WEBVTT - Sammy Davis Jr.: Death of the Entertainer | Reviving a Mobit 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.360 This episode is about a man who has been called 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:11.559 the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century. Jeez, look at that. 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.280 So naturally I wanted to talk to a car expert. 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.400 Yeah, that's a gorgeous vehicle, beautifully restored. 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.720 I'm with my friend Matt Anderson, he's the curator of 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.919 transportation at the Henry Ford Museum, and we're in a 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.840 suburb of Detroit looking at a stunning, shiny red nineteen 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.960 fifty three Cadillac El Dorado with the car's owner, Neil Porter. 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.280 A lot of the parts of the car were handbuilt. 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.240 The wrap around windshield is cool. The curve in the glass, 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:38.639 this is. 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.600 The very first of the wrap around windshields nineteen fifty three. 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:43.200 Bottom. 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.680 Neil invited me to sit behind the wheel for you 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:48.920 to get in in. These seats are what leather? Leather, leather, 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:53.200 not leave. This is one heck of a car, the 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.360 height of luxury. And can I just point out that, 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:59.280 like power windows were a big deal in the late seventies, 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.160 but there's a prominent design flaw. Let's talk about the 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:04.920 steering wheel. 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:05.600 Yeah. 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:07.399 One of the things he's notice is that at the 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:09.920 center of the steering wheel the hub. There looks like 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:11.600 the nose cone on a missile. 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.000 Almost that's right jutting out from the center of the 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:20.440 steering wheel is a comical chrome protrusion, and straight at 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:21.520 the driver's face. 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.120 It has no functional purpose. It's simply there to kind 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:25.720 of look cool. 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:29.840 And cool certainly describes the man who was driving his 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.840 own El Dorado in the wee small hours of November nineteenth, 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:38.520 nineteen fifty four. Sammy Davis Junior was a twenty eight 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:43.640 year old, fast rising nightclub performer, singer, comic and boy 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.039 What a dancer heading from a show in Vegas to 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.400 a recording gig in Los Angeles when he collided with 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:54.400 another car in San Bernardino, California, and the left side 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:58.480 of his face collided with that steering wheel. The car 0:01:58.560 --> 0:01:59.680 had no seat belts. 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.880 This is what caused Sammy Davis Junior to lose his eye. 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.520 In his accident, he did not have time to react 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:08.600 it out of the way, so he went flying. His 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.280 head came and hit against that protrusion and went right 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.640 into his left eye socket and in fact knocked the 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:15.080 eye out of the socket. 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:20.760 My father had been calling in the middle of the 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.480 night to go to Saint Bernardine's Hospital to take care 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.400 of a man who had a very serious car accident 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.200 and injured his eye and needed some help. 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.120 Nancy Gollup is the daughter of the late doctor Frederick Hall. 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:36.720 He was the surgeon who rushed to the hospital to 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.600 work on Sammy. Nancy was thirteen years old at the time. 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.360 And so what my father basically did was to save 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.560 Sammy from losing the other eye. But the first question 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.880 that Sammy purportedly asking my dad was were his legs? 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:56.200 Okay, wow, that's very telling, right, Yes, I thought that 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:01.880 was Poigners. Also, the traumatic event opens Sammy's autobiography, Yes 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.359 I Can. Here's a passage read by his co author 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.040 Bert Boyard. As I ran my hand over my cheek, 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.240 I felt my eye hanging there by a string. Frantically, 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:12.760 I tried to stuff it back in, like if I 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:14.840 could do that, it would stay there and nobody would know. 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:16.799 The ground went out from under me, and I was 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.920 on my knees. Don't let me go blind, Please, God, 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:20.519 don't take. 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:20.919 It all away. 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:22.480 Now. 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.480 When Sammy says don't take it all away, he's not 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.480 praying for his life, at least not the way you 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:32.960 or I might be he's talking about his life in showbiz, 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.080 all the beautiful things, all the plans, the laughs. They 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:41.760 were lying out there, smashed, just like the car. Sammy 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.360 spent almost two weeks in the San Bernardino hospital recovering. 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.680 Later on, he'd famously be fitted for a glass eye, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.960 and the outpouring of love was almost like a memorial service. 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:58.920 There was a telegram from Marilyn Monroe which just thrilled Sammy. 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:04.280 Two pieces, Eddie Canter, Jackie Robinson, Ella Fitzgerald. They all 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.360 sent telegrams, even the waiters at the Hollywood night club Zeros, 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.320 where he'd become an overnight sensation just three years before. 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.640 The admiration of his friends and peers mattered, But in 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.560 a life of dramatic ups and downs, was the adulation 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.159 of audiences that would sustain him, in the words of 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:32.320 one friend, nourish him. And he gave those audiences everything 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:32.880 he had. 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.960 I've got a lot of living to do. 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.479 This is what he was trained to do. It was 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.920 in every atom of his DNA. It's what he did. 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.040 He did it well, he did it graciously, He did 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.840 it gratefully, and he wasn't trying to bludget anybody over 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:50.880 the head. And he wasn't just in his performance, it's 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.400 just what he did, it's who he was. I gotta 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.279 be me. Who's me, the world's greatest entertainer, Sammy Davis Junior. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:10.760 I'm Morocca and this is mobituaries, this moment, Sammy Davis Junior. 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.760 May sixteenth, nineteen ninety death of the entertainer. 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:24.160 I think that it's probably the best thing that's ever 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:24.640 happened to me. 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:25.960 It's probably an odd thing to say. 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.520 My friends rallied around me and convinced me that it 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:32.159 was still a lot to be done and that I 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.200 probably probably wouldn't matter. And as it turned out. 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.520 That's Sammy Davis Junior talking about the crash that nearly 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.040 killed him. I'm not surprised by the outpouring of love 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.640 at that hospital. I've been a correspondent on CBS Sunday 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.200 Morning for over ten years now. I've interviewed probably over 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:53.560 one hundred celebrities, and there's one name that's popped up 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:54.520 more than any. 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.640 Other, Sammy Davis Junior. 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.800 Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown told me about his 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.359 friend's command over an audience. 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:05.320 When he was on stage. 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.080 You would be overwhelmed. 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:13.320 Kim Novak and Nancy Sinatra each talked about what a 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:15.120 joy Sammy was to be around. 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.800 He was such a fun person. Sammy was part of 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:19.480 the family. 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.560 LeVar Burton and Ben Vereen revered Sammy as a role model. 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.400 It wasn't all the time that I saw people on 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:27.440 TV who look like me. 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.480 If there was a black actor on TV in those days, 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:33.520 we'd watched Sammy would. 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:35.360 Come on on The Ed Sullivan Show and. 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:38.440 Do everything, and I was bleed everything. 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:39.880 He did everything. 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.440 Yes, when the subject turns to Sammy, the superlatives start 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.040 flying easily. 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:46.839 The greatest. 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:47.960 He was everything. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.640 He could play any instrument, he could sing, he could 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:53.080 dance like a maniac. 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:58.400 That's Broadway legend, Cheeta Rivera. Is there anyone like Sammy 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.120 Davis Junior today. 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.680 I have not ever seen anybody. I just never saw 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:05.440 anything like him in my life. 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.240 It says it right there on his tombstone in Hollywood's 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:13.200 Forest Lawn, the entertainer. He did it all. 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.680 Daddy was a new sensation, got himself a congregation, built 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:18.800 up quite an up ration down band. 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.880 And he did singing, dancing, acting, comedy. He was at 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:25.920 least a quadruple threat quintuple if you count his gun 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:32.040 spinning routine or upplog. It helped that he started early. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.920 I won an amateur contest at the Stanley Theater in 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.080 Philadelphia when I was three and a half years old, 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.960 singing I'll be glad when You're dead, You rascal. 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:51.480 You that seven year old Sammy singing the same song 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:58.200 in the movie musical short Rufus Jones for President. Sammy 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.400 Davis Junior was born in Harlem, Woman in nineteen twenty five. 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:06.200 His mother, Elvera Sanchez, was Latin and a dancer. His 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.440 father was a hoofer. His parents split up early, and 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:12.760 just when most kids start school, Sammy hit the road 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:17.280 the vaudeville circuit with his father, Sam Senior, and Will Maston, 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.480 a family friend he called his uncle. They were billed 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.840 as the Will Maston Trio. Here's Sammy reminiscing with his 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.800 father in a nineteen seventy three TV special. 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:29.440 What Place We plainly who? 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:30.040 We were playing? 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:34.680 Minsky's Lynsky's, Yeah, Minskis Berlin's House, forty second Street, doing 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:35.520 jigleson right. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.040 And I used to add a cigarette, yeah, And. 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:39.800 I was passing off as a midget. 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:44.400 I don't want midget. 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:45.760 With that then, but you were five. 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.119 The trio was a success, but it was the diminutive 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.160 Sammy Davis Junior even as an adult. He was just 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:59.560 five foot five who stood out. Shirley McLain remembered Dean 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.800 Martin and Frank Sinatra sneaking her into ceroes to see 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:05.400 this dynamo who. 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.439 Was dancing and singing and performing in the middle of 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:08.920 a trio. 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.960 She told this story on stage to Sammy had a 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.040 tribute show in his honor in nineteen eighty nine, towards 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:17.040 the end of his life. 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.600 The two people on either side of you were terrific. 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.439 But I could not believe my eyes and my ears 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.520 never had so much come out of something so small 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:29.880 for so long. 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.800 She's right, there was a light that came out of 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.840 him that made it impossible not to look at him, 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.360 that made him more than the sum of his mad 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:44.480 individual talents. Let's talk about his impressions, which I loved, 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:46.480 his Bogey perfect. 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.040 I'd like to say that it's really been a pleasure 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.280 entertaining all of you nice folks shot there. 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.319 It's really been one of the great thrills of my time. 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:56.640 His Cagney spot. 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:02.000 On yes, wing that great h all in love, that's 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.600 in you, you dirty. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:09.520 Rat, and now listened to his marvelously muttering Marlon Brando A. 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:18.560 Baby kisses, I will personally deliver if you will only 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:20.319 sing this morning roof over day. 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.040 His friend, the Oscar winning songwriter Leslie Brickis told me 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.360 that growing up, Sammy spent a lot of time in 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:32.440 movie theaters. It became sort of his school, since he 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.160 never spent a single day in an actual school. 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.280 He used to speak along with the actors, imitating them, 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:43.400 you know, carry Grant or Humphy Bogat. He learned the accents. 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.520 He'd do the voice with them, and that's how he 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:48.880 perfected it. He couldn't let anything go by. 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.400 There's this bit I've seen from an old Julie Andrews 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.520 Variety show. Julie Andrews Variety Show. Don't you just love 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.440 the sound of that? Anyway, On the show, Sammy and 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.920 the impressionist Rich Little engage in a friendly competition. 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.200 Why don't we forget about impressions and just see? 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.160 Oh Sammy sings as an acting cole. 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:10.480 I've just found joy. 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:13.360 I'm as happy. 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:14.800 All you, blaye the bar. 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:25.000 Rich does liberacim parvised and Sammy does his Jerry Lewis 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.040 to Riches Dean Martin, You. 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.040 And the way. 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:38.040 Wait a minute, you know I'm watching it, and rich 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:43.360 Little is technically better, but Sammy is just better. I'd 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.240 rather watch Sammy. So what's happening there? 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.439 The genius of Sammy's when he imitated someone, He imitated 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.640 them from the inside out, and rich Little imitates someone 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.920 from the outside inn and Sammy gets to the essence 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:56.600 of that person. 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.000 This is Larry Maslon. He's the writer and co producer 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.600 of the film American Masters. Sammy Davis Junior. I've got 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.520 to be me and he's super smart. 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.360 Nobody imitated musicians and singers the way sam That's. 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.120 Really interesting because you've got to be able to have 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.120 the talent of channeling them and have their talent as well, 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:16.400 right right, right. 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:18.000 Lo Wie, where You're. 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:26.280 Sammy's talent as a singer is often well undersung. It's 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:28.880 not so much that he had a technically beautiful voice, 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.760 but cliche alert. He knew how to make a song 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.000 his own. And in this episode, we're going to use 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:45.920 three of the songs he famously sang to tell his story. 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:48.520 Whether I'm right. 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.160 Larry Maslon calls I've Got to Be Me the ultimate 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:56.120 Sammy song. 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.360 I mean, it's everything, and that's who he was. 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:02.760 I gotta be mean. 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.880 And yet the song wasn't written for Sammy. 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:11.920 Or Settle falls. 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.280 As long as there's not much charms. 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:25.200 But Steve Lawrence sang it first in a musical called 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.720 Golden Rainbow, about a single dad living in Vegas. The 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:35.080 musical also starred Steve's wife, Evie Gourmet incredible voice. Anyway, 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.600 Steve thought this song, written by Walter Marx might be 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.680 more powerful coming from his friend. 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.920 The lyric content was like whether I'm right, whether I'm wrong, 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.400 whether I find a place in this world or never belong. 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.880 It interpreted this black man in this society at that time, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.480 this man who is different than everybody else. I called him. 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.520 I said, sam You're going to do this your own 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:03.000 way and better. It meant more coming from him than 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.760 it did from me. He recorded it, bang, he went 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:07.720 to the top of the chots. 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.280 We'll go it alone. 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:16.360 So it must now being me for Sammy Davis Junior 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.920 was a complicated matter. For one thing, he was an 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.200 African American man who would later convert to Judaism. 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.960 My mother is a Puerto Rican, so that means I'm 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:29.800 colored Jewish and Puerto Rican. 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.040 When I move into a neighborhood, I wipe it out. 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:36.960 That's a joke he told a lot when he was 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.640 performing with the rat Pack in the nineteen sixties. FYI 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:42.320 were not spending a lot of time with the rat 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:47.360 Pack in this episode. It's been done to death. Throughout 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:52.520 his life, Sammy mined his unique identity for humor and 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.760 to diffuse tension. Remember Warren Batty announcing the wrong Best 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:02.200 Picture Oscar winner in twenty seventeen. Sammy was ahead of 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.920 his time. Here he is in nineteen sixty four announcing 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.040 the Oscar for movie scoring. 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:13.080 And the winner is John Addison for Tom Jones. 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:18.120 Except that it wasn't. Sammy handled his snack for me 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:19.720 without skipping a beat. 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.720 They gave me the wrong envelope. Wait till the NAACP 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:24.600 hears about this. 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.800 But earlier in his life his talent played a much 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.920 more vital role. It helped him survive. 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.360 They painted you white, they poured urine in your beer, 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:39.760 things of that name. 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.680 I mean, did these things really happen? Yes, they really happen. 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.720 That's Sammy talking to our senior Hall. In nineteen forty three, 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.560 eighteen year old Sammy came off the road when he 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.120 was drafted into the army and into one of the 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:58.280 first integrated units. Until then, his father and uncle had 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:01.440 tried as best they could to shell him from racism. 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:03.920 Now there was no one to protect him. 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.160 I was in a kind of an odd situation because 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:09.800 I'm going, hey, I don't know anything about. 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:10.320 This outside world. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.720 I belonged to show business. Show business says, hey, I 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:14.840 got a bar, and let's put the show on here. 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.160 You know, all of those cliches I lived, you know, 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:20.920 and the other guys are going, you'll be doing that. 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.200 You gon'll get us in trouble. You know, I got 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:28.640 my nose broke three times and it hurt, and you 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.760 couldn't do anything about it. You had nobody to back 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:32.320 you up. 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.760 Trips to the infirmary were regular. That's how many fights 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.720 he was getting into. But when he got transferred to 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.320 an entertainment unit, things got better for him. He once 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:47.080 told his daughter, talent was my only weapon. 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.600 With a white situation of a black situation, you do 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.200 it with humor. I tried to do it with entertaining, 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:54.960 to try to get some doors open, because all of 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.120 them were closed in those days, all of them were closed. 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:04.080 Well, sammy them open. Remember those impressions he did. They 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:08.040 weren't just funny, they were bold. Back in the late forties, 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.800 black performers didn't do impressions of white performers in front 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.040 of white audiences, that is until Sammy did. 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.920 My dad Will said, big interest, one of these days 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:20.000 you keep doing white. 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:20.879 People, you know. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.040 And I went on and did it now in the 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.880 Strand Theater. The first time I went, you dirty rat, 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.040 a guy in the audience said, my god, he sounds 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.600 just like him. What he was really saying, I'm looking 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:36.000 at a black man for the first time, do a 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.440 white man. Well, it was so good that we went 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:41.560 from opening act to closing. 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.800 Now. Imitating white performers was one thing. Dating a white 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:52.600 woman was another. His relationship with screen siren Kim Novak 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.560 was considered scandalous. In nineteen fifty seven, I talked to 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.480 Kim recently on her horse farm in Oregon. That was 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:01.480 its explosive back then. 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.879 At that time, it was it certainly was so ridiculous. 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:07.560 And what was that like for you? 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.520 At that time, Harry Conbe threatened to take his other 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:11.119 eye out. 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.840 Harry Khane was the much feared head of Columbia Pictures, 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:17.719 and he really did. Oh, of course. 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:23.160 However, we saw each other, but I was never in love. 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.520 Certainly it was Sammy. Do you think that he was 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.679 infatuated with you? Oh he was. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:29.920 He had a good crush on a nice crush. I 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.160 mean we had such fun times together, we really did. 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:38.160 But it certainly not worth losing an eye over. 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.080 I'm just trying to square this sort of drive to 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.960 make an audience happy and the public happy, and then 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:47.880 doing these things that are really ballsy. 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.720 Well, I'm not sure he viewed them as ballsy. 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.520 That's Sammy's friend, former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:02.120 I'm sure he viewed them as being just Davis junior. 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.760 And in nineteen seventy two, being Sammy Davis Junior meant 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:10.760 embracing President Richard Nixon during his reelection campaign. Quite literally, 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.000 Sammy hugged Nixon, and let's just say much of the 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:15.639 public did not hug back. 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.440 You've had a lot of criticism from some black groups, 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:20.800 right because I bothered you. 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:22.359 Yes, of course. 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.000 Do you think that he was shocked at the reaction 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:27.719 he got when he embraced Nixon. 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:30.520 Yes, I think that shocked him. 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.879 But Willie Brown says, Sammy knew exactly what he was doing. 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:39.679 Many African Americans in this country were Republicans. Sammy was 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.960 conscious of that because some of them were his friends. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.880 And contrary to most tellings of this story, Brown says, 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.520 it wasn't primarily African American fans who were outraged. 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:56.320 They were basically white liberals who could not understand how 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:03.119 such as symbolic black could be embracing somebody like Richard Nixon. 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:08.360 So most of the disapproval you think came from white liberals. 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.320 I know it came from white liberals. Black people didn't 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.400 give a shit about whether or not he embracings. 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:17.320 Yeah, Sammy still felt the need later that year to 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.639 address a less than warm audience at Jesse Jackson's Push Conference, 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.360 a gathering of social justice activists. 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.920 Man, disagree if you will with my politics. 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:31.600 It was a dramatic appearance. 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:38.840 But I will not allow anyone to take away the fact. 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:39.119 That I am black. 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:42.000 It's moving because he's honest with his audience. 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:43.960 That's Larry Maslon again. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.440 Basically, he's saying, whatever you think of me and Richard Dixon. 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.000 You know I'm a black man. You know what I've 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:50.720 been through in the last forty years. 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:55.880 I'm right, ah, rather wrong. 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:58.880 If you don't want to take me, fine, but I'm 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:01.080 going to put me out there. I gotta be me. 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:04.040 What more of a statement can you have than that? 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:11.520 I gotta be me, gotta be me? 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:16.080 What else can I be? 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.159 It seems like showbiz for him was kind of like 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.119 a rocket ship that took him on a voyage and 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:27.920 helped him sort of overcome so many obstacles. 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.840 His talent is a rocket ship, but gravity was being 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.760 black in America, and that's what brought him back to 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.600 Earth time and time again. This is his own words. 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:38.200 I want to be so good that no one will 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:43.040 notice I'm black. That's not really possible, is it? 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:44.560 What kind no. 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:47.240 Lives are they? 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:49.000 Do? 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:50.720 You have a favorite Sammy song? 0:21:51.040 --> 0:22:00.440 That whispered Empty were Birds? 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.520 What kind of fool am I? That's Dion Warwick's favorite 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:09.520 Sammy song. It's about someone unable to find lasting love. 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:15.720 That's the story he tells from the very first note. 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:19.200 I mean, you cannot but believe every single word he's 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:22.320 giving you. He floored me with that. 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:32.160 What time because he was forever on tour and on 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.840 the road. He never could sustain the relationship because he 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:37.919 was never there for more than two weeks. 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.080 Leslie Brickis wrote what kind of fool Am I? With 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:44.440 Anthony Newley for the musical Stop the World? I Want 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:48.600 to Get Off? But Sammy made it famous when he 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:51.400 sings it. There's a great performance in nineteen sixty two 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:56.280