Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (63 page)

“It’s not your fault. Forget it. Let me know when the
Twilight Zone
thing falls through.”

There was a pause. “I got word this morning. The network turned it down.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Sam? Look, it’s not entirely dead. Serling loves the idea and he wants to do it as a special someday. He has more control of specials than he has over the series. It won’t be right away but we’ve at least got that iron in the fire.”

“Sy, the only iron in the fire is the one they use to mark me lousy.” I knew as I spoke that I wasn’t making it easy for him, that he’d never imagined the wall would be this high and this wide, that he was probably more stunned by it than I. But he could be stunned and walk away.

I hated for Frank to see me doing anything short of landslide business. As he watched me from ringside, his face changed from relaxed-and-laughs to curious as he sipped his drink and observed me clinically, smiling at all the right times, but watching, studying me.

He closed the dressing room door behind him, sat down on a wooden chair and lit a cigarette, holding it cupped in the palm of his hand the way he does when he’s tense or when something’s bothering him. I wiped off my make-up and kept talking but I could feel him watching me. I glanced at him through the mirror. His eyes narrowed slightly, causing lines to appear at the edges of them. “What the hell’s eating you, Charley?”

I slid my tie up to my collar. “Everything’s swinging, Frank.” I turned around slowly. “I’m a little tired, maybe. Why? Did it show?”

Slowly he shook his head, then, as though he’d tried a door, found it locked and walked away from it, he said, “This won’t do you much good right now but I’m making a picture in about a year or so, and I want you in it. It’s a thing called
Oceans 11
, about a bunch of guys who try to heist Vegas. I hadn’t planned to talk about it yet, but you can count on it. As soon as I clean up some other commitments, we go into the movie business. I’m going to pay you a hundred and twenty-five thousand.”

He tossed it off like “Here’s a scarf I picked up for you.” There
was no “We’ll have to do a screen test.” None of that jazz. He didn’t know if I could say hello on film and make it sound convincing, yet he was willing to lay his money and his picture on the line for me. And he knew he could have gotten me for $1.98.

From town to town the dance floors grew larger and the aisles between tables—aisles through which waiters once had to walk sideways—became broad avenues criss-crossing the clubs, linking New York, Philadelphia, and Vegas, to Reno, San Francisco, Detroit, and L.A.—a string of nearly-filled nightclubs, of people not breaking down doors to get in. And of endless wondering: why? I was stretching the shows from the usual hour and twenty minutes to an hour and thirty, forty, sometimes two hours, staying on until I was drained, doing everything I knew how, hoping that maybe word of mouth would start filling the gap. I think I stayed on, too, because wondering if they were ever coming back, I hated to let them leave.

Then, when finally there was a break in my luck, when Max Youngstein, president of United Artists, called me in L.A. while we were playing the Moulin Rouge, offering me the male lead opposite Eartha Kitt in
Anna Lucasta;
when miraculously this lifeline appeared, I could grab for it with only one hand. The shooting dates for
Anna
conflicted with our next run at the Sands. I never wanted anything as much as I wanted to cancel Vegas but my debts were somewhere between a quarter and a half million dollars—there was no counting them any more, it would have taken a month to even figure out the fantastic borrowing from one guy to pay another and then from another to pay him, the complex web of advances from clubs, record companies, unpaid taxes and corporate debts—and there was never a day without at least one pressure thing, at least one guy who wouldn’t wait any longer. My piece of the $100,000 from Vegas was already promised to eight different people and my third of the $50,000 movie salary just wouldn’t be enough. The shooting dates couldn’t be changed so the only solution was to do the picture and play Vegas at the same time. I’d have to leave Vegas every night after my second show, sleep in the car, and arrive in L.A. in time for the morning call. Shooting would be over by five
and I’d grab a plane back to Vegas to be there for the dinner show.

The last thing in the world I wanted was to commute back and forth like a madman, making my first picture without being able to devote myself to it. But here it was again, more damaging and wasteful than ever: my future irrevocably owned and controlled by my past. At a time when I needed everything going for me my mistakes were in control. Money made the decisions, out-voting knowledge and judgment, and I had no choice but to go in the direction of the road I’d paved with my own stupidities.

Will was standing in the doorway of my dressing room at The Mou, dressed for the show, wrist in the air, eyes riveted meaningfully to his watch. I walked past him. “Don’t you know that’s a cliché, Massey?” My father, seated on the couch, winked, “By a nose, Poppa.” “Hello, Dad.” I handed my jacket to Charley and started undressing, fast.

Will followed me in, angry at something that hadn’t happened. “In another few minutes I’d’ve had to tell them to hold the show.”

I tossed my shirt and tie onto a chair. “You ever know me to miss a performance?”

“Where were you?”

“Vegas.”

“Vegas?”

“Vegas.”

“Since last night you been there and back? You must be crazy.”

“Poppa.” My father was shaking his head, slowly, as though the things I did were beyond human comprehension.

I sat down. “Look, Dad, Massey, I went to Vegas to talk to Eartha, to make sure she’s happy. God knows it’s going to be tough enough without having
her
fighting me. So big deal: I sent her some flowers, flew down, we had dinner, I played it like ‘You’re a pro ‘cause you’ve made pictures and I’m just an amateur,’ she dug it, I asked for her help, she was flattered, I’ll send more flowers, blah, blah, blah—she’s in my corner. Now is there something wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong is you’re running yourself ragged like a fool, making special trips to Vegas to talk about a picture you’ve got no right to be doing in the first place …” His voice droned on,
repeating all the things he’d said a dozen times since I’d told him I was going to be doing
Anna
.

I spread albolene on my face and began putting on the powder. “Massey, I’ve got no time to talk now.”

“You mean you don’t
wanta
talk.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I say you’re crazy, that’s what I say. You’ll be wearing yourself down to nothing.”

“Will’s right, Poppa. You gotta look after your health. You’re stretchin’ yourself too thin, tryin’ to be everywhere at once.”

I looked at him and he nodded, pleased with the fatherly advice he’d given, like the advice I never stopped getting from Will, advice that wasn’t for me but for them, to assuage their consciences. My father wasn’t saying “I’m sorry I blew all my money and I can’t help you.” Will wasn’t offering “I’ll sell a building and help you.” Neither of them was volunteering “We’ll take less than our regular cut ‘til you straighten yourself out,” or even “We’ve got nothing to do with the movie so you keep the whole fifty, that’ll cover what you need and then you can cancel Vegas.” They didn’t want to give anything except advice. But they both wanted me to thank them for their concern.

“Sammy, what’s wrong with you? Can’t you see this is no way to make a start in movies?” Will was walking slowly up and down the room, enjoying the role of the wise old showman straightening out the novice with pearls of wisdom. “I’m surprised at you not knowing you can’t do your best in the movie this way, plus you won’t be giving your best on the stage …”

As though independent of my control my hand slammed down on the dressing table and the powder burst out of the open box and onto my pants. I tore them off and glared at Charley through the mirror. “Godammit, Charley, don’t just stand there gaping. Get me another pair.” I turned to Will. “I don’t need you to tell me how good I’ll be. I’ll do the best I can. And not you or anything in this world is going to stop me from making that picture.”

“Your health’ll stop you.”

“If you’re so worried about my health then how the hell come you don’t tell me to cancel Australia? How come I don’t hear you saying that thirty-six hours in a plane each way and ten stops in ten nights isn’t worth the $70,000?”

“Don’t you raise your voice to me.”

“I
have
to raise my voice because you must be deaf! Or you’re blind. Can’t you see anything but what you
want
to see? Can’t you see past your name out front? Don’t you know what’s happening around you?”

He blinked, confused. “What’s happening around me?”

I stared at him, examining his face. “Get out of here, Massey. I’ve got to go entertain the people. Or would you like to do it alone?”

He looked at the floor for a moment, then turned and left. My father stood up, touched me on the shoulder and walked to the door. “Poppa, I’ll leave you alone.”

I always
am
. Except on payday!

I walked in a circle around the room, trying to relax. As I passed the mirror over the dressing table I saw the skin pulled tight across my jaw, the good eye blazing with so much resentment that it made the phony look more dead than it had ever seemed. As loathsome as the face was, it so perfectly matched what I felt. I heard the opening act’s music and I laughed out loud at the thought of myself onstage, being Charley Nice.

I’d done an hour and fifty minutes, I’d had no sleep, and I was exhausted but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the stage. The taunting snow-white tablecloths, combined with a strange kind of incompleteness I’d begun to feel at every performance, drove me to do more. I called for John to bring out the vibes and drums, did a twenty-minute jam session and then cue’d Morty into “Birth of the Blues.” As I reached for the big note a searing pain cut across my torso, like a hot wire suddenly drawn tightly around my back and my chest and I knew I was having a heart attack and I thought, “Oh, God I’m going to die.”

I knew I should stop singing and walk off. I knew it was ridiculous but I had the dramatic picture of myself collapsing onstage and the papers reporting, “He died as he lived: performing. Death took him from the people he loved: his audiences.” As corny as it was, if I had to go that’s how I wanted it to be. My head cleared, I heard the music behind me and I reached desperately for the strength to finish the last bars.

As my feet touched the stone floor backstage I felt myself falling….

I was on a couch in the dressing room, rigged up in an electrocardiograph machine. A doctor was sitting next to me. “I’m Dr.
Weiss. How do you feel?” I nodded. My father and Will were standing back, watching me. The doctor explained that I’d had a mild heart attack, “a warning that you’ve got to be careful.” He was looking at me reproachfully. “With an athletic heart you can’t keep burning the candle at both ends as I understand you do …”

When he’d left my father closed the door and sat on the edge of the couch. “Poppa, this tears it. You’ve gotta cancel out Australia and you gotta take your choice of
Anna Lucasta
or Vegas. Will and me’ll go along with either one but you can’t do ‘em both. Truth is you really oughta take a month’s time and do nothin’ but sit around the house gettin’ your strength up.” Will nodded.

I gave them a round of applause. “Beautiful MGM musical, folks: the performer gets sick, takes time off, and the whole world stops ‘til he’s ready; music, curtain, have some popcorn. But I’m not Dan Dailey, I need the picture, I need the money. If either of you have any better ideas I’ll be glad to take a month off for an ocean voyage.”

They both stared at the floor, not an idea between them. Will began pacing. “At least you gotta cut the shows back to normal, maybe even down to an hour.” He nodded in agreement with himself. “An hour’s plenty.”

“Is it?”

He stopped walking. “Sammy, I don’t want to fight with you.” His voice was quiet, his face a combination of compassion and confusion. “I know that anything I say is going to be wrong but I see you onstage for over two hours breaking your back to do everything you know how,” he looked right at me, “going past good showmanship, making mistakes you knew better than to make when you was a boy. I watched you tonight and I didn’t know you. In all my years I never saw a performer trying to eat an audience alive like that. You couldn’t find enough to do for ‘em, like you wanted to open up your veins and give ‘em your blood, too. Don’t take my word for it. Big Sam here’ll tell you. And you’re acting like that movie’s the last one that’ll ever be made; and as far as your debts go, you know I don’t approve of owing money—I never did and I never will—but paying bills don’t come before staying alive.” He hesitated. “All I mean to say is you can’t keep on like you’ve been doing, or you’re going to kill yourself.”

My father nodded and I looked from one to the other. All they
saw was “debts” and “he wants to be in a movie.” They didn’t begin to understand.

“Massey … the only time I’ll kill myself is when there’s nobody out there waiting for me to go on.”

Tony Curtis came over to me in the wings at the Beverly Hills Hotel as I was waiting to go on at a benefit. We hugged hello and he whispered “How was Australia?”

I knew he wouldn’t fly to
Las Vegas
.”You’ve
gotta
go see for yourself. You’re very big down there.”

“No kidding?” Then, he gave me a look. “Very funny. Listen, come on by the house later, we’re having some people over for booze and coffee.”

I knew almost everybody at the party and Janet was introducing me to the few I hadn’t met before. She led me over to a group in a corner of the living room.

Kim Novak held out her hand and smiled. “I’m awfully glad to meet you. I admire your work tremendously.”

Tony sat down on the floor with the group of us and nudged me. “Big deal. So you flew to Australia.”