more coming from him than
it did from me. He recorded it, bang, he went
(14:06):
to the top of the chase. I'll go it alone now.
Being me for Sammy Davis Junior was a complicated matter.
For one thing, he was an African American man who
would later convert to Judaism. My mother is a Puerto Rican,
so that means I'm colored, Jewish and Puerto Rican. When
(14:30):
I move into a neighborhood, I wipe it out. That's
a joke. He told a lot when he was performing
with the rat Pack in the nineteen sixties. FYI, we're
not spending a lot of time with the rat Pack
in this episode. It's been done to death. Throughout his life,
Sammy mind his unique identity for humor and to diffuse tension.
(14:54):
Remember Warren Baby announcing the wrong Best Picture Oscar winner
in twenty seventeen. Well, Sammy was ahead of his time.
Here he is in nineteen sixty four announcing the Oscar
for movie scoring and the winner is John Addison for
Tom Jones. Except that it wasn't. Sammy handled his snare
(15:17):
for him without skipping a beat. They gave me the
wrong envelope. Wait till the NAACP hears about this. But
earlier in his life his talent played a much more
vital role. It helped him survive. They painted you right,
they poured urine in your beer. Things of that name.
(15:39):
I mean, did these things really happen? Yes, they really happen.
That's Sammy talked into our senio hall. In nineteen forty three,
eighteen year old Sammy came off the road when he
was drafted into the army and into one of the
first integrated units. Until then, his father and uncle had
tried as best they could to shell to him from racism.
(16:02):
Now there was no one to protect him. I was
in a kind of an odd situation because I'm going, hey,
I don't know anything about this outside world. I belonged
to show business, show businesses. Hey, I got a barn.
Let's put the show on here. You know all of
those cliches I lived, you know, and the other guys
are going will be doing that. You won't get us
(16:22):
in trouble. You know. I got my nose broke three
times and it hurt, and you couldn't do anything about it.
You had nobody to back you up. Trips to the
infirmary were regular. That's how many fights he was getting into.
But when he got transferred to an entertainment unit, things
got better for him. He once told his daughter, talent
(16:45):
was my only weapon. With a white situation or a
black situation, you do it with human I tried to
do it with entertaining to try to get some doors open,
because all of them were closed in those days. All
of them were closed. Well, sammy them open. Remember those
impressions he did, they weren't just funny, they were bold
(17:06):
back in the late forties, black performers didn't do impressions
of white performers in front of white audiences. That is
until Sammy did My Dad and Will said they got
in inches. One of these days you keep doing white people,
you know. And I went on and did it now
in the Strand Theater. The first time I went you
Dirty Rat, a guy in the audience said, my god,
(17:30):
he sounds just like him. What he was really saying,
I'm looking at a black man for the first time
to a white man. Well, it was so good that
we went from opening act to closing. Now, Imitating white
performers was one thing. Dating a white woman was another.
His relationship with screen siren Kim Novak was considered scandalous.
(17:54):
In nineteen fifty seven. I talked to him recently on
her horse farm in Oregon. That was blosiph back then.
At that time it was it certainly was so ridiculous,
and how did what was that like for you? At
that time, Harry Cone threatened to take his other eye out.
Harry Cone was the much feared head of Columbia Pictures,
(18:15):
and he really did. Oh. Of course, however, we saw
each other, but I was never in love certainly it
was Sammy. Do you think that he was infatuated with you? Oh,
he was. He had a good crush on man, nice crush.
I man, we had such fun times together, we really did.
But who certainly not worth losing eye over. I'm just
(18:39):
trying to square this sort of drive to make an
audience happy and the public happy and then doing these
things that are really ballsy. Well, I'm not sure he
viewed them as ballsy. That's Sammy's friend, former San Francisco
mayor Willie Brown. I'm sure he viewed them as being
just a Davis Julia, And in nineteen seventy two, being
(19:04):
Sammy Davis Junior meant embracing President Richard Nixon during his
reelection campaign. Quite literally, Sammy hugged Nixon, and let's just
say much of the public did not hug back. You've
had a lot of criticism from some black groups because
I bothered you. Yes, of course. Do you think that
he was shocked at the reaction he got when he
(19:26):
embraced Nixon? Yes, I think that shocked him. But Willie
Brown says, Sammy knew exactly what he was doing. Many
African Americans in this country were Republicans. Sammy was conscious
of that because some of them were his friends, And
contrary to most tellings of this story, Brown says, it
(19:47):
wasn't primarily African American fans who were outraged. They were
basically white liberals who could not understand how such a
symbolic black would be embracing somebody like Richard Nixon. So
most of the disapproval you think came from white liberals,
(20:08):
I know it came from white liberals. Black people didn't
give a shit about mother than not he embraced Nixon. Yeah,
Sammy still felt the need later that year to address
a less than warm audience at Jesse Jackson's Push Conference,
a gathering of social justice activists. Disagree if you will
with my politics. It was a dramatic appearance, but I
(20:32):
will not allow anyone to take away the fact that
I am black. It's moving because he's honest with his audience.
That's Larry Maslon again. Basically, he's saying, whatever you think
of me and Richard Nixon, you know him, a black man,
you know what I've been through in the last forty years.
I'm right. Oh, if you don't want to take me, fine,
(20:58):
but I'm gonna put me out there. I gotta be me.
What more of a statement can you have than that?
I gotta be me, gotta be me? What else can
I be? It seems like showbiz for him was kind
(21:19):
of like a rocket ship that took him on a
voyage and helped him sort of overcome so many obstacles.
His talent is a rocket ship, but gravity was being
black in America, and that's what brought him back to
earth time and time again. I mean, this is his
own words. I want to be so good that no
one will notice I'm black. That's not really possible, is it?
(21:43):
What kind of lives are these? Do you have a
favorite Sammy song? What kind of fooling ice that whispered
empty words? What kind of fool am I? That's Dion
(22:04):
Warwick's favorite Sammy song. It's about someone unable to find
blasting love. That's the story he tells from the very
first note. I mean, he cannot but believe every single
word he's giving you. He floored me with that. What time?
(22:29):
Because he was forever on tour and on the road,
he never could sustain the relationship because he was never
there for more than two weeks. Leslie Brickis wrote what
kind of fool Am I? With Anthony Newley for the
musical Stop the World I Want to Get Off? But
Sammy made it famous when he sings it. There's a
great performance in nineteen sixty two on Andy Williams Show,
(22:52):
and it's just so plaintive, almost anguished. What God well,
he wasn't good at Toto. But it also may have
been a little bit of autobiography in there. You know,
why can I cast away this mask of play? I
(23:18):
live my life? How do you make it fresh? Whenever
I walk on that stage with that night I tried
to translate into that rendition of the song, and it's
a true, honest feeling. Sammy's romantic history was tumultuous. After
(23:51):
Kim Novak. There was a short marriage to the African
American actress Lay White, and then he married the white
Swedish model and actress My brit That wedding was such
a scandal he got disinvited from the JFK inaugural. Yes,
that might have had something to do with his hugging Nixon.
Later on, he and my had two kids before splitting up.
(24:14):
My wife left me. You know, I took the kids.
Nothing was more important than being a star. So I lost.
I lost every ounce of what was valuable. I'd made
the wrong choices. Sammy was married three times in all,
and dated plenty in between. Cheeta Rivera met Sammy when
they worked together on the musical Mister Wonderful, and I
(24:36):
was a snob when they asked me to do it.
I went on, he's from nightclubs. I mean, what's he
going to do on a stage? You know? And boy
did I did? I eat my words? And you were lovers,
you were boyfriend's friend? What was that like? It was fabulous.
He's as talented in that area as he was he
(24:56):
was otherwise. But things got he did on one occasion.
I know this doesn't sound too crude, but we must
have had some words which I don't remember ever having
with him, but I remember he took his eye out,
that would be his glass eye. The words that are
(25:17):
in my head are is this what you want now?
That sounds like an hour interview in itself. I know
how dramatic that sounds, but I do remember that. And
I'm not even sure that we were alone. Okay, sidebar
I was obsessed with glass eyes growing up. A relative
(25:39):
of mine actually had one, or maybe his was rubber,
I can't remember. It was a fake guy anyway. Recently
I spoke with the fabulous Sandy Duncan. She performed with
Sammy but never dated him, and she talked about the
rumors that she had a glass eye. Contrary to urban myth,
I do not have a glass eye, so that'll put
this to rest. But she did lose sight in one eye,
(26:02):
and Sammy reached out to her. She was very concerned
about my having lost my vision through a brain tumor
when I was twenty four, and he made contact immediately.
Do you think that there is something in the recovery
for him and for you that, actually, I don't know,
made you even better as an entertainer. I don't know
(26:25):
if any better as an entertainer, but I certainly developed
a discipline that nothing stops you. I've never missed a
show in my life. I just didn't let it bother me.
I had to get up and get out and do it.
So he was very helpful. What kind of fool am I?
(26:54):
Of course, Sammy did fall in love and stay in
love with his audience. I know it's a cliche, Well
here comes another one. He's just so at home on stage.
If you look at videos of him performing on variety shows,
he does his thing where he'll end a big number
and then he just sort of doubles over with laughter.
(27:16):
He's had that much fun, almost like a kid shown
off to his friends. But mcno mistake. It might all
look and sound off the cuff. He knows exactly what
he's doing. With your kind permission, May I simply stayed,
(27:36):
how very wonderful and thrilled and scared I am you
had zee this man own a stage and an audience.
I mean he actually owned you, prought you into him.
Dion Warwick wasn't just his friend. She studied him. Well,
(27:56):
that is a really interesting word when you say he
owned the audience. What does that mean When he woke
on that stage, he knew that we were in the
palm of his hand. People have to trust you, for Sammy,
This relationship with the audience was deeply personal. People don't
(28:17):
trust you. He ain't got a shot at it, and
they've invested years in me. S I'm part of the
family as long as I don't let them down. Do
you think that he was pretty much always happy on stage? Yeah?
That was just domain we heard the Berees trees. Here's
(28:42):
Leslie Bricus again, nineteen seventy seven New Year's Eve and
he and Lizam and Ellie did at midnight New Year's Eve,
at which went on for three hours. We went up
to Sammy's Sweet afterwards and he said, let's do it
all again, and they did the whole show again for
(29:02):
just four people and it was another three hours. What
is that? Was that a need to perform or was
that just pure joy? Or was it joy more than anything? Joy? Joy?
He was so high on the audience reaction that the
only way he could come down was to perform more.
(29:26):
Dionne Warwick told me that he described applause as nourishment. Yes,
that was that was breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know,
(29:46):
people romanticize the entertainer who just gives one hundred and
ten percent. But then the cliche is, you know, they give,
they give, they give, but there was nothing left for themselves.
And you know, but no, no, no no, no no, no no, no,
he gave, but he used. He enjoyed every penny that
(30:06):
he ever earned. Sammy Davis Junior enjoyed it period. That's
Willie Brown again. Now it turns out that what kind
of fool am? I might also describe Sammy Davis Junior's
relationship with money. My most expensive pocket watch with the
chain came from Sammy Davis, Jennie, and that's you think
(30:29):
it just made him feel good to be that generous.
I think it was that way. I think he wanted
to share his wealth. Sammy Davis was one of the
worst people I ever saw him any kind of money.
He had no idea what money was and what it
was worth. That's Sammy's former agent, Larry Auerbach. He told
me a lot of things, including an amazing story about
(30:52):
Elvis that I'm not allowed to repeat. Tell him my
whole life story for this cuckamything you're doing. It's a
podcast that's even worth Okay. One thing he made incredibly
clear Sammy was bad with money. I was going to
London on vacation. Next thing I know, we put a
lovely leather case, and then it was a night on camera,
(31:15):
which was the high item of the day, and I said, well,
am I gonna do it this. I literally felt that
he had no idea what he was spending or what
it was what it meant. Almost everyone I talked to
had a story about Sammy giving them a ridiculously expensive present,
and I already had a god watch. I didn't need
(31:36):
to go watch. He had this impulse to spend money.
Are you bad with money? No? I think I'm pretty
good with it. Sammy himself talked about his spending habits
with Dick Cabot and I'm entitled to blow maybe five
ten thousand dollars out of the year. Just blow it. Yeah,
you know where are you going to do that? Next day?
(31:58):
When he died, he owed more money to the irs
than any single individual in history up to that point,
saying he had to impress people on stage and off.
You know, he'd wear the most outrageous clothing. He had
six rings on his hand. You saw the pictures. Sure,
some people are going to hear that and think was
he compensating for something? Yes? I think he was compensating
(32:24):
for what he wasn't given at the beginning, that he
had no start in life, and it was largely show
he was showing off. I think he was sheltered by
his uncle and his father. He was now had some freedom,
and he saw an opportunity to give a gifts. Why not? Okay,
(32:47):
that's interesting though, giving extravagant gifts. I mean, what do
you think he wanted from that? Nothing? I grew up
with the Sammy of the nineteen seventies. Artistically, this wasn't
a high point for him, But what did I know
(33:09):
about fish Whenever he made his fast, fast fast. I
loved hearing him sing commercial jingles. Ugh, but it put
an extra wing on the house. This was the Sammy
of Talk to the Animals, my favorite single on my
Sammy Greatest Hits album. I still dance around my apartment
to it with and Cheetah. What a data chieve it
(33:31):
would be. And of course candy Man. Now, at first
Sammy didn't like Candy Man. It was originally from the
movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. But he liked
that it went to number one. He's only number one.
Let's just say Sammy knew how to turn lemons into
(33:53):
groovy lemon pie. He does something I think is very brave,
which he never makes fun of the material. It's total commitment.
I see that he did a cover of Chico and
the Man of the Cheeko on the Man theme song,
(34:13):
and that's one of the things where you go, oh God,
and then you start listening. It's really good. Yeah, it's
really good. Chico d it's good. Yeah, he did Maud too.
He covered the themes on to mad I have to
listen to that. Lady Couldivo was a freedom rider. Lady
Godiva was a freedom ride. She didn't care the whole world.
(34:38):
I check any cynicism at the door. When he starts performing, well,
you check your cynicism because you know immediately he's bearing
his soul to you. It's not an act. He's not
too cool for school, right. Sinatra had that right, a
little bit of a distance. There's no distance there. I
don't think Sammy had an ounce of irony in him,
(34:58):
that kind of detached look at me irony. He was
like all in as a performer. And maybe the problem
is not Sammy's enthusiasm, but certain generations skittishness about enthusiasm, right,
fear that will make them look uncool. Right, and Dion
Warwick says he was as enthusiastic and playful offstage as on.
(35:22):
And I started having in my rider a Miss pac
Man machine Miss pac Man, which is much better than
pac Man by the way. Yeah, and luc the cocktail
table type, the one, the flat one, so that right,
you can sit across from each other. Yep. Turns out
(35:42):
Dion Warwick and Sammy Davis Junior both loved playing Miss
pac Man and I beat him up. That is fantastic.
He would get up and stop. How to do this
to me very easily. But the Sammy of the seventies
also had edge. When he kissed Archie Bunker on the
(36:04):
cheek on all in the family, it made headlines. What
I hadn't seen until recently was his appearance from nineteen
seventy five on The Carol Burnett Show. And this is
a sketch where you play a woman eleanor Simpson. Yo,
he happens. Let's not talk about poor Lilo me. That's right,
that's the one Carol told me all about it on
(36:25):
the phone. Well, she was a passive, aggressive racist, Johnny
ur diction. It was just perfect. Sammy plays this entertainer.
So she was in the audience. Now he's this big
star because she's all excited but still has that underlying prejudice.
(36:47):
I tell you, you just tossed off those poles syllables
like you were born to them. They grew up together
because his mother was their maid. I know she just
couldn't wait to come back in and work for you again.
She was talking about when they were kids, and she said, oh,
and we used to play high and go seek. Oh
(37:08):
that was such fun, but it wasn't good in the
dark hobby. You could just be standing right in front
of me and I never wouldn't known it less she smile.
Sammy doesn't actually talk much during the scene. He doesn't
really need to. His look says it all. Mostly he's
just biting his tongue, struggling to be gracious until he's
(37:31):
finally had enough. Okee. But Sammy loved that sketch. And
do you think he loved it because he could relate
to it somehow? Perhaps you remember all the fun we
used to have when we use kids. What do you
remember that? I am beginning to remember a lot of things.
(37:52):
He let me ask you. There's got to be a
reason you remember that sketch in such detail. It was
because there were no jokes in. There was all character.
You know something, Melanie, I think you're right. I am
a little tight. Oh that there was an underlying truth.
(38:19):
Some people would say that the one great hit he
had was Kennyby, But mister Boujingles is this definition of
Sammy Davis. That's Willie Brown. I have to confess I
always thought mister Bojangles, our third Sammy song was about
Bill Bojangles Robinson, the great African American tap dancer who
(38:42):
died penniless in nineteen forty nine. In fact, mister Bojangles,
and you may have known, this was originally a country
music song. The writer Jerry Jeff Walker says it's about
a guy he met in a New Orleans prison, and
Walker never really thought the song would go anywhere. When
(39:03):
I got to Atlantic Records, they said, who'd held would
want a four and a half minute song about a
old drunk and a dead dog? And six to eight
times right right? Apparently everyone dagle the song spoke to Sammy.
He'd been struggling for years with drugs and alcohol, back
(39:23):
and dance, dance, dance, please dance. I got the fear
that that's how I was going to die. I was
going to wind up like mister Beaujang, a drunk but
recognition about anything, and the song helped motivate three hundred
(39:44):
and sixty mister bag Goose when he was on stage,
totally dalk on stage. Why can't you wear a boat
and all you'd get is the spotlight, and then the
light go out and you'd see him take two or
(40:05):
three steps and he'd be him another circle of light,
still continuing and tell them the story until he dance, dance, dance.
Nothing could be to that, you would be, I mean,
(40:25):
just overwhelmed. After Sammy was diagnosed with cancer, the doctors
told him he needed surgery, but surgery would involve removing
his voice box. As far as Sammy was concerned, that
(40:48):
wasn't an option. So I'm just okay watching cartoons. I
come down to get a soda from the living room.
That's Manny Davis, Sammy's son, with his third wife, Alchabz.
He remembers the procession of dignitaries coming through their home
during Sammy's final months. They got Jesse Jackson the living room,
they got Franks and I just come over to say hello.
(41:09):
You just have all these celebrities coming around all the
time because they knew what was happening to Sammy and
I didn't. Here's Kim Novak again. When is the last
time that you saw him? Well, when it was sick,
you know, and I went to the hospital to see
him and what was that like? Oh, it was hot.
(41:32):
I didn't know what. I don't know what to say. Really,
always sat there and looked at each other and what
do you say. In November nineteen eighty nine, his best friends,
no surprise, they included some of the greatest living performers,
(41:53):
rushed to organize a tribute show. A very gaunt Sammy
sat in the front row. He was sixty three years old,
making this his sixtieth anniversary in showbiz, sixty years. And
I knew that you would amount to something, but I
didn't feel that you were going to amount to everything.
That's Frank Sinatra and I say, here's to you. Sam.
(42:18):
You know I love you. I can't say it any
more than that. You're my brother. Michael Jackson is there too.
As a young boy, Michael had stood in the wings
studying Sammy. On this night, he sang a song specially
written for the occasion before we came. You took the hurt,
(42:45):
you took the shame. I am here because you were there.
It was too lucky. I'm free as a performer to
do what I want because you made it happen before me.
There's now a duel we all walk through and halfway
(43:07):
through the show, the great tap dancer Gregory Hines comes on.
It's hard to put into words. I feel so much
love for you that I'm gonna try to dance to
that for you. Hines dances and the crowd goes wild.
(43:32):
Then he approaches Sammy, who isn't scheduled to perform. He
looks so weak, but out of these pulls out Sammy's
tap shoes. Sammy can't resist. He puts them on and
gets up on stage. Greg Hines whispers to Sammy, says,
(43:53):
what do you want to do? And Sammy says, greg
just make it easy on yourself, and they bring him
the tap shoes there. It's clearly planned. It's you don't
(44:13):
think it's fine? And they did this beautiful little duet
together and it tore a place apart. Look, it's impossible
to tell if this was all pre arranged, but frankly,
(44:36):
who cares. Samy comes alive in that sequence. I swear
when you watch this you forget that he's dying. That's
the last step seven of the dunce. He made a
(45:01):
statement to that we were open, and one night he
felt that he wants to die on stage. He wanted
to end his life right there on stage. So how
could you think that Jesus, that's my life and you
think he really meant it. I know he did. If
(45:30):
there's a little less spring in the American step today,
it is because Sammy Davis Junior is gone. As you know,
Dad has heard Sammy Davis Junior pass away yesterday after
it was born in a Hurlem into a family of
vaudeville performers, working from age three in a world where
white's expected blacks to dance. Funeral services will be held tomorrow, smile.
Sammy Davis Junior was sixty four to know their place
(45:51):
and Hollywood flowers stand guard over Davis's star on the
Walk of Fame, New York. His name, Sammy Davis Junior
died at home in Beverly Hills on May sixteenth, nineteen
ninety I would like to think of myself as the
entertainer whatever it takes to make the people happy. If
(46:14):
Hollywood ever does produce a biopick about Sammy Davis Jr.
It's hard to imagine who could play him. I mean,
who's around today who can do it all? Maybe it's
because of the world that created Sammy is gone. Fronteville.
It was a fraternity of performance, and you saw the
(46:36):
greatest performances in the world out there playing that trade.
And you could learn just by standing in the wings
and watching very special and I was lucky enough to
catch it. Sammy's was a time when the most exciting
performers were proud to be known as more than just
singers or comics or television personalities. They aspired to be
(47:01):
remembered as entertainers. Every once in a while, and running
the Donal O'Connor, Mickey Rooney, we all have the same upbringing,
and we talk about it. You remember the old days,
you remember the second such a Ack, you remember the
Zach And sometimes I look at the young people today
(47:24):
and I go, I wonder what they'll talk about. Who
will they remember? Gonna build a mountain from the little
the hill. We hope you'll join us as we raise
(47:46):
the curtain on the next episode of Mobituaries. Our topic
Meanderthals with special guest my friend Michael ian Black. If
they had told me only how much Neanderthal I am,
I would have paid the amount for the test. I
certainly hope you enjoyed this episode. For more great content,
please visit mobituaries dot com or follow us on Facebook, Instagram,
(48:10):
or follow me on Twitter at Morocca. If you like Mobituaries,
please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I promise it's free.
This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Alison Byrne and
Gideon Evans. Our team of producers also includes Megan Marcus,
Kate mccauliffe, Megandetree, Justin Hayter, and Me Morocca. It was
(48:32):
edited by Alison Byrne and engineered by Bart Warshaw. Indispensable
support from Hilary Dan Genius, Tnski, kiro wardlow Zach Gilcrest,
the team at CBS News Radio, and Richard Rohrer. Special
thanks to Matt Anderson, Manny Davis, Michael Cantor, Neil Porter,
and Alberto Robina. Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart.
(48:56):
Exclusive interview outtakes of Steve Lawrence plus Cheeter There's amazing
glass Eye story. We're from American Masters, Sammy Davis Jr.
I've Gotta Be Me, Premiering Tuesday, February nineteenth at nine
pm on PBS. Check local listings and as always, undying
thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carbon Without whom Mobituaries
(49:18):
couldn't live CBS views. I don't care where you are you,
I am not given the rights today. It was Presley's story. Hi,
it's MO. If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I
invite you to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock
full of stories not in the podcast. Celebrities who put
(49:41):
their butts on the line, sports teams that threw in
the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies
that cratered whole countries that went caput. And dragons, Yes, dragons,
you see. People used to believe the dragons were real
until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the
(50:01):
Book from any online bookseller, or stop by your local
bookstore and look for me when I come to your city.
Tour information and lots more at moobituaries dot com
This episode is about a man who has been called
the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century. Jeez, look at that.
So naturally I wanted to talk to a car expert. Yeah,
that's a gorgeous vehicle, beautifully restore. I'm with my friend
Matt Anderson, he's the curator of transportation at the Henry
Ford Museum, and we're in a suburb of Detroit looking
(00:26):
at a stunning, shiny red nineteen fifty three Cadillac El
Dorado with the car's owner, Neil Porter. A lot of
the parts of the car were handbuilt. The wrap around
windshield is cool. The curve in the glass, this is
the very first of the wrap around windshields nineteen fifty three. Bottom.
Neil invited me to sit behind the wheel for you
to get in. These seats are what leather not final.
(00:51):
This is one heck of a car. The height of luxury.
And get this point out that, like power windows were
a big deal in the late seventies, but there's a
prominent design flaw. Let's talk about the steering wheel. Yeah.
One of the things he noticed is that at the
center of the steering wheel of the hub, there looks
like the nose cone on a missile. Almost that's right
(01:13):
jutting out from the center of the steering wheel is
a comical chrome protrusion and straight at the driver's face.
It has no functional purpose. It's simply there to kind
of look cool. And cool certainly describes the man who
was driving his own El Dorado in the wee small
hours of November nineteenth, nineteen fifty four. Sammy Davis Junior
(01:37):
was a twenty eight year old, fast rising nightclub performer, singer,
comic and boy What a dancer heading from a show
in Vegas to a recording gig in Los Angeles when
he collided with another car in San Bernardino, California, and
the left side of his face collided with that steering wheel.
(01:57):
The car had no seatbelts. This is what caused Sammy
Davis Junior to lose his eye and his accident, and
he did not have time to react it out of
the way, so he went flying. His head came and
hit against that protrusion and it went right into his
left eye socket, in fact, knocked the eye out of
the socket. My father had been calling the middle of
(02:20):
the night to go to Saint Bernardine's Hospital, to take
care of a man who had a very serious car
accident and injured his eye and needed some help. Nancy
Gallab was the daughter of the late doctor Frederick Hall.
He was the surgeon who rushed to the hospital to
work on Sammy. Nancy was thirteen years old at the time,
and so what my father basically did was to save
(02:44):
Sammy from losing the other eye. But the first question
that Sammy purportedly asking my dad was were his legs? Okay, wow,
that's very telling, right, Yes, I thought that was pointed. Also,
the traumatic event opens Sammy's autobiography, Yes I Can. Here's
a passage read by his co author Bert Boyar as
(03:06):
I ran my hand over my cheek. I felt my
eye hanging there by a string. Frantically, I tried to
stuff it back in, like if I could do that,
it would stay there and nobody would know. The ground
went out from underman. I was on my knees. Don't
let me go blind, Please, God, don't take it all away. Now,
when Sammy says don't take it all away, he's not
praying for his life, at least not the way you
(03:28):
or I might be. He's talking about his life in showbiz,
all the beautiful things, all the plans, the laughs. They
were lying out there, smashed, just like the car. Sammy
spent almost two weeks in the San Bernardino hospital recovering.
Later on, he'd famously be fitted for a glass eye,
(03:49):
and the outpouring of love was almost like a memorial service.
There was a telegram from Marilyn Monroe which just thrilled Sammy.
Two pieces, Eddie Canter, Jackie Robinson, Ella Fitzgerald. They all
sent telegrams, even the waiters at the Hollywood nightclub Serros,
where he'd become an overnight sensation just three years before.
(04:16):
The admiration of his friends and peers mattered, But in
a life of dramatic ups and downs, was the adulation
of audiences that would sustain him, in the words of
one friend, nourish him. And he gave those audiences everything
he had. I've got a lot of living. This is
(04:37):
what he was trained to do. It was in every
atom of his DNA. It's what he did. He did
it well, he did it graciously, He did it gratefully,
and he wasn't trying to bludgeon anybody over the head,
and he wasn't distant performance. It's just what he did,
it's who he was. I gotta be me. Who's me,
the world's greatest entertainer, Sammy Davis Junior. I'm Morocca, and
(05:00):
this is mobituaries, this moment Sammy Davis Junior, May sixteenth,
nineteen ninety death of the entertainer. I think that it's
(05:23):
probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's
probably an odd thing to say. My friends rallied around
me and convinced me that it was still a lot
to be done and that I probably probably wouldn't matter.
And as it turned out, that's Sammy Davis Junior talking
about the crash that nearly killed him. I'm not surprised
by the outpouring of love at that hospital. I've been
(05:43):
a correspondent on CBS Sunday Morning for over ten years now.
I've interviewed probably over a hundred celebrities, and there's one
name that's popped up more than any other, Sammy Davis Junior.
Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown told me about his
friend's command over an audience when he was on stage.
(06:06):
You would be overwhelmed. Kim Novak and Nancy Sinatra each
talked about what a joy Sammy was to be around.
He was such a fun person. Sammy was part of
the family. LeVar Burton and Ben Vereen revered Sammy as
a role model. It wasn't all the time that I,
you know, saw people on TV who looked like me.
(06:27):
If there was a black actor in on TV in
those days, we'd watched Sammy would come on on The
Ed Sullivan Show and do everything. And I was everything.
He did everything. Yes, when the subject turns to Sammy,
the superlatives start flying easily. The greatest. He was everything.
(06:48):
He could play any instrument, he could sing, he could
dance like a maniac. That's Broadway legend, Cheetah Rivera. Is
there anyone like Sammy Davis Junior today? I have not
ever seen anybody. I just never saw anything like him
in my life. It says it right there on his
tombstone in Hollywood's Forest Lawn, the entertainer. He did it all.
(07:13):
Daddy was a new sensation, got himself a congregation, built
up quite an operation down band. He did singing, dancing, acting, comedy.
He was at least a quadruple threat quintuple if you
count his gun spinning routine a plus. It helped that
he started early. I won an amateur contest at the
(07:35):
Stanley Theater in Philadelphia when I was three and a
half years old, singing I'll be glad when You're dead,
You rascal. You that seven year old Sammy singing the
same song in the movie musical short Rufus Jones for President.
(07:57):
Sammy Davis Junior was born in harle One in nineteen
twenty five. His mother, Elvera Sanchez, was Latin and a dancer.
His father was a Hoffer. His parents split up early,
and just when most kids start school, Sammy hit the
road the vaudeville circuit with his father, Sam Senior, and
Will Maston, a family friend he called his uncle. They
(08:19):
were billed as the Will Maston Trio. Here's Sammy reminiscing
with his father in a nineteen seventy three TV special
What Place Leo? Who were playing minsks Miss Berlin's House
forty second Street doing Jilson right And I used to
have a cigar and I was passing off as a midget.
(08:43):
Imitet did but you were five. The trio was a success,
but it was the diminutive Sammy Davis Junior even as
an adult. He was just five foot five who stood out.
Shirley McClain remembered Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra sneaking her
into ceros to see this dynamo who was dancing and
(09:06):
singing and performing in the middle of a trio. She
told this story onstage to Sammy had a tribute show
in his honor in nineteen eighty nine, towards the end
of his life. The two people on either side of
you were terrific. But I could not believe my eyes
and my ears never had so much come out of
(09:27):
something so small for so long. She's right. There was
a light that came out of him that made it
impossible not to look at him, that made him more
than the sum of his mad individual talents. Let's talk
about his impressions, which I loved, his Bogey perfect. I'd
like to say that it's really been a pleasure in
(09:49):
attaining all of you nice folk. Shot. It's really been
one of the great thrills for my time. His Cagney
spot on yashwing, that great h all, A love that's
in you, you dirty rat. And I've listened to his
marvelously muttering Marlon Brando a million baby kisses. I will
(10:14):
personally delive if you will only sing this morning roof
all the day. His friend, the Oscar winning songwriter Leslie
Brickis told me that growing up, Sammy spent a lot
of time in movie theaters. It became sort of his school,
since he never spent a single day in an actual school.
(10:35):
He used to speak along with the actors, imitating them,
you know, Carrie Grant or Humphrey Bogat. He learned the accents.
He'd do the voice with them, and that's how he
perfected it. He couldn't let anything go by. There's this
bit I've seen from an old Julie Andrews Variety show.
Julie Andrews Variety Show. Don't you just love the sound
(10:55):
of that? Anyway? On the show, Sammy and the impressionist
Rich Little engage in a friendly competition. Why don't we
forget about impressions and just see Sammy sings as Nat
King Cole. I just found joy. I'm happy all you
lay the bar. Rich does Liberacci, I'm Parabi and Sammy
(11:23):
does his Jerry Lewis to Riches, Dean Martin, you and me,
you know watching it, and Rich Little is technically better,
but Sammy is just better. I'd rather watch Sammy, So
(11:45):
what's happening there? The genius of Sammy's when he imitated someone,
He imitated them from the inside out, and rich Little
imitates someone from the outside end, and Sammy gets to
the essence of that person. This is Larry Maslon. He's
the writer and co producer of the film American Masters,
Sammy Davis Junior. I've got to Be Me, and he's
super smart. Nobody imitated musicians and singers the way sam
(12:09):
is really interesting because you've got to be able to
have the talent of channeling them and have their talent
as well, right right right where you're Sammy's talent as
a singer is often well undersung. It's not so much
that he had a technically beautiful voice, but cliche alert.
(12:31):
He knew how to make a song his own. And
in this episode, we're going to use three of the
songs he famously sang to tell his story. Whether I'm right, Oh,
whether I'm Larry Maslon calls I've got to Be Me
(12:54):
the ultimate Sammy song. I mean, it's it's everything, and
that's who he was. I gotta be And yet the
song wasn't written for Sammy or settle for us as
long as there's a much. Steve Lawrence sang it first
(13:24):
in a musical called Golden Rainbow, about a single dad
living in Vegas. The musical also starred Steve's wife, Evie
Gourmet incredible voice. Anyway, Steve thought this song, written by
Walter Marx, might be more powerful coming from his friend.
The lyric content was like whether I'm right, whether I'm wrong,
(13:44):
whether I find a place in this world will never belonged.
It interpreted this black man in the society at that time,
this man who is different than everybody else. I called him.
I said, sam You're going to do this your own
way and better. It meant more coming from him than
it did from me. He recorded it, bang, he went
(14:06):
to the top of the chase. I'll go it alone now.
Being me for Sammy Davis Junior was a complicated matter.
For one thing, he was an African American man who
would later convert to Judaism. My mother is a Puerto Rican,
so that means I'm colored, Jewish and Puerto Rican. When
(14:30):
I move into a neighborhood, I wipe it out. That's
a joke. He told a lot when he was performing
with the rat Pack in the nineteen sixties. FYI, we're
not spending a lot of time with the rat Pack
in this episode. It's been done to death. Throughout his life,
Sammy mind his unique identity for humor and to diffuse tension.
(14:54):
Remember Warren Baby announcing the wrong Best Picture Oscar winner
in twenty seventeen. Well, Sammy was ahead of his time.
Here he is in nineteen sixty four announcing the Oscar
for movie scoring and the winner is John Addison for
Tom Jones. Except that it wasn't. Sammy handled his snare
(15:17):
for him without skipping a beat. They gave me the
wrong envelope. Wait till the NAACP hears about this. But
earlier in his life his talent played a much more
vital role. It helped him survive. They painted you right,
they poured urine in your beer. Things of that name.
(15:39):
I mean, did these things really happen? Yes, they really happen.
That's Sammy talked into our senio hall. In nineteen forty three,
eighteen year old Sammy came off the road when he
was drafted into the army and into one of the
first integrated units. Until then, his father and uncle had
tried as best they could to shell to him from racism.
(16:02):
Now there was no one to protect him. I was
in a kind of an odd situation because I'm going, hey,
I don't know anything about this outside world. I belonged
to show business, show businesses. Hey, I got a barn.
Let's put the show on here. You know all of
those cliches I lived, you know, and the other guys
are going will be doing that. You won't get us
(16:22):
in trouble. You know. I got my nose broke three
times and it hurt, and you couldn't do anything about it.
You had nobody to back you up. Trips to the
infirmary were regular. That's how many fights he was getting into.
But when he got transferred to an entertainment unit, things
got better for him. He once told his daughter, talent
(16:45):
was my only weapon. With a white situation or a
black situation, you do it with human I tried to
do it with entertaining to try to get some doors open,
because all of them were closed in those days. All
of them were closed. Well, sammy them open. Remember those
impressions he did, they weren't just funny, they were bold
(17:06):
back in the late forties, black performers didn't do impressions
of white performers in front of white audiences. That is
until Sammy did My Dad and Will said they got
in inches. One of these days you keep doing white people,
you know. And I went on and did it now
in the Strand Theater. The first time I went you
Dirty Rat, a guy in the audience said, my god,
(17:30):
he sounds just like him. What he was really saying,
I'm looking at a black man for the first time
to a white man. Well, it was so good that
we went from opening act to closing. Now, Imitating white
performers was one thing. Dating a white woman was another.
His relationship with screen siren Kim Novak was considered scandalous.
(17:54):
In nineteen fifty seven. I talked to him recently on
her horse farm in Oregon. That was blosiph back then.
At that time it was it certainly was so ridiculous,
and how did what was that like for you? At
that time, Harry Cone threatened to take his other eye out.
Harry Cone was the much feared head of Columbia Pictures,
(18:15):
and he really did. Oh. Of course, however, we saw
each other, but I was never in love certainly it
was Sammy. Do you think that he was infatuated with you? Oh,
he was. He had a good crush on man, nice crush.
I man, we had such fun times together, we really did.
But who certainly not worth losing eye over. I'm just
(18:39):
trying to square this sort of drive to make an
audience happy and the public happy and then doing these
things that are really ballsy. Well, I'm not sure he
viewed them as ballsy. That's Sammy's friend, former San Francisco
mayor Willie Brown. I'm sure he viewed them as being
just a Davis Julia, And in nineteen seventy two, being
(19:04):
Sammy Davis Junior meant embracing President Richard Nixon during his
reelection campaign. Quite literally, Sammy hugged Nixon, and let's just
say much of the public did not hug back. You've
had a lot of criticism from some black groups because
I bothered you. Yes, of course. Do you think that
he was shocked at the reaction he got when he
(19:26):
embraced Nixon? Yes, I think that shocked him. But Willie
Brown says, Sammy knew exactly what he was doing. Many
African Americans in this country were Republicans. Sammy was conscious
of that because some of them were his friends, And
contrary to most tellings of this story, Brown says, it
(19:47):
wasn't primarily African American fans who were outraged. They were
basically white liberals who could not understand how such a
symbolic black would be embracing somebody like Richard Nixon. So
most of the disapproval you think came from white liberals,
(20:08):
I know it came from white liberals. Black people didn't
give a shit about mother than not he embraced Nixon. Yeah,
Sammy still felt the need later that year to address
a less than warm audience at Jesse Jackson's Push Conference,
a gathering of social justice activists. Disagree if you will
with my politics. It was a dramatic appearance, but I
(20:32):
will not allow anyone to take away the fact that
I am black. It's moving because he's honest with his audience.
That's Larry Maslon again. Basically, he's saying, whatever you think
of me and Richard Nixon, you know him, a black man,
you know what I've been through in the last forty years.
I'm right. Oh, if you don't want to take me, fine,
(20:58):
but I'm gonna put me out there. I gotta be me.
What more of a statement can you have than that?
I gotta be me, gotta be me? What else can
I be? It seems like showbiz for him was kind
(21:19):
of like a rocket ship that took him on a
voyage and helped him sort of overcome so many obstacles.
His talent is a rocket ship, but gravity was being
black in America, and that's what brought him back to
earth time and time again. I mean, this is his
own words. I want to be so good that no
one will notice I'm black. That's not really possible, is it?
(21:43):
What kind of lives are these? Do you have a
favorite Sammy song? What kind of fooling ice that whispered
empty words? What kind of fool am I? That's Dion
(22:04):
Warwick's favorite Sammy song. It's about someone unable to find
blasting love. That's the story he tells from the very
first note. I mean, he cannot but believe every single
word he's giving you. He floored me with that. What time?
(22:29):
Because he was forever on tour and on the road,
he never could sustain the relationship because he was never
there for more than two weeks. Leslie Brickis wrote what
kind of fool Am I? With Anthony Newley for the
musical Stop the World I Want to Get Off? But
Sammy made it famous when he sings it. There's a
great performance in nineteen sixty two on Andy Williams Show,
(22:52):
and it's just so plaintive, almost anguished. What God well,
he wasn't good at Toto. But it also may have
been a little bit of autobiography in there. You know,
why can I cast away this mask of play? I
(23:18):
live my life? How do you make it fresh? Whenever
I walk on that stage with that night I tried
to translate into that rendition of the song, and it's
a true, honest feeling. Sammy's romantic history was tumultuous. After
(23:51):
Kim Novak. There was a short marriage to the African
American actress Lay White, and then he married the white
Swedish model and actress My brit That wedding was such
a scandal he got disinvited from the JFK inaugural. Yes,
that might have had something to do with his hugging Nixon.
Later on, he and my had two kids before splitting up.
(24:14):
My wife left me. You know, I took the kids.
Nothing was more important than being a star. So I lost.
I lost every ounce of what was valuable. I'd made
the wrong choices. Sammy was married three times in all,
and dated plenty in between. Cheeta Rivera met Sammy when
they worked together on the musical Mister Wonderful, and I
(24:36):
was a snob when they asked me to do it.
I went on, he's from nightclubs. I mean, what's he
going to do on a stage? You know? And boy
did I did? I eat my words? And you were lovers,
you were boyfriend's friend? What was that like? It was fabulous.
He's as talented in that area as he was he
(24:56):
was otherwise. But things got he did on one occasion.
I know this doesn't sound too crude, but we must
have had some words which I don't remember ever having
with him, but I remember he took his eye out,
that would be his glass eye. The words that are
(25:17):
in my head are is this what you want now?
That sounds like an hour interview in itself. I know
how dramatic that sounds, but I do remember that. And
I'm not even sure that we were alone. Okay, sidebar
I was obsessed with glass eyes growing up. A relative
(25:39):
of mine actually had one, or maybe his was rubber,
I can't remember. It was a fake guy anyway. Recently
I spoke with the fabulous Sandy Duncan. She performed with
Sammy but never dated him, and she talked about the
rumors that she had a glass eye. Contrary to urban myth,
I do not have a glass eye, so that'll put
this to rest. But she did lose sight in one eye,
(26:02):
and Sammy reached out to her. She was very concerned
about my having lost my vision through a brain tumor
when I was twenty four, and he made contact immediately.
Do you think that there is something in the recovery
for him and for you that, actually, I don't know,
made you even better as an entertainer. I don't know
(26:25):
if any better as an entertainer, but I certainly developed
a discipline that nothing stops you. I've never missed a
show in my life. I just didn't let it bother me.
I had to get up and get out and do it.
So he was very helpful. What kind of fool am I?
(26:54):
Of course, Sammy did fall in love and stay in
love with his audience. I know it's a cliche, Well
here comes another one. He's just so at home on stage.
If you look at videos of him performing on variety shows,
he does his thing where he'll end a big number
and then he just sort of doubles over with laughter.
(27:16):
He's had that much fun, almost like a kid shown
off to his friends. But mcno mistake. It might all
look and sound off the cuff. He knows exactly what
he's doing. With your kind permission, May I simply stayed,
(27:36):
how very wonderful and thrilled and scared I am you
had zee this man own a stage and an audience.
I mean he actually owned you, prought you into him.
Dion Warwick wasn't just his friend. She studied him. Well,
(27:56):
that is a really interesting word when you say he
owned the audience. What does that mean When he woke
on that stage, he knew that we were in the
palm of his hand. People have to trust you, for Sammy,
This relationship with the audience was deeply personal. People don't
(28:17):
trust you. He ain't got a shot at it, and
they've invested years in me. S I'm part of the
family as long as I don't let them down. Do
you think that he was pretty much always happy on stage? Yeah?
That was just domain we heard the Berees trees. Here's
(28:42):
Leslie Bricus again, nineteen seventy seven New Year's Eve and
he and Lizam and Ellie did at midnight New Year's Eve,
at which went on for three hours. We went up
to Sammy's Sweet afterwards and he said, let's do it
all again, and they did the whole show again for
(29:02):
just four people and it was another three hours. What
is that? Was that a need to perform or was
that just pure joy? Or was it joy more than anything? Joy? Joy?
He was so high on the audience reaction that the
only way he could come down was to perform more.
(29:26):
Dionne Warwick told me that he described applause as nourishment. Yes,
that was that was breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know,
(29:46):
people romanticize the entertainer who just gives one hundred and
ten percent. But then the cliche is, you know, they give,
they give, they give, but there was nothing left for themselves.
And you know, but no, no, no no, no no, no no, no,
he gave, but he used. He enjoyed every penny that
(30:06):
he ever earned. Sammy Davis Junior enjoyed it period. That's
Willie Brown again. Now it turns out that what kind
of fool am? I might also describe Sammy Davis Junior's
relationship with money. My most expensive pocket watch with the
chain came from Sammy Davis, Jennie, and that's you think
(30:29):
it just made him feel good to be that generous.
I think it was that way. I think he wanted
to share his wealth. Sammy Davis was one of the
worst people I ever saw him any kind of money.
He had no idea what money was and what it
was worth. That's Sammy's former agent, Larry Auerbach. He told
me a lot of things, including an amazing story about
(30:52):
Elvis that I'm not allowed to repeat. Tell him my
whole life story for this cuckamything you're doing. It's a
podcast that's even worth Okay. One thing he made incredibly
clear Sammy was bad with money. I was going to
London on vacation. Next thing I know, we put a
lovely leather case, and then it was a night on camera,
(31:15):
which was the high item of the day, and I said, well,
am I gonna do it this. I literally felt that
he had no idea what he was spending or what
it was what it meant. Almost everyone I talked to
had a story about Sammy giving them a ridiculously expensive present,
and I already had a god watch. I didn't need
(31:36):
to go watch. He had this impulse to spend money.
Are you bad with money? No? I think I'm pretty
good with it. Sammy himself talked about his spending habits
with Dick Cabot and I'm entitled to blow maybe five
ten thousand dollars out of the year. Just blow it. Yeah,
you know where are you going to do that? Next day?
(31:58):
When he died, he owed more money to the irs
than any single individual in history up to that point,
saying he had to impress people on stage and off.
You know, he'd wear the most outrageous clothing. He had
six rings on his hand. You saw the pictures. Sure,
some people are going to hear that and think was
he compensating for something? Yes? I think he was compensating
(32:24):
for what he wasn't given at the beginning, that he
had no start in life, and it was largely show
he was showing off. I think he was sheltered by
his uncle and his father. He was now had some freedom,
and he saw an opportunity to give a gifts. Why not? Okay,
(32:47):
that's interesting though, giving extravagant gifts. I mean, what do
you think he wanted from that? Nothing? I grew up
with the Sammy of the nineteen seventies. Artistically, this wasn't
a high point for him, But what did I know
(33:09):
about fish Whenever he made his fast, fast fast. I
loved hearing him sing commercial jingles. Ugh, but it put
an extra wing on the house. This was the Sammy
of Talk to the Animals, my favorite single on my
Sammy Greatest Hits album. I still dance around my apartment
to it with and Cheetah. What a data chieve it
(33:31):
would be. And of course candy Man. Now, at first
Sammy didn't like Candy Man. It was originally from the
movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. But he liked
that it went to number one. He's only number one.
Let's just say Sammy knew how to turn lemons into
(33:53):
groovy lemon pie. He does something I think is very brave,
which he never makes fun of the material. It's total commitment.
I see that he did a cover of Chico and
the Man of the Cheeko on the Man theme song,
(34:13):
and that's one of the things where you go, oh God,
and then you start listening. It's really good. Yeah, it's
really good. Chico d it's good. Yeah, he did Maud too.
He covered the themes on to mad I have to
listen to that. Lady Couldivo was a freedom rider. Lady
Godiva was a freedom ride. She didn't care the whole world.
(34:38):
I check any cynicism at the door. When he starts performing, well,
you check your cynicism because you know immediately he's bearing
his soul to you. It's not an act. He's not
too cool for school, right. Sinatra had that right, a
little bit of a distance. There's no distance there. I
don't think Sammy had an ounce of irony in him,
(34:58):
that kind of detached look at me irony. He was
like all in as a performer. And maybe the problem
is not Sammy's enthusiasm, but certain generations skittishness about enthusiasm, right,
fear that will make them look uncool. Right, and Dion
Warwick says he was as enthusiastic and playful offstage as on.
(35:22):
And I started having in my rider a Miss pac
Man machine Miss pac Man, which is much better than
pac Man by the way. Yeah, and luc the cocktail
table type, the one, the flat one, so that right,
you can sit across from each other. Yep. Turns out
(35:42):
Dion Warwick and Sammy Davis Junior both loved playing Miss
pac Man and I beat him up. That is fantastic.
He would get up and stop. How to do this
to me very easily. But the Sammy of the seventies
also had edge. When he kissed Archie Bunker on the
(36:04):
cheek on all in the family, it made headlines. What
I hadn't seen until recently was his appearance from nineteen
seventy five on The Carol Burnett Show. And this is
a sketch where you play a woman eleanor Simpson. Yo,
he happens. Let's not talk about poor Lilo me. That's right,
that's the one Carol told me all about it on
(36:25):
the phone. Well, she was a passive, aggressive racist, Johnny
ur diction. It was just perfect. Sammy plays this entertainer.
So she was in the audience. Now he's this big
star because she's all excited but still has that underlying prejudice.
(36:47):
I tell you, you just tossed off those poles syllables
like you were born to them. They grew up together
because his mother was their maid. I know she just
couldn't wait to come back in and work for you again.
She was talking about when they were kids, and she said, oh,
and we used to play high and go seek. Oh
(37:08):
that was such fun, but it wasn't good in the
dark hobby. You could just be standing right in front
of me and I never wouldn't known it less she smile.
Sammy doesn't actually talk much during the scene. He doesn't
really need to. His look says it all. Mostly he's
just biting his tongue, struggling to be gracious until he's
(37:31):
finally had enough. Okee. But Sammy loved that sketch. And
do you think he loved it because he could relate
to it somehow? Perhaps you remember all the fun we
used to have when we use kids. What do you
remember that? I am beginning to remember a lot of things.
(37:52):
He let me ask you. There's got to be a
reason you remember that sketch in such detail. It was
because there were no jokes in. There was all character.
You know something, Melanie, I think you're right. I am
a little tight. Oh that there was an underlying truth.
(38:19):
Some people would say that the one great hit he
had was Kennyby, But mister Boujingles is this definition of
Sammy Davis. That's Willie Brown. I have to confess I
always thought mister Bojangles, our third Sammy song was about
Bill Bojangles Robinson, the great African American tap dancer who
(38:42):
died penniless in nineteen forty nine. In fact, mister Bojangles,
and you may have known, this was originally a country
music song. The writer Jerry Jeff Walker says it's about
a guy he met in a New Orleans prison, and
Walker never really thought the song would go anywhere. When
(39:03):
I got to Atlantic Records, they said, who'd held would
want a four and a half minute song about a
old drunk and a dead dog? And six to eight
times right right? Apparently everyone dagle the song spoke to Sammy.
He'd been struggling for years with drugs and alcohol, back
(39:23):
and dance, dance, dance, please dance. I got the fear
that that's how I was going to die. I was
going to wind up like mister Beaujang, a drunk but
recognition about anything, and the song helped motivate three hundred
(39:44):
and sixty mister bag Goose when he was on stage,
totally dalk on stage. Why can't you wear a boat
and all you'd get is the spotlight, and then the
light go out and you'd see him take two or
(40:05):
three steps and he'd be him another circle of light,
still continuing and tell them the story until he dance, dance, dance.
Nothing could be to that, you would be, I mean,
(40:25):
just overwhelmed. After Sammy was diagnosed with cancer, the doctors
told him he needed surgery, but surgery would involve removing
his voice box. As far as Sammy was concerned, that
(40:48):
wasn't an option. So I'm just okay watching cartoons. I
come down to get a soda from the living room.
That's Manny Davis, Sammy's son, with his third wife, Alchabz.
He remembers the procession of dignitaries coming through their home
during Sammy's final months. They got Jesse Jackson the living room,
they got Franks and I just come over to say hello.
(41:09):
You just have all these celebrities coming around all the
time because they knew what was happening to Sammy and
I didn't. Here's Kim Novak again. When is the last
time that you saw him? Well, when it was sick,
you know, and I went to the hospital to see
him and what was that like? Oh, it was hot.
(41:32):
I didn't know what. I don't know what to say. Really,
always sat there and looked at each other and what
do you say. In November nineteen eighty nine, his best friends,
no surprise, they included some of the greatest living performers,
(41:53):
rushed to organize a tribute show. A very gaunt Sammy
sat in the front row. He was sixty three years old,
making this his sixtieth anniversary in showbiz, sixty years. And
I knew that you would amount to something, but I
didn't feel that you were going to amount to everything.
That's Frank Sinatra and I say, here's to you. Sam.
(42:18):
You know I love you. I can't say it any
more than that. You're my brother. Michael Jackson is there too.
As a young boy, Michael had stood in the wings
studying Sammy. On this night, he sang a song specially
written for the occasion before we came. You took the hurt,
(42:45):
you took the shame. I am here because you were there.
It was too lucky. I'm free as a performer to
do what I want because you made it happen before me.
There's now a duel we all walk through and halfway
(43:07):
through the show, the great tap dancer Gregory Hines comes on.
It's hard to put into words. I feel so much
love for you that I'm gonna try to dance to
that for you. Hines dances and the crowd goes wild.
(43:32):
Then he approaches Sammy, who isn't scheduled to perform. He
looks so weak, but out of these pulls out Sammy's
tap shoes. Sammy can't resist. He puts them on and
gets up on stage. Greg Hines whispers to Sammy, says,
(43:53):
what do you want to do? And Sammy says, greg
just make it easy on yourself, and they bring him
the tap shoes there. It's clearly planned. It's you don't
(44:13):
think it's fine? And they did this beautiful little duet
together and it tore a place apart. Look, it's impossible
to tell if this was all pre arranged, but frankly,
(44:36):
who cares. Samy comes alive in that sequence. I swear
when you watch this you forget that he's dying. That's
the last step seven of the dunce. He made a
(45:01):
statement to that we were open, and one night he
felt that he wants to die on stage. He wanted
to end his life right there on stage. So how
could you think that Jesus, that's my life and you
think he really meant it. I know he did. If
(45:30):
there's a little less spring in the American step today,
it is because Sammy Davis Junior is gone. As you know,
Dad has heard Sammy Davis Junior pass away yesterday after
it was born in a Hurlem into a family of
vaudeville performers, working from age three in a world where
white's expected blacks to dance. Funeral services will be held tomorrow, smile.
Sammy Davis Junior was sixty four to know their place
(45:51):
and Hollywood flowers stand guard over Davis's star on the
Walk of Fame, New York. His name, Sammy Davis Junior
died at home in Beverly Hills on May sixteenth, nineteen
ninety I would like to think of myself as the
entertainer whatever it takes to make the people happy. If
(46:14):
Hollywood ever does produce a biopick about Sammy Davis Jr.
It's hard to imagine who could play him. I mean,
who's around today who can do it all? Maybe it's
because of the world that created Sammy is gone. Fronteville.
It was a fraternity of performance, and you saw the
(46:36):
greatest performances in the world out there playing that trade.
And you could learn just by standing in the wings
and watching very special and I was lucky enough to
catch it. Sammy's was a time when the most exciting
performers were proud to be known as more than just
singers or comics or television personalities. They aspired to be
(47:01):
remembered as entertainers. Every once in a while, and running
the Donal O'Connor, Mickey Rooney, we all have the same upbringing,
and we talk about it. You remember the old days,
you remember the second such a Ack, you remember the
Zach And sometimes I look at the young people today
(47:24):
and I go, I wonder what they'll talk about. Who
will they remember? Gonna build a mountain from the little
the hill. We hope you'll join us as we raise
(47:46):
the curtain on the next episode of Mobituaries. Our topic
Meanderthals with special guest my friend Michael ian Black. If
they had told me only how much Neanderthal I am,
I would have paid the amount for the test. I
certainly hope you enjoyed this episode. For more great content,
please visit mobituaries dot com or follow us on Facebook, Instagram,
(48:10):
or follow me on Twitter at Morocca. If you like Mobituaries,
please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I promise it's free.
This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Alison Byrne and
Gideon Evans. Our team of producers also includes Megan Marcus,
Kate mccauliffe, Megandetree, Justin Hayter, and Me Morocca. It was
(48:32):
edited by Alison Byrne and engineered by Bart Warshaw. Indispensable
support from Hilary Dan Genius, Tnski, kiro wardlow Zach Gilcrest,
the team at CBS News Radio, and Richard Rohrer. Special
thanks to Matt Anderson, Manny Davis, Michael Cantor, Neil Porter,
and Alberto Robina. Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart.
(48:56):
Exclusive interview outtakes of Steve Lawrence plus Cheeter There's amazing
glass Eye story. We're from American Masters, Sammy Davis Jr.
I've Gotta Be Me, Premiering Tuesday, February nineteenth at nine
pm on PBS. Check local listings and as always, undying
thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carbon Without whom Mobituaries
(49:18):
couldn't live CBS views. I don't care where you are you,
I am not given the rights today. It was Presley's story. Hi,
it's MO. If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I
invite you to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock
full of stories not in the podcast. Celebrities who put
(49:41):
their butts on the line, sports teams that threw in
the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies
that cratered whole countries that went caput. And dragons, Yes, dragons,
you see. People used to believe the dragons were real
until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the
(50:01):
Book from any online bookseller, or stop by your local
bookstore and look for me when I come to your city.
Tour information and lots more at moobituaries dot com
Host
Mo Rocca
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