Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (42 page)

The Chez was packed, and as I walked onstage, I scanned the room as I had every night since the opening. When I got off I sent
for Donjo Medlavine, one of the owners. “Don, a straight question: are my people getting treated okay? I mean, your guy at the door isn’t giving them a hard time or anything?”

“They’re treated the same as anybody else—when they show up. Last year there wasn’t a show we didn’t have a couple of tables

“Thanks, Don. I’m sorry I asked. I should have known better.”

The man behind the rich mahogany desk didn’t like me one little bit. He stood up and motioned for me to sit down, studying me as I’d been studying him from the moment I’d entered his office. He didn’t ask why I’d called for an appointment. He waited.

“Mr. Johnson, why are you turning my people against me?”

The faint smile disappeared. “We’re not trying to turn anyone

“I didn’t say ‘trying.’ If I thought it was deliberate, I wouldn’t be here. But you’re
doing
it. Not so much in
Ebony
, but your guys on
Jet
have been bum-rapping me with little zingies in nearly every issue. I’ve been convicted of taking turn-white pills but I was never invited to the trial. Between your magazines, and the papers like the
Defender
and the
Courier
—all of them—you’ve been holding America’s first all-colored lynching. Now what I want to know is: why?”

“Mr. Davis, you are the one who
makes
the news. All we do is print it. When you don’t like what you see published about yourself, please try to remember that it is only a reflection of the image which you have created.”

“Well, there’s been a little distortion, folks, a little crack in the mirror.”

He laughed unpleasantly. “Can you seriously be telling me that you haven’t gone out of your way to indicate a complete disavowal of racial ties, to disassociate yourself in every conceivable …”

“Mr. Johnson, I didn’t come up here to do two choruses of nobody understands me. You’ve been printing your point of view. All I ask is that you listen to mine.”

He settled back in his chair and smiled, not bothering to conceal his contempt.

“A few weeks ago a Broadway column ran an item saying I turned down $25,000 a week in Miami Beach, because I refused to live in the colored section of Miami. Now the fact is I
won’t
live
there, but that’s not why we turned it down. We were offered our own suites in the hotel that was trying to book us. We turned it down because my father, my uncle, and I have one firm rule: we don’t play where they won’t open their doors to colored people. The columnist obviously didn’t know about the suites, so the item came out sounding like I hate colored people so much that even for $25,000 a week I won’t live with them. Nice, huh? Okay, it’s bad enough when an ofay columnist does this—I can’t expect him to care enough to find out if maybe there’s something more to it—but when I see it picked up and run in the Negro press too, when I see it published by people who should be hoping and praying it’s wrong, when I hear the reactions and see I’m marked lousy and suddenly I’m not getting Negro customers where I’m playing—well, that hurts. I can’t say it ran in any of your magazines but I saw it in three Negro newspapers. Now I’m not looking for togetherness, but that’s inexcusable.”

He sat forward slowly, frowning. “You’re perfectly right. It’s a story that should have been checked out with you just in the hope that it was wrong.”

“Mr. Johnson, when I get to a town it’s not exactly a secret. There’s always a sign saying: ‘He’s in there.’ But my phone didn’t ring. I’ve never yet had one guy call me and say ‘Hey, Sam, this true what I hear?’ Not one.”

“Well, as a newspaperman I can guess what happened with that particular item.” He leaned back in his chair again. “Whoever heard it was aware of your overall racial image, the item seemed to be in character …”

“Wait a minute. Before you talk about my image like
that’s it
, lock the box, that’s what I’m here for. What did I do to get that image? Let’s go down the list A, B, C.”

“If you insist. Offhand I remember an item we ran recently about your conductor. How do you, a prominent Negro, justify the use of a white man when you know how scarce good jobs are for Negroes?”

“Mr. Johnson, Morty Stevens is one of two white men out of seven people who travel with me, he’s the best man I know of for the job, he’s arranged three hit songs for me and he’s one hell of a conductor. I’m not buying his color, I’m buying his music.”

“And you couldn’t find as good a musician who’s a Negro?”

“Maybe I could. But none of them have come to me looking for
the job and even if they did I’m not about to fire Morty and hire them just ‘cause they’re colored and he’s white. Should I be prejudiced and do exactly what we hate when people do it to us? Aren’t we praying for the day when there’s no discrimination? Should we practice it ourselves? And don’t think the Negro community has a monopoly on giving me a hard time about Morty, because every time he walks onstage there are white customers nudging each other and whispering, ‘Hey, look, he’s got a white man working for him.’ Now my job is to make those people like me, and I’m hip to the fact that it’s not exactly endearing me to some of them to see a colored guy have a white guy working for him. It bothers them. But I can’t worry about anyone who wants to look at me and find fault. All I’ve got to worry about is: am I right?”

“Fair enough. But one’s image is formed by many things: you live in hotels not open to the average Negro; you bought a house in a restricted area of Los Angeles …”

“Right! I’ve got one of the best houses in Hollywood—and incidentally, the neighborhood’s not restricted any more. I’m a liberal, and I decided it would be wrong of me to boycott one of the best neighborhoods just because the people who live there are white.” He was smiling. “And about the hotels: they haven’t yet figured out how to build one as good as I want to live.”

“Sammy, there’s no arguing with this kind of thinking, but you must see that it contributes to the impression which the average Negro has, that you have removed yourself from Negro life and have turned away from him.”

“I haven’t turned away from anyone or anything except living in the gutter.”

“But your way of living, your associations … the man on the street can only interpret them as—well, they’ll certainly never conclude that you’re
proud
of your race.”

“Why do they have to conclude anything? People I never even met sitting around deciding what I oughta do! They’re out of their minds. The white cats are saying ‘He oughta live there’ and the colored cats are saying ‘He oughta live here’ and it always ends up with both of ‘em saying ‘Hell, he thinks he’s white’ and ‘Yeah, he’s ashamed he’s colored.’
Bull!
If I was ashamed of being colored would I present myself at the best hotel in town and expect them to let me in? And I don’t exactly go into those places figuring I’m going to pass!

“Last year I made three quarters of a million dollars in an industry that’s ninety-five per cent white. Now seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars ain’t exactly a shoeshine boy! And while I’m raking it in I’m taking extra glory in the fact that I’m a Negro and I beat the odds—I made ten the hard way. I’m not so damned thrilled over the unnecessary problems I’ve had because I’m a Negro; that I had to work harder because I’m a Negro, and that I had to be better at what I do than if I were white. Sure, I’ve suffered because I’m a Negro, just like you’ve suffered, and a lot of us have, but I have never for one breath of my life been ashamed that I’m a Negro.

“I’ll tell you this though, I’m plenty disappointed in the kind of support I’m getting from a lot of our guys. It’s lousy enough when I walk into a hotel and I’ve gotta feel a white guy looking at me, thinking ‘Why does he want to push his way in?’ and I’d love to sit down with him and ask ‘Why should I
have
to push my way in?’ But when I’m convicted by
my own people
, who should know better, what kind of acceptance can I hope for from the rest of the world?

“I want my people to like me. I really do. It kills me when I pass a colored cat on the street and he gives me a look like I’m Benedict Arnold. But I can’t win him wrong. I’m not about to live by his rules or anybody’s. I refuse to be put in a bind and told ‘this is right and this is wrong’ by any group of people. If a guy says, ‘You gotta eat dinner at six o’clock,’ I want to know
why
do I have to eat dinner at six o’clock? Why can’t I eat at ten if I feel like it? ‘Well, that’s the way everybody else does.’ Bull! Who is it that makes these rules to run my life? And what makes him better than me? Sure, I obey laws made for the well-being of all people, I hurt no man except myself and I ask no man to hold his dinner hour until ten just to suit me. He likes to eat at six? Crazy. Let him eat at six. And I observe the customs of kindness and decency like holding doors open for ladies and lighting people’s cigarettes. But I refuse to recognize rules that try to tell me
where
to eat and
whose
cigarettes I’m going to light.” I pulled a wad of bills out of my pocket. “Y’see this money? It’s
mine!
Nobody gave it to me, Johnny, so there ain’t nobody gonna tell me how to spend it.

“I’ll tell you now. I’ll be playing the Copa in New York later this year and I’m not going to live in Harlem any more than I’m going to live in New Jersey. I know now they’re gonna fight me on it. The guys on the papers’ll start the whole thing about me trying to be white, and the cats on the street’ll read it and say, ‘Yeah, how come
he don’t live up here where he belongs?’ But Johnny, there ain’t a one among ‘em that wouldn’t move downtown and into the Waldorf-Astoria if he had the money and if they’d let him in.

“I’m not going to run up to Harlem and hang around to keep up appearances, either. And I know now what’s gonna happen. The mass Negro’s gonna bitch, ‘He’s not a corner boy.’ And they’re right. I don’t go up to Harlem and just hang on the corner of 125th and Seventh. I never did it when I was a kid and there’s no reason for me to do it now. I’m not about to con my own people into liking me by making regular visits to Harlem and hangin’ around like ‘Hey baby—I ain’t changed. I’m still old Sam. Still colored!”

The voice that was coming across the desk was warm, friendly. “Sammy, when a fireman goes into a smoke-filled, burning building he wears a gas mask, helmet, rubber coat, and asbestos gloves. As long as you have no intention of changing your approach to life, if you continue to say, ‘I believe I’m right and I’ll stick to what I believe in,’ then at least you should equip yourself accordingly. A magazine or a newspaper seeks the unusual, and in combination with a celebrity, the unusual cannot hope to go unnoticed. If you are the first Negro to move into an all-white neighborhood, it is going to be printed, and the public will react to it; they will reach conclusions and formulate opinions. That is the nature of the beast on all sides of the color spectrum, and we’re not going to change unless we stop thinking and communicating with each other.

“All I can do for you is promise that in my publications what is reported about you will be done so accurately and fairly. But, it will be reported, and people will approve and disapprove. Some will understand your motives and appreciate them, but some will prefer not to understand. This is the price you must expect to pay for being an individual. As long as you do not run with the pack, as long as you move off in a direction not generally accepted, you will continue to be a controversial figure. You are choosing the road, you should know where it leads.”

Betty Bogart called me around noon. “Sam, I know it’s short notice, but we just heard you were in town and we’re having a few people up for dinner tonight. Slacks-style. Bring a date if you’d like.”

“Thanks, Betty. I’m not going with anybody in particular. I’ll come by alone.”

It was just Frank and a date, Judy Garland and Sid Luft, the Bogarts and me. After dinner I sat in a corner of the living room with Bogie. He said, “You think you’re pretty jazzy with the glen plaid patch.”

I grinned. “Bogie, let’s face it, either you’re suave or you ain’t. I mean, you’ve gotta admit it
is
just a little distingué, don’t you?”

He just looked at me. Abruptly he asked, “How long you gonna keep the goddamned patch on your eye?”

“Well … I don’t know, it’s only nine months or so and the new eye still doesn’t look very good.”

“You got the eye underneath it now?”

“Yeah.”

“Lemme see it.”

I glanced around. “Let’s not scare any women and children.” I lifted the patch. “I’ll tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking I may never give it up. I kinda dig it.”

“It’s a big mistake. Don’t get caught on it. You aren’t too goddamned pretty to look at, and the patch gives you a little feeling like the guy in the shirt ad. You figure it’s glamorous. But you’re getting to like it too much.” He smacked the table three times and the butler came in. “Fix us another drink, please.” He turned back to me. “I’m telling you, take it off as soon as possible. The eye’ll be better than the patch. You’ll be happier.”

“I’m not so sure. It’s becoming a trademark. I’ve got it on an album cover and it’s fantastic. People spot it right away on the streets. I figure I’ve got a good thing going for me.”

“Y’wanta keep reminding people about the accident? Y’trying to trade on it?”

“Hell, no, but I …”

“Y’wanta walk into a room and have people say, There’s Sammy Davis,’ or do you want ‘em to say, There’s the kid with the patch’?”

“Well, naturally I don’t want that … I guess I’ll get rid of it eventually, but I’m not in any hurry.”

“Don’t waste too much time. You’re kidding yourself with that trademark crap. You’re using it for a crutch. Don’t fool yourself that wearing a patch over your eye gives you an excuse for not being good-looking.”

There was no snow, no icicles on the trees or frost on the window, none of the seasonal things which had always been a part of it, but it felt like Christmas. I put on a robe and listened outside Mama’s door. She wasn’t up yet. I walked through the house, opened the door leading from the foyer into the garage and smiled at the sight of the brand new four-door white Cadillac with a red ribbon tied all the way around it. I stood back to see what kind of a first view she’d get. No good. The thing to do would be to take her outside and then open the garage door so she’d catch a look at it all at once with the sunlight shining on it.