In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Junior (85 page)

Years earlier, in retirement, Sam Sr. had given his tap shoes to the city of Wilmington, North Carolina, place of his birth. Upon his death, the shoes were given to the local historical society. They are still there, protected in a glass case.

Where have you gone, Rat Pack?

There had been, over the years, sightings. There they were on May 22, 1978—Frank and Sammy and Dean—at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, appearing together for a SHARE charity event. In February 1983, they popped up for a hospital charity event in Palm Springs. Some songs, some memories, some drinks—then they split, going their separate ways. Toward the end of 1987, Sammy and Dean found themselves in Palm Springs, visiting with Frank and Barbara. “
We’ve got to do something together again,” Sammy offered. Sinatra had an idea: the three of them could go on the road. Dean listened, resisted work as always, then came around: “
How much longer have we got?” he was moved to wonder himself. The ghosts. Sammy knew: time was so wickedly swift. Days later Sinatra was on the phone to Sammy. “
Smokey, let’s do it. It will be hard work, but it could be exciting. And I think it would be great for Dean. Get him out. For that alone it would be worth doing.” Dean’s son, Dino, had gone missing on March 20, 1987, flying in an Air National Guard jet over the San Bernardino mountains. Five days later the crash site was
located; he and a copilot had died on impact. For days Dean sequestered himself with Jeannie, his ex-wife, mother of his boy. Dino had been, as Sammy knew, his father’s “
golden child.”

Sinatra—taking charge, playing chairman—said they’d go by train, tuxedoed barnstormers, a long elegant train. But after more thought, such a mode of travel was deemed too cumbersome, so it would be by air. Thirty cities, taking in March and April of 1988, followed by a break, then a resumption for September and October.

Word had actually leaked out about the tour in late December. Sammy imagined what the public might be thinking: “
This is the last hurrah.”

The official press conference, announcing the tour, was held at Chasen’s. They arrived in tuxedos; the press were gathered like geese.

“
You start it off, Sam,” Sinatra whispered to Sammy.

“
Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for coming here today …”

Dean interrupted: “Is there any way we can call this whole thing off?”

Was he joking? Why of course. But who knew for sure? Sammy shot him a strange look.

“
We want to officially announce that we’re going to be ‘Together Again,’ the first time since Las Vegas in the sixties …” Sammy continued.

A little later someone asked if they could pack the big arenas they were being booked into. It touched a nerve in Dean. “
This country has not seen us,” he began. “They’ve seen rock ’n’ roll and all this other—not that I …” He trailed off.

Their schedule was announced: Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cleveland, Vancouver, of course New York, New York, Providence, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Bloomington. Sinatra imagined other cities would be added once the act caught on.

They’d open in Oakland.

Shirley asked Sammy how much money he’d reap from the tour. She had to keep an eye on the books. Sammy didn’t know. Sinatra’s office told Sammy not to worry about money just yet. That was just it; squeezed by debtors, Sammy had to worry about money right now.

Later, Sinatra sought to assure him: “
The accountants say you should come out of this with from six to eight million dollars.”

Sammy refinanced the house again.

They rehearsed in Hollywood. Singing, bantering, joking. Shirley saw something she did not like at the rehearsal: there was not a black face in the forty-piece orchestra. Sammy mentioned it to Sinatra.

“
What the fuck is this snow-white orchestra,” Sinatra hollered out. “That stinks.”

Sinatra was told it would cost money to hire more musicians, especially with such short notice. “
Pay what we have to. Fix it!” In 1941, it was
The House
I Live In
, Sinatra’s Oscar-winning documentary about racial tolerance. It was still, at times, the house he lived in.

They flew to Oakland. Sammy and Murphy; Sammy and Dean and Frank; years and years and years. It was March 13, 1988. There were sixteen thousand sitting at the Oakland Coliseum.

That was the marquee in Oakland.

Dean would be followed by Sammy, who would be followed by Frank.

Dean came on, heard the words “
Can’t hear you. Louder.” This wasn’t Bill Miller’s Riviera; it wasn’t even the Sands. This Oakland venue was a huge gaping wound in the earth. Sammy’s youth freaks loved this kind of setting.

Dean made it through seven songs.

Then came Sammy, bouncing, even on the bad hip. Bouncing as in the old days, grabbing the mike, the jewelry glinting, twisting open the mouth, only he couldn’t get anything out, because the people had begun to rise, they were standing, it was for him, Sammy, and he slow-motioned himself through the moments. The kid from vaudeville. A standing O; how sweet. His hip hurt. The lights were glinting. And he said, at long last, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.” Then he began—“I’ve Gotta Be Me”—happy as can be. “
For me,” he told the crowd, “it’s one day at a time now.” He was talking about the drinking, the liver, life.

Sinatra closed it out, then all three of them were onstage for a medley. Dean threw a cigarette into the crowd after the medley. Frank didn’t like it, and they both exchanged harsh words about it.

Sammy loved it all, every second. He had no complaints.

A week later in Chicago Frank blew up because—while they each had quite spacious hotel suites—they were placed on different floors.

“
Don’t unpack,” Frank said. “We’re going to get the hell out of this dump. Get Dean and Sammy in here.” Dean didn’t move; Sammy came running.

Then and there, Dean made up his mind. No more. He got a private jet and split, leaving at night through the dark clouds. He couldn’t take Sinatra anymore.

Eliot Weisman, one of the tour sponsors, frantically went about seeking a replacement.

Now it was just the two of them—Frank and Sammy. It had been three wars ago when they first met; a lot of ballads ago; plenty of hotel rooms ago. Six children and seven wives were between them now. Years and years: the years gone like a snap of Frank’s finger—1942, when they first met, to now, finger snap, 1988; gone like the speed of Sammy’s quick draw. In some quarters back then it was the dago and the nigger. Now, Ol’ Blue Eyes and Sammy Davis, Jr.
Now, a lot of songs, and a lot of memories. Jack Kennedy, Peter Lawford, Dean’s boy, Will, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa, all gone. Forty-six years. Imagine—nearly half a century. And now here they stood, on a stage in Bloomington.

Frank: “The Lady Is a Tramp.”

Sammy: “I’ve Gotta Be Me.”

Frank: “The Summer Wind.”

Sammy: “Mr. Bojangles.”

Old lions, no; old poets, yes.

One night on stage Sammy had a funny feeling in his throat. Murphy pampered him, kept hot tea nearby. Frank didn’t remember every word to every song. It was like that: the wounds of the road, of time. But they enjoyed themselves, leaning against the piano, bowing to each other, the magic of it all.

Eliot Weisman, tour sponsor, looked no further than his own client list. He handled Liza Minnelli, and she joined the second half of the tour. Sammy hugged her as a child does a parent. Cacophony and controversy: the vaudevillian in him could withstand all of it.

They altered the order in which they came onstage. Now it was Sammy who came out first, then Liza, then Frank. Then everyone taking off, after concert’s end, in the plane. They were in New Jersey one night. Frank wanted to go to New York City, get some dinner. He summoned a helicopter, saw the lights down below. Sammy and Liza—Judy’s girl—and Frank, floating. Then down to earth and a limo took them off to eat.

The tour ended in May and picked back up in August. They played Boston; they played Landover, Maryland, and Charlotte and Greensboro in North Carolina. By October, Sammy was back home, and tired. The throat was scratchy. Nothing seemed to help. Shirley and Murphy begged him to see a doctor. Altovise was gone as much as she was home. She was drinking heavily; the house had become so lonely.

A box for Sammy was delivered to the house. Murphy opened it; it was from Sinatra, and it was a beautiful gold watch—and along with it a note thanking him for going on the tour. Sammy was nearly speechless. That’s why he was Sinatra.

It wasn’t the smartest thing to do, given his physical ailments, but Sammy couldn’t resist. All his life a performer, he needed things to do, movement. Filmmaker Paul Mazursky wanted Sammy for a role in his
Moon Over Parador
, a farcical film about an actor in a Latin American country who gets a “job” to play the dictator when the dictator himself dies. Mazursky trooped to the Sands in Las Vegas to talk to Sammy about the part. “He was outrageously wonderful,” Mazursky would recall of meeting Sammy. “Huge glass bowls of Pall Mall cigarettes and candy bars were all over Sammy’s monster suite at the Sands. I promised him that we would take good care of him in Ouro Preto.” Ouro Preto was the Brazilian city where the film would be shot. The cast included Richard Dreyfuss—playing the actor who would be playing the dictator; Raul Julia; Sonia Braga; Jonathan Winters; and Sammy—who would be playing Sammy Davis, Jr., an entertainer who performs for the dictator.

A shot of bourbon and a song. A duet, a duo, a tandem. Never ever just strangers in the night. The association began at the Paramount, in New York City, before World War II. It lasted through the years, through the arguments and silences and misunderstandings and this reunion event in 1988. They knew what the audiences wanted, and they could deliver
.
(
© THE WASHINGTON POST. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION.
)

The travel—from Las Vegas to Miami, and from there on to Rio, and from Rio by car to Ouro Preto—was brutal on Sammy and Murphy. They were exhausted when they finally reached their hotel rooms. And Sammy was disappointed with his accommodations: he did not have a suite. It was, however, the best hotel accommodations Mazursky could get in the small town. Mazursky and his assistant went to Sammy’s room to welcome him: “There were trunks everywhere, their goods displayed for all to see: dress shirts, cuff links, trousers, cigarettes, videos, shoes, stockings, cans of strawberry soda—all of
the paraphernalia someone on the road might deem necessary. Then I saw Sammy—in the middle of the king-sized bed. He seemed tiny. I began to worry. I knew that he was having severe hip problems, and now he had to deal with this room.” But they were laughing, and hugging.

Sammy had one big scene in the movie. He’d be singing the national anthem of this imaginary Latin American country at an outdoor plaza. “My only real concern,” Mazursky would recall, “was Sammy’s hips. He used a cane most of the time, and it was obvious that he was in great pain.” On the night his scene was to be filmed, Mazursky went by Sammy’s trailer to check on him. “His tuxedo shirt was open to the fourth button. He smiled at me, looking about as tired as a man could be.” Mazursky informed Sammy the technicians needed more time to set up, maybe three hours; Sammy said he’d nap. Mazursky returned again.

“Ready, kid?” Sammy said at his trailer door.

“Yes, Sammy. But let me prepare you. There are about seven thousand dancing Brazilians out there.”

The entertainer—performing since he was four, having performed all over the world—could only giggle.

“I’ve played bigger rooms,” Sammy said.

And Paul Mazursky was astonished at what he witnessed next. It was Sammy, turning into Sammy the entertainer, handing off his cane to Murphy, hobbling but with less of a hobble—willpower—and taking his place onstage. “I steered him to one of the floats and said I wanted him to stand in between half a dozen gorgeous women with perfectly formed Amazonian bodies,” Mazursky would remember. “He practically hopped onto the float. For the next three hours Sammy sang perfect renditions of ‘Besame Mucho,’ Parador style, never off a beat. He had the body language of a man of thirty. The crowd went wild. It was impossible to get them quiet.”

And Sammy sang and sang, and Murphy stood out of camera’s view watching him. He hurt because Sammy’s hip hurt, and he just wanted to get him home, and here they were, in some Brazilian outpost, at night, because they were pros, he and Sammy. “When I finally called a wrap about five in the morning, I saw Sammy’s body sag,” Mazursky would recall. “They helped him off the float and handed him his cane. He was limping again, badly, and suddenly an old man.”

Mazursky hugged Sammy soon as he was down off the stage. Sammy then asked him a question with a childlike need for an answer: “Just tell me one thing, kid. Did I do good for your movie?”

“You were magnificent,” Mazursky assured him.

And with that Murphy gently led Sammy away.

A limp, a cane, the hour late. Home for Mr. Bojangles.