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Sammy Davis Jr.
After the bombing of Pearl
Harbour, Sammy attempted to sign up. He was too young at the time, but one year later
signed on for what was to be an uneven stretch in the army. Sammy went through basic
training eight times - the army apparently did not have too many slots for variety
artists. While in the army, Sammy endured a sickening laundry list of racist attacks,
belittlements, assaults, slights and slurs. Ultimately, they all fed his
desire to become a star. After getting out of the army, Sammy, his father and Will
continued to struggle. It was at this time that Sammy first met Frank, who was at the peak
of his drawing power as a teen heartthrob. Sinatra was huge, but Sammy was still trying to
get to the next level, to become more than just another flash
dance act. After analysing the styles of a number of mid-level black variety performers,
Sammy came to an important realization: "Negro performers worked in a cubicle. They'd
run on, sing twelve songs, dance, and do jokes - but not to the people. The jokes weren't
done like Milton Berle was doing them, to the audience, they were done between the men
onstage, as if they didn't have the right to communicate with the people out front. It was
the reverse of the way Mickey Rooney and Frank Sinatra played. We'd been on the bill
with them and they both worked directly to the people, talking to them, kidding them,
communicating with them, making them care
about them. Touching their emotions."
Academy Awards night at
Ciro's...1952
Sammy finally broke through with a boffo performance at Ciro's, a swank nightclub in
Hollywood frequented by influential industry people. According to Sammy, the thing that
finally pushed him over the top, was "touching the
audience" - he had always had the explosive talent, now he had put a human face on
it.
In 1954 Sammy signed with Decca and recorded songs such as "Hey There",
"The Birth of the Blues", "That Old Black Magic" and "My Funny
Valentine". Sammy's early singing style was heavily influenced by Sinatra - something
that Sinatra himself actively discouraged, urging Sammy to develop his own sound.
Driving from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, Sammy was involved in a collision which resulted in
the loss of his left eye. The accident generated enormous publicity, as Sammy was a hot
young rising star at the time. Sammy's accident
actually helped his career, and it was the first real inside glimpse he got of the
American celebrity machine. He would forever after work just as hard keeping his name in
the papers as entertaining audiences. Often his attention getting antics overshadowed his
artistic achievements, but nothing could diminish the incredible strength of Sammy's power
to entertain audiences. Shortly after the accident in which he lost his eye, Sammy
converted to Judaism. Like most Jews, Sammy referred to God as "The Cat
Upstairs". Sammy's
Commandments
On an album such as "Sammy Davis jr., Live at Town Hall" (1958), one can get a
glimpse of what it was like to sit in an audience before this man. The pacing and variety
are incredible. It's a headlong onslaught of entertainment. The album also highlights the
reason why Sammy is not commonly remembered for such performances. The songs are all
associated with other singers, the dancing is first rate, but not innovative or avant
garde, and
the impressions are of people no one cares about anymore. History - even pop cultural
history - tends to favour the specialists, and it just wasn't in Sammy to pay attention to
just one thing for very long.
"For as long as I can remember, Las Vegas has been my spiritual home." -
Sammy Davis, jr.
Anyone who has visited Las Vegas might reasonably wonder, what kind of person calls it his
spiritual home. To Sammy, what Vegas embodied was the desire to entertain - and not only
to entertain, but to wow. In Vegas, everything's brighter, louder, bigger, stranger... it
is a city built on the concept of non-restraint. Another element of Las Vegas which
connected with Sammy spiritually was its democracy. Poll a crowd at a Vegas show and you
will find a cross-section of America. Getting great tickets to a show in Vegas is
something anyone can do - you don't need to be connected, or rich, or famous.
Sammy's work ethic, and
his code of professional conduct were astoundingly rigorous. At one point Sammy was doing
a Broadway show (Golden Boy), a television show (The Sammy Davis jr. Show) and a movie (A
Man Called Adam) simultaneously. While none of these enterprises were particularly
meritworthy, Sammy would not consider putting less than a full effort into each one - and
he was almost always accorded great reviews personally. Sammy was a performer not a
writer, and regardless of the quality of the project, Sammy gave it his all.
Unfortunately, he was rarely able to find material worthy of his talent.
"A variety artist, that's what I am."
"You can't please everybody. But you please the majority and don't ever let them say,
'Gee, I didn't like the performance.' That doesn't mean everybody is going to like what
you're doing, but at least they can say, 'He performed for me, man. He gave his
all.'"
The Rat Pack consisted of
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. Lawford was a film and
television star who married one of John F. Kennedy's sisters (earning him the epithet
Brother-in-Lawford) and
Joey Bishop was a comedian. The pinnacle of the Rat Pack's existence was the infamous
"Summit at the Sands" in 1960 when they went to Vegas to shoot scenes for
Ocean's Eleven, while simultaneously playing the Sands Hotel and Casino.
In 1960 Sammy
married the Swedish actress May Britt. The marriage elicited death threats and
demonstrations. At the time, Britt was a moviestar, but after marrying Sammy, and having
children, she gave up her film career for
her family. Sammy was ultimately unable to make the same sacrifices, and the marriage
ended in divorce.
Golden Boy was a musical about a boxer struggling to become successful in a brutal world.
It was originally a stage play in the 1930s, but was updated and altered for Sammy to
include racial issues, one of which was Sammy's character's relationship with a white
woman. Golden Boy had one of the first fully integrated casts on Broadway. In 1965 was
nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actor in a Musical" but lost to Zero
Mostel.
Sammy met Altovise while
doing a revival of Golden Boy in London. She was a classically trained dancer in the
chorus. They married a few years later. In 1980 she appeared in Can't Stop the Music, the
Allen Carr produced film directed by Nancy Walker featuring the Village People, Steve
Guttenberg and Bruce Jenner. After Sammy's death, she was left with the burden of trying
to pay off millions of dollars in debts, without the aid of the income of a Vegas
headliner.
Bojangles
"I wanted nothing to do with it, with the character. It was the story of a dancer who
became a drunk, a bum, and he died in jail. The name 'Bojangles' had nothing to do with
Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson, who never went to jail, was never a drunk, retired rich, and
died popular. The song spooked me. I had seen too many performers who'd slid from
headlining to playing joints, then toilets, and finally beer halls and passing the hat,
reduced to coming
backstage to see the star, their pants pressed on a hot electric light bulb, but with
frayed collars and cuffs... The song was my own nightmare. I was afraid that was how I was
going to end. The juxtaposition of the front, the
glamour-'He owns the world' - but in my mind I'm worried that twenty years from now I'll
wind up with those frayed collars and cuffs. How not? How long before the road tilts
downward and then there' nothing coming in to pay for it, to keep that ball rolling, to
keep up the front?"
note: Sammy wore this jumpsuit throughout much of the seventies.
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June 10, 1972 - Sammy has the number one record in America - "Candy Man"
"Candy Man" stays on top of the charts for three weeks until it is knocked
off by "Alone Again (Naturally)" by Gilbert O'Sullivan. Debate continues to
this day as to which is the more annoying song.
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