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