Sammy Davis Jr.

  © 2014 by TraceFace, LLC.

  Licensed by Unforgettable Licensing, LLC.

  Published by RatPac Press in collaboration with Running Press, a member of The Perseus Books Group

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013953904

  E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-5064-0

  987654321

  Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

  Designed by Joshua McDonnell

  Edited by Cindy De La Hoz

  Typography: Berkely, Lato, and Riesling

  Running Press Book Publishers

  2300 Chestnut Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19103-4371

  Visit us on the web!

  www.runningpress.com

  www.ratpacpress.com

  Dedication

  To Sam, Rae (Montana), Greer, and Chase.

  And to Pop.

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER 1:GROWTH

  CHAPTER 2:BREAKTHROUGH

  CHAPTER 3:STAR

  CHAPTER 4:ICON

  CHAPTER 5:ELDER STATESMAN

  DISCOGRAPHY

  FEATURE FILM CREDITS

  PHOTO CREDITS

  INDEX

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My parents and newborn me, July 1961

  Introduction

  My father, Sammy Davis, Jr., was an entertainment legend who created his own rules to overcome the prevailing racism of his day. Over the course of six decades, from the 1930s to the 1990s, he was at turns a comedian, actor, dancer, singer, and member of the infamous Rat Pack in Las Vegas, with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. But he was also a father—my beloved “Pop.”

  I told his story once before, in my first book, which was published in 1996. It was a more standard “reading book” with a small photo insert. This time, in addition to recounting stories of his life and career and my personal memories of Pop—including a great many that didn’t make it into the first book—I included many more personal photographs to lend a sense of immediacy and a more intimate touch when reading about my father’s extraordinary life.

  Even more important to me than sharing photos, though, I wanted to revisit my father’s life with the grace of time having passed and emotions calmed down, to put everything in perspective. I now have four children and many years of experience as a parent to give me new insights on my own relationship with my father. In my family, we still talk about Dad in the present. My youngest ones, Greer and Chase, have learned about him through me. We’ll be driving across country listening to his music, and I’ll hear, “Mommy, tell me about Grandpa Sammy.” Through these conversations and stories, I started to reflect on conversations between my father and I. I realized that I now felt so much more positive about our time and the difficulty of the situation, and I realized how vital those conversations were in my ability to move forward without him.

  I also decided to tell his stories in a different way—to the best of my ability, the way he gave them to me. After getting throat cancer, my father became particularly nostalgic about the past. This book has an unusual setup in that it focuses on a rare, intimate time between my father and I. In the last four months of his life, from February to May 16, 1990, my father deeply reflected on his life. He was dying and I was pregnant with his grandson, Sam Michael Garner. Pop was determined to live long enough to see the birth of his grandson, despite the doctor’s prognosis that he would not.

  Deep down we both knew that the horrible ugliness of his disease meant there was no turning back, no getting better, which created a freedom for me and Pop to speak freely. For once, no subject was off the table: rude jokes, past slights, misunderstandings, laughter, and love—above all love. During this time my father shared his most personal and precious life stories with me. Depending on the story his memories were told with intense passion, joy, comedy, or sorrow, but always with deep feeling and so vividly that they have remained with me ever since, unforgettable. I may not be the raconteur my father was, but I recount them for family, friends, and his fans as best I can. This book is primarily based on our father-daughter conversations in the hospital and his home in Beverly Hills. It’s not possible to recall our conversations word for word, but, thankfully, there are a wealth of letters, articles, research facilities, and friends and family I could consult with when necessary to verify facts and jog my memory.

  I cherished the opportunity to recapture my father’s past again while putting together this book. I hope that you too enjoy this personal journey with my father, Sammy Davis, Jr..

  A portrait of my father in 1963

  Chapter 1:

  Growth

  When my father, “The Entertainer,” a black, Puerto Rican, one-eyed Jew, got throat cancer and died, well, I just fought with God. After everything he’d been through, was this some kind of sick prank? He was suffering from a cancer that made its presence known every day by a tumor that protruded on his neck from the source of his illness—his throat, once the source, at least to my mind, of the most outstanding voice in show business.

  The irony of it all was an epic tragedy to me. He was so frail he took on the semblance of a caricature of his former self—one of the greatest entertainers of all time, who also happened to be my beloved father. I stood by helplessly, pregnant with my first son, overwhelmed by the reality that my father was going to suffer and die without ever meeting his grandchild. Pop stayed strong, but it often seemed more than I could bear. The struggle between God and I raged on for months, but I still prayed and prayed that Pop would hang on long enough.

  I remember vividly one night waking up from my sleep, in utter panic, having an out-of-body experience. Things and places, past and present circled around me in the dark. As I tried to climb out of this terrifying abyss of uncertainty, it was right there before me: the future. In a flash, I was with my husband, putting my newborn baby into my father’s arms. Was this a premonition? Was God working up some kind of miracle? I didn’t know, but I decided to give God a break. From that night on maturity set in. It was God who gave Pop all his talent. Perhaps the true test of faith is how you face death. In light of the gifts God gave my father, I had no right to regret his impending death.

  Dad sure got a lot into sixty-five years as a performer. He was on the vaudeville stage by the age of three, packed in over forty albums, seven Broadway shows, twenty-three movies, television-show-host spots, and zillions of nightclub and concert appearances. He was a five-foot-six-inch, one-hundred-twenty-pound legend. As my father would say, “God gave me the talent, all I had to do was not screw it up.”

  What a journey it was of pure talent and sheer determination to triumph as the world’s greatest entertainer amidst all the racial adversity of his day. My father was a bona fide star, used his talent as a weapon to fight racial indignities, created his own rules, and planned to leave the world just as he wanted—to quote him, “while I’m still interesting.” Pop was dying and I didn’t
want to miss a minute of it, no matter how bittersweet. If my father was going to do the death march, I was going to march right by his side.

  When Pop got sick, I was pregnant with his grandchild. Starting a mere few months from delivery of my child, on April 20, 1990, cancer ravaging my father’s throat, we spoke more than we had in my entire life. Conversations took on new meaning. We were laser-focused on Pop’s life, knowing each time I saw him could be the last time we talked. Later, he would hold his trachea tube just to speak. But we talked and talked, treasuring each word with impending urgency, in a manner infinitely more rapid and spontaneous than ever before.

  In 1961 the world was curious as to what the daughter of Sammy Davis, Jr. and his “Swedish goddess” wife would look like. I’m about five years old here, just coming into my own “look.” As my father neared the end of his life I was soon to give birth to my own interracial child—one I hoped my father would live long enough to meet.

  We were together all day, every day—a far cry from the days when Pop didn’t even know my phone number. Typically, an assistant would call and send for me. It was liberating just to saunter through the front door of his Beverly Hills home without being sent for. From death would grow life, so I started my journey back in time with my father.

  “Hey, Trace Face, you get uglier every time I see you,” his eyes sparkled with joy as I entered.

  Pop’s 1151 Summit Drive estate held fond memories of years of Hollywood entertaining, his most proud moment being my interracial wedding to Guy Garner inside his 12,600-square-foot home. Pop’s most sacred sanctuary was his 2.5 acres of lavish emerald gardens with pungent eucalyptus trees and a sparkling pool. It was a tranquil oasis where he could drink in the air and reflect. It is where my father would spend the last days of his life.

  His gourmet kitchen in the guest house was his pride and joy, back in the day. Pop loved to cook. Lessie Lee Jackson, who started as our nanny but ended up a family member, was Dad’s prep cook. Lessie Lee was the estate matriarch. Her most infamous line to my father’s third wife was, “I was here before you, and I’ll be here when you leave.” Lessie Lee in her slippers and old Southern house coat, would often saunter across the lawn to the guest house kitchen to deliver the ingredients for my father’s favorite chicken cacciatore.

  On this day, Pop held court behind the brownish downstairs bar off the living room, pulling the sides of his V-neck cashmere sweater down over his designer jeans. From time to time, his nurse, doctor, or private armed guard would pass by, but we never paid them much mind. I sat on a bar stool, praying my pregnancy weight wouldn’t topple me over. I was confident we would have some privacy that morning, no celebrity visits from Uncle Frank (Sinatra), Liza (Minnelli), or Bill (Cosby).

  Pop caught me staring at his raw pink blasted neck where the second round of chemotherapy radiated his dark skin pigment right off. Even his Aramis cologne couldn’t diffuse a smell of sickness in the air. But to mask my sorrow, I allowed the cologne to assume its olfactory guise. I surrendered all my sensibilities to its soothing artificial semblance of reality.

  “I’m doing all right, Trace, just tired.” Dad winked. “Want a Strawberry Crush?”

  “Coke, please, and maybe something to eat,” I replied. Pop hollered into the kitchen, “Lessie Lee, whip up some smothered pork chops with rice, I think we got a craving here!”

  “So, Trace Face, I’m thinking about pulling out the pool table in the bar upstairs and making a proper nursery for when you and the baby come over,” my father announced.

  “Are you going to pull out the bar, too?”

  “Let’s not get ridiculous!” Pop smiled.

  Dad poses with his Rolls Royce outside Piccadilly Station in Manchester, 1961.

  I love this picture of Pop, smiling and happy.

  “How about the racks of guns on the wall from Clint Eastwood, Elvis, and all of them?” I asked.

  “Never mind. We’ll put the nursery in the guest house!” Dad smirked.

  I could tell an ominous shadow followed a deep reflection that enveloped my father’s eyes today. “Bet you wish you could turn back the clock, huh, Popsicle?” I often called my father Popsicle.

  “Perhaps, but childhood, I don’t know. I never was a kid,” my father said.

  “You made damn sure we got the best childhood, Pop. But I guess you missed out, huh?”

  “I never realized there was a childhood to miss!” Pop said. “Show business was a particular world unto itself. When I was three years old, doing two or three vaudeville shows a day, I couldn’t just go out back and play with the kids. I didn’t know how. I didn’t even learn to read or write until I was seventeen and in the army. I never had any formal education like you, Trace Face, never spent a day in school. So guess what?”

  “What, Pop?”

  “Baby, I’m going back to school!” Dad howled.

  “You mean for your GED?” I knew Pop had no idea what a GED was.

  “Nope, I’m going back to the first grade!” he said. “Dip into that well! Learn my lines! Sing some ABC’s to that kid bursting out of your belly!” Pop knew his ABC’s, but I wondered if he could sing the song that accompanied it. My father spent the first ten years of his life like a mimic when it came to anything outside of entertainment.

  “Just teach your grandchild how to play ‘Fool the School.’ You mastered that role.” He gave me one of his warm, twinkling, father-daughter smiles.

  “Fool the School” was a game Pop played back in the early 1930s in his Harlem home on 140th Street and Eighth Avenue with his grandma, who raised him. He called her Mama. She was a heavy-set woman with joy in her heart, a happy face, and the “black-attude” of “You come around here again, I’ll beat your butt with this broom!”

  From about the age of six, my father would rehearse his rat-tat-tap dancing in the living room for that evening’s vaudeville show. Mama would guard the window, watching for truant officers who could potentially mess up Pop’s rise to fame by throwing him into school. When Mama spotted one of the truant officers, they would both freeze in place. “Don’t move. Don’t breathe,” Mama would whisper, as she listened to the slow, steady pace of heavy boots entering the building, each footfall climbing creaking the wooden stairs.

  Dad never went to school a day in his life, never knew the first thing about literature, but the way Pop told the story, it felt like Edgar Allan Poe’s black raven flew smack into the middle of Harlem! Suddenly there came a tapping, a white man gently rapping, rapping at their rickety ghetto door. Deep into that darkness, peering long, Pop stood there at six years old—wondering, fearing, doubting, and dreaming dreams of stardom no “colored” mortal ever dared to dream before.

  My dad and his own father, the man who started him in show business.

  A congratulatory kiss from his mother, Elvera, after the opening of Golden Boy on Broadway, 1964. Although raised by his grandmother, my father’s own mother remained on the outskirts of his life.

  Dad learned quickly that a white man in uniform rat-tat-tapping on their ghetto door, somewhat louder than before, only meant trouble. Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, his soulful, willful, don’t-mess-with-me Mama would whisper her own words of wisdom to Pop, “We can wait long as he can knock, child!”

  My father was born on December 8, 1925, in Harlem, as an only child to vaudevillians, Sammy Davis Sr., an African American and Elvera Sanchez, a Puerto Rican. My father always joked that Elvera’s father was so prejudiced he didn’t even like black shoes. The two separated in 1928. Elvera continued her career as a chorus girl. My grandfather raised Pop with his own mother, my great-grandmother, “Mama.” Pop always felt abandoned by his mother, never cared for her much, but he fronted in public and paid her rent for life. As the story goes, Elvera visited Pop on the vaudeville circuit once when he was just a kid. His father introduced them, “This here is your mother, Elvera.” My father’s response was, “What? I have a new mother every night.”

&nb
sp; Dad’s father promptly took his son on the road as part of the Mastin Troupe lead by Will Mastin. Will was not a blood uncle, but Pop always called him affectionately, “Uncle Will.” My father began his rise to stardom playing vaudeville at the ripe age of three years old. In 1928, he was already a little firecracker, sitting on a singer’s lap onstage, imitating her facial movements with hearty laughs from the audience.

  The Will Mastin Troupe had become the Will Mastin Trio: “Uncle Will” Mastin, Sammy Davis Sr., and a rising spark plug, Sammy Davis, Jr. Pop adored his father, the limelight, and wanted to be onstage more than anything in the world. My father saw a world where people would applaud you, give you credence, plausibility, a safe haven. The stage was a place where if you had talent, you could grab on to it and earn instant respect. In the early years Dad told me he often said, “What have I got? No looks, no money, no education, just talent.”

  I motioned Pop to sit down on his Gucci half-moon couch with me. Lessie Lee had placed our smothered pork chops and some beverages on the coffee table. Our soul food feast sat on the glass coffee table in the good company of Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, sealed in a special case from Liza Minnelli. Liza was a longtime close friend of my father’s, and they entertained together for many years. On the table was also my father’s Kennedy Center Honor, letters from Jack Benny, and a bunch of belt buckles from old western films.

  “Silent Sam the Dancing Midget is how they billed me, Trace Face,” said Pop, “I was the freak of the show back in the day!”

  The Geary Society in the 1930s had a law that no child under sixteen could sing or dance onstage. Pop explained, “I would sit in the wings and watch the stage. I wanted to be in that gang but I was only four or five years old. I was in my element because I knew no other element. They had to bill me as a forty-four-year-old midget to work because I wanted to work. My father put me in black face, a little redundant, but they thought that was enough of a disguise.”