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