Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's me Josham for this week's s YSK Select.
Speaker 1: I've chosen our February twenty twenty episode on Sammy Davis Junior.
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, this is where I, you, and
Speaker 1: the rest of the world finds out that Chuck does
Speaker 1: a killer Sammy Davis Junior impression, thus booing the podcast
Speaker 1: for years to come. I don't think anything else is
Speaker 1: needed to be said about this one. Just enjoy.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's guest producer Dylan
Speaker 1: sitting in again like a great.
Speaker 3: Guy, like a cooled cat baby. I thought you were
Speaker 3: doing evil German doctor for a second and then I
Speaker 3: figured it out.
Speaker 1: No man, wait, I haven't said it yet. And this
Speaker 1: is Stuff you should Know. Okay, that was a good
Speaker 1: one that no Man was wonderful.
Speaker 2: I love how Sammy Davis Junior always said cat and baby.
Speaker 2: It was just he was such a cool dude.
Speaker 1: And okay, do Sammy Davis Junior saying we have ways
Speaker 1: of making you talk.
Speaker 2: What sounds German about any of that.
Speaker 3: I just do it. Please please, we have ways of
Speaker 3: making you talk.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: That was pretty good.
Speaker 2: And that's a little soft shoe.
Speaker 3: It's great stuff, Chuck.
Speaker 2: So you know, Billy Crystal used to do Sammy Davis
Speaker 2: Junior way back in the eighties when blackface was super
Speaker 2: cool to do and not controversial.
Speaker 3: Did he do blackface Sammy Davis Junior?
Speaker 2: Yes, dude, he did blackface Sammy Davis Junior eight years
Speaker 2: ago at the Oscars. What. Yes, you don't remember that. No,
Speaker 2: it's the last time he hosted the Oscars. Age In
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, he they did, you know, a remote intro
Speaker 2: thing where he was doing different things and the last
Speaker 2: bit was him and blackface again and people were like,
Speaker 2: and then you know, this was in you know, twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: so that was Twitter and that was Facebook and this
Speaker 2: social media and people were like, that wasn't cool in
Speaker 2: the eighties and I can't believe he's doing that now
Speaker 2: for real. Sammy Davis Junior's daughter came out and said,
Speaker 2: you know what, if there's one thing I know is
Speaker 2: that my dad is looking down and laughing and smiling
Speaker 2: at Billy Crystal doing this. He was he was roasted
Speaker 2: pretty heavily for it, rightfully so, and he is he
Speaker 2: hasn't been around a lot, but he wasn't a real
Speaker 2: up before then.
Speaker 3: He you know, do you think like that? Did it?
Speaker 3: Like that was the demise kid?
Speaker 2: I guess get helped.
Speaker 3: I was, Yeah, I haven't seen him in a while either. Man.
Speaker 1: How did somebody not step back and be like, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: we're about to do blackface?
Speaker 2: I know, Like, how did no one on the production
Speaker 2: crew of the Oscars say not a good idea?
Speaker 3: I don't know, Well he did.
Speaker 1: So I came across something that I thought was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I saw a nineteen eighty five interview with David Letterman
Speaker 1: and Sammy Davis Junior says in this interview he did blackface.
Speaker 3: He was a little kid.
Speaker 1: Apparently his skin was lighter when he was a kid,
Speaker 1: and they wanted him because he used to tour with
Speaker 1: his uncle and his dad, as we'll see, and to
Speaker 1: get around labor laws, they would pass him off as
Speaker 1: a midget.
Speaker 3: Yes, and to do that there was right, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1: They gave him a candy cigar and put him in
Speaker 1: blackface and told anyone who would listened that he was
Speaker 1: a little person. Although again, they didn't say a little person.
Speaker 2: No, they didn't.
Speaker 1: Boy, this is a really controversial episode right out of
Speaker 1: the gate.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of sort of I mean, he
Speaker 2: was a complicated guy who was you know, his father
Speaker 2: was black, his mother was Puerto Rican. He eventually would
Speaker 2: endorse two presidents, both Kennedy and Nixon. He served in
Speaker 2: the army. He was a rat packer. He was shunned
Speaker 2: by racist and also shunned sometimes within his own black community.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like a little pinball getting bounced around.
Speaker 2: And little is right. He was also a little guy
Speaker 2: who always, I think had a complex about his height,
Speaker 2: about his looks. He had this weird sort of underbite
Speaker 2: jaw that would jut out to one side when he talked.
Speaker 2: Just a really fascinating guy that was super super talented
Speaker 2: and had his little tiny fingers and a lot of
Speaker 2: pies from you know, singing and dancing and performing live
Speaker 2: and in movies on TV, and just really really fascinating guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you look back at the rat Pack, he
Speaker 1: was the one that brought the actual talent to the
Speaker 1: rat Pack.
Speaker 3: Like Sinatra could say, Martin.
Speaker 1: Could sing everyone and the rat Pack was talented, right, right,
Speaker 1: But he was multi talented, like dancing, doing impressions.
Speaker 3: He had like a little gunslinger routine too.
Speaker 2: Did you see any of that?
Speaker 3: I did?
Speaker 2: He's amazing.
Speaker 1: I watched a PBS documentary for their series American Masters
Speaker 1: on him, and it was like an hour almost two
Speaker 1: hours long, and it was really in depth and really good.
Speaker 1: But they had some amazing footage of him just doing
Speaker 1: all sorts of different stuff. So I guess, let me
Speaker 1: revise that. Yes, the rat pack was talented. Sammy Davis
Speaker 1: Junior was more talented than all of them put together.
Speaker 2: All right, Okay, so he made Did you see any
Speaker 2: of that documentary of the USO.
Speaker 3: Tour There were a few clips in there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So if you want to see a different So
Speaker 2: if you think Sammy Davis Junior as just the candy
Speaker 2: man or mister bo Jangles babe.
Speaker 1: Man, watching him do mister bo Jangles, that's growing how
Speaker 1: he felt about that song. It's very heartbreaking, it is.
Speaker 2: But if you see this documentary. In nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 2: he did a USO tour of Vietnam where he performed
Speaker 2: at drug rehab camps and some other you know, forward bases.
Speaker 2: If you look at this man, this is like is
Speaker 2: swinging seventies kind of rock and roll as it gets
Speaker 2: really really cool stuff. He was a bad a performer.
Speaker 2: He was at places like some of them were kind
Speaker 2: of full on productions where they were capable of pulling
Speaker 2: that off. Other times, there's this great footage of him
Speaker 2: where they could had nothing but a microphone and he's
Speaker 2: just like, all right, give me the mic and I
Speaker 2: will like basically kind of do my own beat box
Speaker 2: seed rhythm section and sing and dance. And the soldiers
Speaker 2: are just loving it, man, they're eating it up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this is nineteen seventy two, believe, and like, I
Speaker 1: mean like his like he was a world famous star
Speaker 1: by them, but also he was an older dude, you know,
Speaker 1: like he'd really had his heyday in the late fifties
Speaker 1: and throughout the sixties, and this is seventy two and
Speaker 1: he's out there in Vietnam belting out motown hits and
Speaker 1: drumming on the mic stand.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I didn't see all.
Speaker 1: Of it, but yeah, you can tell, like it was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah, he's even more of a talented performer
Speaker 1: than people realize, because you know, you do think he
Speaker 1: as doing like standards and show tunes and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and he did mostly do those things, but he was
Speaker 1: talented in all sorts of different ways.
Speaker 2: So the Grabster helped us out with this one. And
Speaker 2: he said that there were a few defining sort of
Speaker 2: things about Sammy Davis Junior's life that inform who he was.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: One was that he came from poverty. He performed with
Speaker 2: his like he said, his uncle which was not his
Speaker 2: real uncle, but his dad, and his uncle Will Meston
Speaker 2: as the was it the Maston.
Speaker 3: Trio, Will Maston trio, right, And they.
Speaker 2: Came from nothing, and he did not have any money.
Speaker 2: And he talked later in life about the thrill of
Speaker 2: leaving a waitress one hundred dollars tip and walking around
Speaker 2: with one thousand dollars in your pocket. He said the
Speaker 2: later on in life. Yeah, he's like, that was a
Speaker 2: year's salary. And he was like, no one understands that
Speaker 2: unless you've been at the bottom, right.
Speaker 3: And he was definitely at the bottom.
Speaker 1: And they, he and his father and his uncle Will
Speaker 1: worked their way up, you know, all through they started
Speaker 1: all throughout the Depression on the Chitlin circuit doing vaudeville.
Speaker 1: And he didn't go to school, once, because this is
Speaker 1: really important to understand. He spent his entire life in
Speaker 1: show business and the earliest years constantly on the road
Speaker 1: with his uncle.
Speaker 3: And his dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's the second point. Never went to school
Speaker 2: at all, did not learn to read and write until
Speaker 2: he was in the army, and always apparently had trouble writing,
Speaker 2: and he always looked at it as he was always,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of ashamed of it. He was proud
Speaker 2: of who he became, but always was ashamed of his
Speaker 2: lack of formal schooling. And he called his what he
Speaker 2: had was the facade of intelligence, which Ed rightfully points
Speaker 2: out as just bunk, because there are many kinds of intelligence.
Speaker 2: He was a very intelligent guy, right, He just didn't
Speaker 2: have formal schooling. But he was very self conscious of
Speaker 2: this and about representing the black community. So like, if
Speaker 2: you ever mispronounced something because he didn't know, it would
Speaker 2: make him feel really bad because he thought that that
Speaker 2: represented black people as a whole. So that's number two.
Speaker 2: And the third thing is that early on his family,
Speaker 2: his dad and his uncle really kind of shielded him
Speaker 2: from racial prejudice. He certainly encountered it on the Chitlin
Speaker 2: circuit but he didn't really get the full deal until
Speaker 2: he into the army, and it was a big shock.
Speaker 3: To him, right he.
Speaker 1: I think this kind of explains that he approached racism
Speaker 1: differently than some of his contemporaries, especially when he got
Speaker 1: to the army and was confronted with the full brunt
Speaker 1: of it, and that that kind of informed how he
Speaker 1: viewed race and racial discrimination in the the dynamic between
Speaker 1: the races in the United States in the middle of
Speaker 1: last century, because he hadn't really seen it firsthand or
Speaker 1: experienced at firsthand.
Speaker 3: He hadn't been in.
Speaker 1: School and so other little white kids hadn't bullied him,
Speaker 1: or he hadn't been around town and just lived in
Speaker 1: a set space where most kids were introduced to racism firsthand.
Speaker 1: He didn't get that until he was eighteen, and so
Speaker 1: by the time he was eighteen, he was like, this
Speaker 1: isn't right.
Speaker 3: What do you what do you? Who do you think
Speaker 3: you are?
Speaker 1: And so when he got to the army and was
Speaker 1: confronted with it full on, he he approached it differently,
Speaker 1: whereas other some of his contemporaries in the army who
Speaker 1: were black, just kind of kept their head down and
Speaker 1: you know, tried to go along and get along.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: He would he would fight back, he would not he
Speaker 1: would not back down, he would not step down. And
Speaker 1: he spent a lot of time in the army physically
Speaker 1: fighting white racists who were trying to make things hard
Speaker 1: for him. And apparently at some point he fought one.
Speaker 1: He fought one guy in one he beat up some
Speaker 1: white guy who had done something racist to him. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what it was. And then after the fight,
Speaker 1: the guy beaten said, you know, you may have beaten me,
Speaker 1: but you're still black. And apparently this guy does Sammy
Speaker 1: Davis Junior in such a way that it just transformed
Speaker 1: his approach that he realized, like he could fight white
Speaker 1: boys his whole life, yeah, and probably win some of
Speaker 1: the fights, probably get beat up a lot of the fights.
Speaker 1: He had his nose broken at least twice, but that
Speaker 1: it wasn't going to get him anywhere. And so he
Speaker 1: decided that in there that what he could do is
Speaker 1: fight prejudice through his performing. He would be such a
Speaker 1: good performer, he would transcend race at least while he
Speaker 1: was performing. Yeah, And he managed to do that, or
Speaker 1: as much as anybody ever has in the history in
Speaker 1: modern history, at least in the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So he's discharged in the army in nineteen forty five,
Speaker 2: goes right back to the Maston Trio and touring with them,
Speaker 2: and he was sort of even though he was just
Speaker 2: the little kid growing up in that trio, he was
Speaker 2: sort of the star still.
Speaker 3: Yeah, little Sammy.
Speaker 2: Little Sammy, like little Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he actually chuck. He won his first contest at
Speaker 1: age three, Yeah, at like an amateur hour or amateur night,
Speaker 1: and he's saying, I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal.
Speaker 3: You that's what.
Speaker 1: He knocked the house down at age three, and that
Speaker 1: was the formal start to his show business.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He won ten bucks, Yeah, about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: bucks today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which for him, I mean, that's a lot of dope, sure,
Speaker 2: for a very very poor kid. So he gets out
Speaker 2: of the army, goes back to the Maston Trio. And
Speaker 2: this sort of corresponded with the same timeline as when
Speaker 2: Vegas started to become a big deal and a big
Speaker 2: entertainment center, and they played Vegas a little bit. And
Speaker 2: you know, we should point out too, on the Chitlin circuit,
Speaker 2: they were never making much money. No, it's a grueling thing.
Speaker 2: And they did get paid, but it's not like they
Speaker 2: were getting rich out there.
Speaker 1: I mean, you'd have to be a vaudeville superstar to
Speaker 1: make a lot of money. And this is also during
Speaker 1: the depression largely too, so people didn't make money in general.
Speaker 2: Right, But doing three, four or five shows a day
Speaker 2: on that circuit, yah, but goes to Vegas, starts performing
Speaker 2: in Vegas, starts doing impressions, which he did throughout his career,
Speaker 2: was very good at them, and audiences ate it up.
Speaker 2: And then Frank Sinatra, the chairman of the board as
Speaker 2: they say, gave him a call or gave their people
Speaker 2: called and said, hey, I want this guy opening up
Speaker 2: for me in Vegas. This trio opening up. Took him
Speaker 2: under his wing.
Speaker 3: That was a big deal.
Speaker 2: It was a very big deal. Said, you know, you
Speaker 2: do these great impressions, you do me, it's hysterical. You're
Speaker 2: so talented. Open for me in Vegas. And that was
Speaker 2: where he said, you know, in Vegas for twenty minutes,
Speaker 2: twice a night, our skin had no color. But the
Speaker 2: second they got finished, he said, other acts to go
Speaker 2: out and gamble and socialize, have a drink, he said,
Speaker 2: we had to go through the kitchen with the garbage,
Speaker 2: and that's when it would all sort of hit home
Speaker 2: once again.
Speaker 1: They had to stay in like an entirely different part
Speaker 1: of Vegas that, from the looks of it, almost didn't
Speaker 1: have electricity, Dusty roads. Yeah, that's where they had to stay.
Speaker 1: They were beloved performers, but that's where they had to
Speaker 1: go stay after the show. And I saw that even
Speaker 1: after he was a member of the rat Pack a superstar,
Speaker 1: he had used the pool at the Sands and guests
Speaker 1: in the fifties complained enough that the Sands agreed to
Speaker 1: drain the pool and refill it because Sammy Davis Junior
Speaker 1: had been using the pool and this is after he
Speaker 1: was a star already. That's how vile the segregation was,
Speaker 1: even in a place like Vegas.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a break and we'll come back
Speaker 2: and talk more about the candy Man. Right after this,
Speaker 2: Softly Jaws.
Speaker 3: Stoff.
Speaker 2: So Sammy Davis Junior wrote a bunch of memoirs and
Speaker 2: autobiographies over the years, and one of them is a
Speaker 2: very great spinal tap joke. So I know you still
Speaker 2: haven't seen it, right, I saw it, but you've.
Speaker 3: Only seen it once and it was a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago.
Speaker 2: Okay, so one of his I think his first one
Speaker 2: was called yes I Can. Sure. There's a great scene
Speaker 2: in spinal tapp when Bruno Kirby as a limo driver
Speaker 2: is talking about it and he said he said something
Speaker 2: about yes I can, he said, although the real title
Speaker 2: should have been yes I can. If Frank says, it's
Speaker 2: okay because Frank called the shots for all those.
Speaker 3: Guys, right, I remember that too. It's very funny, Joe like,
Speaker 3: he just keeps going off about that, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's good stuff. You know, Billy Crystal and
Speaker 2: Bruno Kirby had a very famous falling out and no
Speaker 2: legend has it. Billy Crystal sort of had him blackballed.
Speaker 1: What is up with Billy Crystal? My impression of him
Speaker 1: is changing dramatically. He really sells it when the cameras
Speaker 1: are on.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's what you do.
Speaker 3: You know. That's crazy though, to be that Wow, Wow.
Speaker 2: I mean we know the game. People think you and
Speaker 2: I like each.
Speaker 1: Other, right, we got everybody fool It's amazing. Like what
Speaker 1: were their names of the MythBusters?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they like. The day the camera stopped rolling, they
Speaker 2: release press statement saying we never liked each other.
Speaker 1: I know, why would why would anybody do that? Even
Speaker 1: if you didn't like each other, Why would you just
Speaker 1: let it go?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: But it's a Jamie and Adam Adam, that's.
Speaker 2: Right, Aim Savage. Adam's a great guy. I know him
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 3: So are you implying Jamie's not?
Speaker 1: I don't know him any Oh, Okay, I'm not siding
Speaker 1: this took a really weird turn, didn't it.
Speaker 2: It did. So back to Sammy Davis Junior, he also
Speaker 2: started his stars started rising. Well, his star had already risen,
Speaker 2: but in the seventies when the variety show came about,
Speaker 2: which was a big deal in the seventies and even
Speaker 2: into the eighties, Sammy Davis Junior was perfect for that medium.
Speaker 1: Well, this was this was I think even earlier than that,
Speaker 1: when TV really started to dominate. The earliest shows that
Speaker 1: they had were vaudeville shows that led to variety show.
Speaker 2: He had his own variety show later in the seventies
Speaker 2: because he was so and it wasn't a huge hit.
Speaker 2: But for someone who can dance and sing and do
Speaker 2: impressions and do comedy and for God's sakes, as a
Speaker 2: real deal gun slinger, a variety show is pretty great.
Speaker 3: It really was.
Speaker 1: So he's you know, he's getting onto TV. Their Vegas
Speaker 1: gigs have really put the will Maston trio on the map,
Speaker 1: and they were doing really well. They had reliable work,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. People knew who Sammy Davis Junior was.
Speaker 1: He was already, you know, a protege of Frank Sinatra
Speaker 1: by this time. But it wasn't until nineteen fifty one
Speaker 1: that the big break came through. And it really came
Speaker 1: through in like a really kind of Hollywood story kind
Speaker 1: of way, where like this they were given this one
Speaker 1: shot and this one particular spot at just the right time,
Speaker 1: in front of just the right people, and they killed
Speaker 1: it and that was it. They Sami dave Or was
Speaker 1: a star from that moment on.
Speaker 2: That's right. And that was at Janis Page and a
Speaker 2: show at Ciro's which is now the Comedy.
Speaker 3: Store, right, And oh really I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it became the Comedy Store after Ciro's, but
Speaker 2: was sort of a legendary place, you know, of its
Speaker 2: own in its own right, Oh, yeah, but everyone, you know,
Speaker 2: apparently it's debatable whether or not it was an Oscar
Speaker 2: party after party or not, but regardless, there were a
Speaker 2: lot of Hollywood people.
Speaker 3: There, including Bogie and his rat Pack.
Speaker 2: Sure, the original rat Pack, which wasn't called the rat.
Speaker 3: Pack, no, it was actually it was yep.
Speaker 2: Well why did well, never mind, I'm not going down
Speaker 2: that rabbit hole. What that's all right?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: So he he kills it there. He's doing impressions of
Speaker 2: people that are in the audience. Everyone loves them. They
Speaker 2: signed with the William Morris Agency, and an overnight sensation,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty thirty years in the making, starts happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we should say so. Sammy Davis Junior became
Speaker 1: known for his impressions. He was groundbreaking in the sense
Speaker 1: that he would do impressions of white people. And up
Speaker 1: to the time Sammy Davis Junior started doing impressions of
Speaker 1: white people, if you're a black performer, you could do
Speaker 1: impressions of other black people, and that was it. It
Speaker 1: was just not okay for you to do white people.
Speaker 1: Sammy Davis Junior just started doing white people and the
Speaker 1: white people loved it. And at that show at Zero's.
Speaker 1: He was doing impressions of some of the people in
Speaker 1: the crowd, like he did a killer Carrie Grant and
Speaker 1: Carry Grant was a member of Humphrey Bogart's rat Pack
Speaker 1: and he was probably there that night. So there were
Speaker 1: a lot of people who were getting impressions done of them.
Speaker 1: They just loved it killed And I think Janis Page
Speaker 1: said I was the headliner tonight. I think these guys
Speaker 1: should be the headliner from now on. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: pretty cool of her to do that, you know.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he gets a record deal after that, he's putting
Speaker 2: out like showtuns old standards.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: He does a pilot in the mid fifties with his
Speaker 2: father and uncle about a trio of black entertainers that
Speaker 2: are kind of struggling called We Three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would love to see that.
Speaker 2: Well, there's another part we'll talk about later that you
Speaker 2: definitely need to see.
Speaker 3: I haven't checked it out yet, but I know I
Speaker 3: know the one.
Speaker 2: It's pretty legendary. Yeah. So a big thing happened that
Speaker 2: same year in nineteen fifty four is Sammy Davis Junior
Speaker 2: had a wreck and his Cadillac, and the Cadillac and
Speaker 2: This is just horrific to think about, because I've seen these,
Speaker 2: you know, in the middle of the steering wheel, they
Speaker 2: had these little decorative cones that stuck out. His left
Speaker 2: eyeball hit that thing and he lost it and wore
Speaker 2: an eyepatch for a while and then a glass eye.
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently he remembers coming out of the car with
Speaker 1: holding his eye in his hand, and then that's the
Speaker 1: last thing you remember. The next thing he remembers after
Speaker 1: that was waking up in a hospital bed and when
Speaker 1: he woke up and realized that he'd lost his eye
Speaker 1: for life. As eye was gone, he was really really
Speaker 1: scared that his career was over. This is nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: He'd just got in his big break three years before
Speaker 1: and was on his way up, and now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden he loses his eye. And the thing about
Speaker 1: losing your eye, in addition to say, you know, having
Speaker 1: to sit for publicity photos and try to be a
Speaker 1: leading man in movies or on Broadway or that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, you have to relearn spatial awareness. You're going
Speaker 1: from binocular vision to monocular vision, and that has all
Speaker 1: sorts of weird tricky effects on you. So if you're
Speaker 1: a dancer or a gunslinger or doing some old soft
Speaker 1: shoe or whatever you're doing, you have to relearn how
Speaker 1: to move. And apparently one of the things that Sinatra
Speaker 1: did that was really stand up for Sammy Davis Junior
Speaker 1: was he had him basically come convalesced at Sinatra's place
Speaker 1: and really guided him in saying, like, you need to
Speaker 1: relearn how to move. You're gonna be fine, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to You're gonna have to start really attacking
Speaker 1: this and you can't really sit around and feel bad
Speaker 1: for yourself. You need to get you know, relearn movement
Speaker 1: now rather than you know, spend a year feeling sad.
Speaker 1: And that was a huge help for him.
Speaker 2: It was, and he also was kind of I don't think,
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe his life did kind of pass before him,
Speaker 2: because he definitely had an awakening of what have I
Speaker 2: done here with my life so far? What greater purpose
Speaker 2: have I served? And what can I do from this
Speaker 2: point forward? He and put a pin in this. But
Speaker 2: this was the first exposure to Judaism in the hospital,
Speaker 2: he got a visit from a rabbi. Yeah, and just
Speaker 2: put a pin in that because that will come back again. Later, Okay,
Speaker 2: there a pin in it. Well, look all right, I
Speaker 2: don't even know where this pin came from. You, I don't.
Speaker 2: Well you do have that pin coashion right there.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this little tomato one with the strawberries dangling
Speaker 3: off of it? Remember those?
Speaker 1: Oh, man, do I was there a seventies mom that
Speaker 1: didn't have one of those?
Speaker 2: Yeah, with a Macromay owl hanging on the wall behind him.
Speaker 3: Yah.
Speaker 2: So here's where it gets really kind of great as
Speaker 2: far as knowing what a stand up guy Sammy Davis
Speaker 2: Junior was. His success is booming, and you would think,
Speaker 2: Sammy Davis Junior, you can leave that Will Maston Trio behind. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because it's really all about you. He said, no, man,
Speaker 2: shine us all up, babe. Three way split, yep, And
Speaker 2: that's what they did. He ensured contractually that they would
Speaker 2: get a three way split that endured ten years after
Speaker 2: he left as a solo performer. He was still giving
Speaker 2: them thirty three percent each. Yeah, for fifteen years total.
Speaker 1: They got a third of the profits each of them.
Speaker 1: And yeah they were you know, originally they were still
Speaker 1: doing their Vegas show as the Will Maston Trio featuring
Speaker 1: Sammy Davis Junior. But then over time, you know, I
Speaker 1: remember his uncle and his dad were a good twenty
Speaker 1: years older than him. By this time, he's in his thirties,
Speaker 1: so you know, they're starting to get they're losing their
Speaker 1: step a little bit, so they start to not be
Speaker 1: in the show quite as much, just stepping back. But
Speaker 1: even still, he made sure they were taken care of
Speaker 1: for another fifteen years. Third a third and this is
Speaker 1: a third during Sammy Davis Junior's peak earning years, So
Speaker 1: he got one third of what he would have gotten
Speaker 1: had he just basically said, dad, uncle will thank you
Speaker 1: for teaching me everything.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: I'm going to move on now, best of luck, let
Speaker 1: me know if you need a loan. Instead, he just
Speaker 1: took a third of what he could have gotten and
Speaker 1: gave the other two thirds to those two, which is
Speaker 1: for fifteen years. Chuck, Yeah, that's really amazing.
Speaker 2: It's pretty great. So that pen it actually wasn't in
Speaker 2: there that long. We can go ahead and take the
Speaker 2: pen out. Because he after that first meeting with a rabbi,
Speaker 2: he reads more and more about Judaism. He draws a
Speaker 2: correlation between the plight of the Jewish people and the
Speaker 2: plight of black people, and it really spoke to him
Speaker 2: and he converted. And some people said, oh, this big
Speaker 2: publicity stunt. He's like, no, this is not a publicity stunt.
Speaker 2: He said, this is my new religion. And he very
Speaker 2: humorously started referring to himself as a one eyed Black.
Speaker 3: Jew, sometimes a one eyed black Puerto Rican.
Speaker 2: Puerto Rican Jew, which was very sort of in keeping
Speaker 2: with his self deprecating style.
Speaker 1: For sure, he's like Tim Wattley. He converted for the jokes.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I remember that one. I've been plowing through
Speaker 2: Seinfeld again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite things that always gets me is
Speaker 2: when Jerry calls George Biff.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It never fails to make me laugh. Biff. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: good should we? Well, no, let's not take another break.
Speaker 2: Let's plow on here, right yeah, sure, all right. So,
Speaker 2: dating wise, he is dating black women and white women.
Speaker 2: When he dates white women, he gets racist threats from
Speaker 2: white people, and he gets condemnation from the black community
Speaker 2: for betraying the black community by dating a white woman.
Speaker 1: Right, he can't win. No, he really couldn't win. And apparently,
Speaker 1: from what I saw in that American Masters documentary.
Speaker 3: He really, really, really was in love with kim Novak. Yeah,
Speaker 3: from what I saw, she may have been the love
Speaker 3: of his life.
Speaker 1: At the very least. He never got to explore whether
Speaker 1: she was or not. But when he said that he
Speaker 1: intended to marry her. I guess it was in the fifties.
Speaker 1: There was a contract put on in his life by
Speaker 1: the studio head and I think Columbia where kim Novak
Speaker 1: was an actress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Harry Cohne was the studio head. And this was
Speaker 2: back when Vegas and Hollywood were you know, there was
Speaker 2: some mob in mafia dealings going on for sure, and
Speaker 2: Sammy had some mob friends too, just because he was
Speaker 2: friends with Frank and you know, that was just sort
Speaker 2: of the thing. These guys would come to these Vegas
Speaker 2: clubs and he would meet them. He sought protection from
Speaker 2: a Chicago gangster that he was in with. The Chicago
Speaker 2: gangster was like, I can't help you in California. He's like,
Speaker 2: I'm no good there. I can protect you in Chicago,
Speaker 2: I can protect you in Vegas. Can't do anything about
Speaker 2: California and it's not my territory. And supposedly, and this
Speaker 2: is where it gets a little hazy, because some people
Speaker 2: say it happened. Some people say it didn't. Supposedly he
Speaker 2: was even kidnapped for a few hours to scare him,
Speaker 2: but who knows if that's really true.
Speaker 1: Well, apparently one of his friends who was there said no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't true.
Speaker 3: He was never kidnapped.
Speaker 1: But the contract basically said there was a contract that said,
Speaker 1: you have forty eight hours to marry a black woman, yeah,
Speaker 1: or you die yeah.
Speaker 3: And whatever it was.
Speaker 1: Whatever, whether there was an actual contract, whether it wor
Speaker 1: just got to him that there was, it didn't matter
Speaker 1: to Sammy Davis Junior at that minute, because he broke
Speaker 1: it off with Kim Novak.
Speaker 3: To his own heart's break and.
Speaker 2: Married a woman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, proposed to a woman named laure White who she
Speaker 1: was a black singer, and I think they had dated
Speaker 1: years before. And I guess he never copped to the
Speaker 1: to the idea that it was an arranged marriage that
Speaker 1: was basically a business proposal, But that is definitely how
Speaker 1: it's portrayed by the people who were there at the
Speaker 1: time were his close friends that he even paid her
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars to do this, and I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was very you know, kind and congenial to it. But
Speaker 1: they described that day. His wedding day to Laura White
Speaker 1: is probably the worst day of his life, tied for
Speaker 1: first with the day that he lost his left eye.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he you know, we can't look over some
Speaker 2: of the ugly parts of that day. He got drunk
Speaker 2: and physically assaulted her in the car just after the
Speaker 2: wedding reception. Not making any excuses for the guy, but
Speaker 2: it was certainly not right to do that.
Speaker 1: Right, So their marriage didn't last terribly long. I didn't
Speaker 1: see how long it lasted, did you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little every year.
Speaker 1: Okay, so about a year, and I guess he considered
Speaker 1: that the heat had gone down or whatever by that time.
Speaker 1: But I get the impression that the fact that Kim
Speaker 1: Novak had been taken from him strictly out of racism.
Speaker 1: Like Harry Cohne, I'm sure was a racist, but he
Speaker 1: was also a businessman, and the reason that he was
Speaker 1: doing this was because he knew America was racist. This
Speaker 1: is at a time when there were laws that prevented
Speaker 1: black men and white women or vice versa.
Speaker 3: To marry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't legal yet.
Speaker 1: No, So the idea of one of his biggest stars,
Speaker 1: Kim Novak, marrying a black man. He decided that he
Speaker 1: just couldn't take that risk business wise, and so he
Speaker 1: threatened Sammy Davis Junior. Whatever the reason was, Sammy Davis
Speaker 1: Junior really bristled under that. And so in nineteen sixty,
Speaker 1: this was a few years after the he had to
Speaker 1: break it off with kim Novak, he got married to
Speaker 1: a woman, a Swedish actress named my brit and he
Speaker 1: had children with her and was married to her, but
Speaker 1: he also ran around on her almost constantly. From what
Speaker 1: I understand, and you get the impression that my was
Speaker 1: in part A, I'll just put it as PG as possible,
Speaker 1: thumbing his nose at all of the racists out there
Speaker 1: who took kim Novak from him. He was saying, I think,
Speaker 1: as somebody put it, I'm big enough now that you
Speaker 1: can't tell me who to marry. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: marry this beautiful six foot white woman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who looks like Margo Robie sort of she does, Yeah,
Speaker 2: she does.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 1: I hadn't put my finger on it. And their children
Speaker 1: were incredibly beautiful, thanks largely to their mom too, but
Speaker 1: they were They had three kids together, and they were
Speaker 1: married for eight years and I think it's very sad
Speaker 1: because my Britt immediately lost her career. Yeah, so she
Speaker 1: gave up her career to be with Sammy Davis Junior.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I she must have fallen in love
Speaker 1: with them, and because she had three kids with him too.
Speaker 1: But she gave up a lot and he gave up nothing.
Speaker 1: And I think that was very unfair on his part
Speaker 1: to ask for what he asked for from her and
Speaker 1: give so little in return.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And what was also not fair and sort of
Speaker 2: a black eye on John F. Kennedy was that Sammy
Speaker 2: Davis Junior had been scheduled to perform at the nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty inauguration and he disinvited him because of his marriage
Speaker 2: to a white woman.
Speaker 1: Kennedy personally had him disinvited. This wasn't Kennedy's advisors or
Speaker 1: anything like that.
Speaker 2: No, it was him, and he said, you know, apparently
Speaker 2: people said he you know, it was a political move
Speaker 2: because he didn't want to alienate Southern Democrats. But either way,
Speaker 2: that was a big fracturing of the relationship between JFK
Speaker 2: and Sammy Davis Junior. He never got over that.
Speaker 3: No, he never did.
Speaker 1: And it was also a moment where Sinatra, who had
Speaker 1: stood up for Sammy Davis Junior multiple countless times against racists,
Speaker 1: against studio heads, against the record company executives, against all
Speaker 1: sorts of people, didn't.
Speaker 3: He did not stand up.
Speaker 1: And argue and try to persuade JFK to change his mind.
Speaker 1: He just quietly went along with it. And I think
Speaker 1: that broke Sammy Davis Junior's part as much as JFK
Speaker 1: betraying him, and probably even more because he expected more
Speaker 1: from from Frank than he did from Kennedy. And the
Speaker 1: other thing about Kennedy rescinding that invitation, Harry Belifani's invitation
Speaker 1: wasn't rescinded, and Harry Belifani was married to a white
Speaker 1: woman and was there with his white wife at this
Speaker 1: inauguration party. So Sammy Davis Junior couldn't help but take
Speaker 1: it personally, and he really did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a big It.
Speaker 1: Was a big deal, a big moment in his life,
Speaker 1: in a very sad moment, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: think that it led to him later on embracing, probably
Speaker 1: ill advisedly, the Nixon campaign in the early seventies.
Speaker 3: That's right, you want to take a break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take a break, and we'll talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about his work in the civil rights movement right
Speaker 2: up to.
Speaker 3: This softly jawsh.
Speaker 1: Sof this cat is interesting, man, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: if everybody's picking up on it.
Speaker 3: Did you know this before? Because this is your pick.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, I've always been pretty fascinated with him
Speaker 2: because we haven't even gotten to the super weird and
Speaker 2: interesting stuff, yeah, right, which happens in the seventies. So
Speaker 2: in the sixties is when, and possibly because of the
Speaker 2: JFK treatment, is when he really starts to get more
Speaker 2: socially aware, starts donating money to the cause, and marches
Speaker 2: at SELMA for the civil rights efforts. He when he
Speaker 2: supported Nixon, it was not just a thumbing of the
Speaker 2: nose at Kennedy, but he bought into Nixon and thought
Speaker 2: that it was going to be a good choice for
Speaker 2: black America. He regretted that later on, of course, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't just a poopy pants move like, hey, well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to support Nixon now because you disinvited.
Speaker 3: Me, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so one of the other reasons that he embraced
Speaker 1: Nixon was that Nixon embraced him as a human being
Speaker 1: and really stood in stark contrast to the treatment he
Speaker 1: received from Kennedy, and in that Nixon actually seemed to
Speaker 1: really like Sammy Davis Junior, that a lot of people
Speaker 1: are like. The Nixon administration was just using Sammy Davis
Speaker 1: Junior at the same time, using what's called the Southern strategy,
Speaker 1: which is they were stoking racism among Southern whites to
Speaker 1: get them to turn on the Democrats. But he also
Speaker 1: apparently really did like Sammy Davis Junior and admired him,
Speaker 1: and under Nixon's administration, it tastes like bitter acid saying this.
Speaker 1: Sammy Davis Junior became the first black person to sleep
Speaker 1: in the Lincoln bedroom, and apparently Sammy Davis Junior was
Speaker 1: an avid Lincoln fan, and sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom
Speaker 1: with some of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln's personal
Speaker 1: effects in.
Speaker 3: This room just blew him away.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: And that was actually how he ended up in Vietnam
Speaker 1: doing this USO tour in nineteen seventy two. He said,
Speaker 1: what can I do to help? And Nixon said that
Speaker 1: would probably that would probably help a lot, But that
Speaker 1: just contributed even further to his alienation from not just
Speaker 1: black people, but young black people too, because it was
Speaker 1: a really tone deaf move as I saw it described
Speaker 1: at the time, that was not the kind of thing
Speaker 1: you did. Vietnam was so unpopular that even the troops
Speaker 1: weren't particularly supported at home. You know, it's not like
Speaker 1: today where it's like, you know, we really really hate this,
Speaker 1: you know, these endless wars.
Speaker 3: This is we really disagree.
Speaker 1: With the you know, the hawks and the military industrial
Speaker 1: complex that supports us. But we're still going to be
Speaker 1: supportive of the troops who have to go there, who
Speaker 1: are over there, whether by their own choice or well,
Speaker 1: I guess it's all volunteer army, they still deserve support
Speaker 1: these individuals over there overseas. That was not necessarily how
Speaker 1: it was during the Vietnam era. So Sammy Davis Junior
Speaker 1: going over there to support the troops after embracing the
Speaker 1: Nixon administration really.
Speaker 3: Furthered.
Speaker 1: This rift between him and the black community, which and
Speaker 1: I don't know if we've really said this enough, was
Speaker 1: fair and unjust because he was a fervent supporter of
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement during the fifties and sixties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean fervent, like he marched in Selma with Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Junior, Scared to death apparently, but he still
Speaker 1: went and he still did it. He contributed a ton
Speaker 1: of money to the civil rights movement. He was he
Speaker 1: was legit, for sure. But he also was, you know,
Speaker 1: friends with Richard Nixon. So one kind of one kind
Speaker 1: of tarnishes the other, you know.
Speaker 2: For sure. So in the sixties he is blown up.
Speaker 2: He's everywhere. He's on stage, he's recording records, he's on TV,
Speaker 2: he's doing celebrity roast, he's on Broadway, he's writing books,
Speaker 2: he's doing the Gunslinger thing. He's making a lot of
Speaker 2: money at this point and starts spending a lot of
Speaker 2: money because he came from nothing. Like we said, this
Speaker 2: is when the rat pack thing really heats up. And
Speaker 2: he's hanging out with Joey Bishop, Peter Lawfer, Dean Martin
Speaker 2: and of course the Chairman and started their first movie together,
Speaker 2: which was Ocean's Eleven. Not a great movie. Oh disagree,
Speaker 2: I don't. I think the original's not very good.
Speaker 3: Oh I liked it.
Speaker 2: I thought the remake was great, but did not care
Speaker 2: for the original.
Speaker 3: The original. Yeah, hanging seen Robin in the seven Hoods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, also not great. I don't think the Ratpeck ever
Speaker 2: made a great movie. Okay, that's just my opinion.
Speaker 3: What about Time Bandits fantastic? Okay.
Speaker 2: They were hanging out at the Coconut Grove in the
Speaker 2: Ambassador Hotel, which is a place that I have a
Speaker 2: neat little quick story did a commercial shoot there before
Speaker 2: they tore it down. And it was, you know, an
Speaker 2: empty hotel at this point that they just used for
Speaker 2: movie shoots. And it was an overnight thing, and like
Speaker 2: two in the morning, I was working in the art department.
Speaker 2: They said, here, you need to go assemble all these
Speaker 2: flag that we're going to hang. And they said, just
Speaker 2: go in the in the Coconut Grove and do it
Speaker 2: because there's plenty of room in there. And I went
Speaker 2: in there all by myself, sitting in cocaine in the
Speaker 2: the dusty old shadows of what was once the Great
Speaker 2: Coconut Grove, and uh, for like an hour and a
Speaker 2: half by myself, like sitting in a booth that the
Speaker 2: rat Pack might have sat in.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's amazing, really pretty neat.
Speaker 2: And later that night got to go see where Bob
Speaker 2: Kennedy was shot.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's where he was shot Yeah in the Ambassador Hotel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the kitchen, and one of the got the
Speaker 2: overnight security guy. It was just sort of one of
Speaker 2: those slow shoots. He was like to me and my friend,
Speaker 2: He's like, you want to go down in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: It's where it happened. And we went, oh yeah, wow,
Speaker 2: that's amazing. It was super cool and creepy.
Speaker 3: Wow. So anyway, great story.
Speaker 2: Charge they're hanging out with the rat Pack, and this
Speaker 2: is where it gets a little like dodgy because the
Speaker 2: rat Pack they were all best buds. They genuinely loved
Speaker 2: each other. But when you look at their old stick,
Speaker 2: there is a lot of sort of racial joking about Sammy.
Speaker 2: It's all in good fun, but there were often jokes
Speaker 2: made about him being black, being the only black member.
Speaker 2: Dean Martin one of his famous jokes was he would
Speaker 2: pick little Sammy up on stage because Dean was a
Speaker 2: big guy and Sammy was small and thank the audience
Speaker 2: for the n double ACP Award. So stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So in that documentary, and I'm not like justifying that
Speaker 1: at all, but in that documentary, what p be Goldberg
Speaker 1: is like, you know, you can you could take any
Speaker 1: segment of their show and be like this was really offensive.
Speaker 1: Sure Italians or alcoholics, or women, or black people or Jews,
Speaker 1: and she said they went hard on everybody. But from
Speaker 1: what I understand, at least as far as Sammy was concerned,
Speaker 1: he wasn't secretly didn't secretly have a chip on his
Speaker 1: shoulder and he had to just put up with this
Speaker 1: to be a member of the rat pack. He seemed
Speaker 1: to really not like he didn't take it as if
Speaker 1: they were being hostile or cruel, that it was just
Speaker 1: part of the act and that's how he took it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was certainly a different time. I
Speaker 2: mean there was for sure no doubting about it that
Speaker 2: back then you could make jokes about all kinds of
Speaker 2: things that you can't joke about now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like, it's not like I used to
Speaker 1: hang out with Sammy Davis Junior and had like quiet
Speaker 1: talks with him or whatever. So it is possible that
Speaker 1: he did, you know, harbor resentment from it, but that's
Speaker 1: not the impresson that I have from the research.
Speaker 3: That I've done.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, Josh.
Speaker 1: Right, But apparently no one did, because this is a
Speaker 1: really bizarre thing about him when he was talking about
Speaker 1: converting to Judaism. I think in like a nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six Playboy interview he was talking about losing his eye
Speaker 1: and then you know, converting to Judaism, and that it
Speaker 1: happened during a period of soul searching, and that he
Speaker 1: did all this and went through all this even though
Speaker 1: he was convalescing at Frank Sinatra's house, even though apparently
Speaker 1: Jerry Lewis spent seven days at his bedside when he
Speaker 1: was in the hospital, had all these tele Graham's coming in,
Speaker 1: all this outpouring of support. He considered himself alone and
Speaker 1: that he was a loaner, and that that was that's
Speaker 1: really bizarre when you step back and look at that,
Speaker 1: because Sammy Davis Junior always had friends. He was always
Speaker 1: the life of the party. He was always a good guy.
Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to be around him. He was always having fun.
Speaker 1: But he considered himself a loner. And apparently he didn't
Speaker 1: let people in. So even if I had been hanging
Speaker 1: around with him, he probably wouldn't have had that conversation
Speaker 1: with me.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Like, Sammy, I don't feel like I know they're real.
Speaker 3: You come on, Sammy, let.
Speaker 2: It, and he said, that's by design, babe.
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm tripping or something right now.
Speaker 2: So his career is booming in the sixties and into
Speaker 2: the seventies, and the result of that, of course, well
Speaker 2: through the sixties I guess, is that he's not around much.
Speaker 2: He had a lot of regrets about not being around
Speaker 2: as a father, as a husband. He was flandering, he
Speaker 2: was drinking a lot, he was using drugs. So in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight he got divorced. In nineteen seventy, he
Speaker 2: married a woman named Altaviz Gore who was eighteen years
Speaker 2: his junior. Great name, backup dancer. His children did not
Speaker 2: like the fact that she was so much younger, but
Speaker 2: they were stayed married, you know, for the rest of
Speaker 2: his life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was like, oh, if you got a problem with her,
Speaker 1: you should probably not know about everything else I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So here's where it gets really interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 2: Sammy Davis Junior had a convergence of two interests. In
Speaker 2: the seventies. He became a member of the Church of Satan.
Speaker 3: He was an honorary warlock.
Speaker 2: And he got really really into porn and porn you know,
Speaker 2: there's no better way to say it than he was
Speaker 2: a swinger. He was in orgies. He participated in Satanic orgies.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, that was actually I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was his first orgy or not, but that that's how
Speaker 1: he became a part of involved in the Church of Satan,
Speaker 1: you know, like the original Church of Satan with Anton
Speaker 1: Levey there and everything.
Speaker 2: Like the real good, like right back with Golden Ears
Speaker 2: of Church of Satan exactly.
Speaker 1: He went and participated in a Satanic orgy.
Speaker 3: Sammy Davis Junior, which I think is like.
Speaker 2: A regular orgy, but with just more like red candles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and pentagrams and black robes and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But then the black robes come off, but I think
Speaker 1: the pentagrams stay on. But he I read this really
Speaker 1: interesting Vice article about it, and he was apparently at
Speaker 1: the first one, and this would have been in the
Speaker 1: late sixties, and somebody in a hood is trying to
Speaker 1: get his attention, and it turns out he lifts the
Speaker 1: hood and it's his barber is Barbara J. S.
Speaker 3: Bring.
Speaker 1: He would later be killed with Sharon Tate by the
Speaker 1: Manson family. But he was basically like, hey, Sam, it's
Speaker 1: me Jay, how are you doing.
Speaker 3: In this awesome, and then they went back to They're
Speaker 3: coming Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he yeah, he was hugely in the in
Speaker 1: the pornography he was and the Orgies into swinging.
Speaker 3: He was. He loved cocaine and loved drinking.
Speaker 1: I saw our Sineo interview with him, must have been
Speaker 1: very shortly before his death, where he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to give everything up, uh, and I don't
Speaker 1: miss all the other stuff, but I miss booze, I
Speaker 1: miss whiskey, I miss wodka.
Speaker 3: I love that stuff.
Speaker 1: But then I also saw another interview where he basically
Speaker 1: said the same thing to Larry King, like I've given
Speaker 1: everything up, I don't smoke anymore, or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And then somebody went backstage and there's Sammy Davis Junior
Speaker 1: smoking a cigarette, drinking a brand and he goes, Sammy,
Speaker 1: what are you doing. You just told Larry King that
Speaker 1: he gave all this up. He's like, I'm I plan to.
Speaker 1: So who knows what he actually gave up or didn't do,
Speaker 1: but his whole jam was I want to experience every
Speaker 1: possible human experience I can, and I approach all this
Speaker 1: stuff without judgment. Yeah, which is how he ended up
Speaker 1: becoming involved in the Church of Satan, which went.
Speaker 2: On, yeah, no judgment here. If that's his bag, it's
Speaker 2: not hurting anybody. Did you see the one quote about
Speaker 2: the the ritual with the lady who was tied to
Speaker 2: the bed.
Speaker 3: Where he decided like it was okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was talking about it and he was like
Speaker 2: that chick was loving it. Man, Right, Well, I won't
Speaker 2: say the rest of the quote, but do you.
Speaker 3: Remember, Yeah, I remember, I remember.
Speaker 2: So all of this led to what we were talking
Speaker 2: about earlier. This this TV pilot that is legendary in
Speaker 2: Hollywood as one of the weirdest, worst things that Hollywood
Speaker 2: has ever produced. And it was a pilot for a
Speaker 2: TV show in nineteen seventy three called Poor Devil, which
Speaker 2: was about a man who was a load load down
Speaker 2: on the totem pole or I guess high on.
Speaker 3: The totem pole.
Speaker 2: Sure, Cole shoveler in Hell, who has offered the chance
Speaker 2: to work his way up the ranks in Hell if
Speaker 2: he can get the soul of Jack Klugman, a living
Speaker 2: white man on.
Speaker 3: Earth, right, Jack Klugman, Quincy, MD.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it is on YouTube, and dude, it is amazing.
Speaker 1: I have not had a chance to see it. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to see it, but it sounds amazing. I
Speaker 1: saw it described as like he's a reverse Clearance from
Speaker 1: It's a Wonderful Life, which you wouldn't possibly understand that. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: but just imagine that somebody's not trying to get you
Speaker 1: to be good so that they can or understand how
Speaker 1: great life is. He's trying to get him to follow
Speaker 1: his most bitter revenge impulses and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: at one point, apparently Jack Klugman wants to get in
Speaker 1: touch with Sammy Davis Junior the Devil, and is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know, I'll call the Church of Satan downtown. They'll
Speaker 1: know how to get in touch with them. And the
Speaker 1: Church of Satan went because apparently the pilot was aired
Speaker 1: and they were all about Sammy d At this point,
Speaker 1: they made him an honorary war law.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He used to flash like the devil horns at them
Speaker 1: from stage when he would love San.
Speaker 2: Francisco, honey. Yeah. Christopher Lee, by the way, played the Devil,
Speaker 2: which is pretty on the noes but perfect. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: that doesn't succeed, obviously, it's terrible. The seventies and the
Speaker 2: eighties his star starts to fade a little bit. He's
Speaker 2: still around. Of course, he was on All in the
Speaker 2: Family in a very famous episode where he kissed Archie
Speaker 2: Bunker on the lips. He was we have to talk
Speaker 2: about the great great Cannonball Run.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he was in that, wasn't he.
Speaker 2: Man? He and Dean were for partners. They played I
Speaker 2: forgot about. They dressed up as priests, that's right, heavily drinking,
Speaker 2: smoking priests. They played themselves basically as priests who wanted
Speaker 2: to drive fast.
Speaker 3: That's pretty great.
Speaker 2: But you know, even though we revere that film, I
Speaker 2: don't think it was looked at generally as one of
Speaker 2: the big highlights of his career.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm sure not. By this time. He's kitchy Sammy.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, like he was fine with that
Speaker 1: as long as he was working.
Speaker 3: He was okay.
Speaker 1: Because I said earlier that like he had a certain
Speaker 1: affiliation with that song Mister Bojangles. Yes where if you
Speaker 1: listen to it, it's about an old performer who's washed
Speaker 1: up and has been washed up for years, and he's
Speaker 1: still drinking and just doing you know, he's been reduced
Speaker 1: to doing basically sidewalk performances, and apparently Sammy was scared
Speaker 1: to death about that being his future. So even just
Speaker 1: doing what he was doing with Dean and Cannonball Run,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was just fine in his in his
Speaker 1: mind because he was still working and performing.
Speaker 2: Of course, he looks around and there's there's Burt Man,
Speaker 2: there's Adrian Barbo.
Speaker 3: Was.
Speaker 2: You're digging the Sammy now, aren't you.
Speaker 1: Yes, Sude, I think Sammy needs to be a recurring
Speaker 1: character from now on.
Speaker 3: In episode We'll see, We'll see, okay, the new hippie rob.
Speaker 2: So in the eighties, he gets into some financial trouble,
Speaker 2: to say the least, because I love how I had
Speaker 2: put it. He'd been struggling with tax payments since the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties. I think it was a Willie Nelson sort
Speaker 2: of deal from what I could gather. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I think he wasn't really paying his taxes.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, And apparently he'd also I don't know if
Speaker 1: he got bad tax advice or what, but he had
Speaker 1: claimed some very extravagant stuff as a write off, and
Speaker 1: the IRS came back and said, Nope, that doesn't count.
Speaker 1: You also owe on that. And his estate was worth
Speaker 1: or his net assets were worth about four million, but
Speaker 1: he owed about seven million cheese. And he was a
Speaker 1: profligate spender of money. I saw one interview once where
Speaker 1: a guy said that he walked six blocks.
Speaker 3: In New York with them.
Speaker 1: He even named the streets, So it seems like he
Speaker 1: really did just walk six blocks and dropped fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars along the way, stopping in different stores.
Speaker 2: I thought, you dropped that out of his pocket on
Speaker 2: the street.
Speaker 3: No, no buying stuff, just buy by buy.
Speaker 1: He had to spend it because he had come from
Speaker 1: nothing and he knew, you know, that thrill of spending money.
Speaker 1: He was terrible with his money, and so he as
Speaker 1: he found out he owed seven million dollars, he started
Speaker 1: to organize some shows and specials to try to raise
Speaker 1: some money to help him pay off this debt. And
Speaker 1: after the first one, I think in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: he found that he had a sore throat, so he
Speaker 1: went to the doctor and ultimately was diagnosed with throat cancer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after that very first show, that's like such cruel
Speaker 2: irony to raise all this money. Because when he passed
Speaker 2: away in nineteen ninety in May sixteenth of cancer, he
Speaker 2: left that tax bill to his wife like that that
Speaker 2: carried over, yeah, Altavius. Yeah, so that really left her
Speaker 2: kind of destitute for the rest of her life as well.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean like she then she basically owed three million
Speaker 1: dollars and his estate was sold off like basically at
Speaker 1: a yard sale auction. All of his stuff was And yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the negative part of his legacy, was that
Speaker 1: text at leaving that behind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, in one way, it's like kind
Speaker 2: of a sad ending with the financial stuff and obviously
Speaker 2: dying way too young of cancer.
Speaker 3: But yeah, sixty five man, he did.
Speaker 2: Accomplish everything he set out to accomplish. He showed everybody
Speaker 2: who said this diminutive, little mixed race, kind of funny
Speaker 2: looking guy is never going to amount to anything. And
Speaker 2: he had a lifelong career from the age of three
Speaker 2: to sixty five in show business.
Speaker 1: And one of the things Chuck is he did not
Speaker 1: really harbor regret. He apparently whenever he talked about his life,
Speaker 1: he talked about it with great satisfaction, which is pretty reassuring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that quote on that Letterman show was great. Yeah,
Speaker 2: on the eighty five episode, he's talking about the younger generation,
Speaker 2: and he said, I look at the young performers today
Speaker 2: and I go like this, Yeah, man, go ahead, cook,
Speaker 2: I've been there. That's it man, I have no envy.
Speaker 2: I did it all. Yeah, pretty great, Go ahead, cook,
Speaker 2: that's great.
Speaker 3: Sammy Davis Junior. Everybody, round of applause. You got anything else?
Speaker 2: Got nothing else?
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about Sammy Davis Junior,
Speaker 1: just start watching some of his old performances.
Speaker 3: They're pretty amazing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And while you're doing that, we're going to just move
Speaker 1: on ahead to listener mail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is about the nine to one to one
Speaker 2: pizza thing. We heard from a lot of uh nine
Speaker 2: one one people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad that you you picked one of these men.
Speaker 3: This is good.
Speaker 2: Hey, while we are not specifically trained, just send ems
Speaker 2: to calls where people pretend to order a pizza. Most
Speaker 2: nine one one dispatchers will in fact ask you, this
Speaker 2: is nine one one? Did you dial the wrong number?
Speaker 2: And if they respond no, we will then say are
Speaker 2: you in a situation where you can't ask for help?
Speaker 2: And then they can say yes or no. Obviously, there
Speaker 2: are many stories of this working out. Most in domestic
Speaker 2: violence are kidnapping situations. So even though it is a
Speaker 2: protocol necessarily or set in stone as a way to
Speaker 2: ask for help, it could help many people in bad situations.
Speaker 2: We will not just hang up on you. Even if
Speaker 2: you keep ordering a pizza and do not acknowledge that
Speaker 2: you need help. Most will still send out law enforcement
Speaker 2: for a welfare check due to the suspicious nature of
Speaker 2: the call.
Speaker 3: I'm glad to hear this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, please let this be known because in a last
Speaker 2: ditch effort, this may save someone's life.
Speaker 3: And that yeah is.
Speaker 2: From responder Brooke Diane.
Speaker 1: Thanks Brooke, and thank you also not for being like Josh.
Speaker 3: Was wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
Speaker 2: Oh I don't remember did you say that's not true?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I said specifically it's an urban legend.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I don't even remember that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I was really glad when people started writing I'm
Speaker 1: glad you picked one to say like, no.
Speaker 3: This is this is for real.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, thanks again, Brooke. That was fantastic. If you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with this like Brooke did.
Speaker 1: Even if you do want to say Josh was wrong
Speaker 1: wrong wrong, wrong, wrong, that's all right, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear that kind of thing. You can send us an
Speaker 1: email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.