Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (80 page)

May and her father had deliberately flown separately and we had four hours together before his plane came in. I took her to the hotel and we made a date to go sight-seeing around London together like a couple of tourists.

I was waiting in the car when she came out. Her arrival hadn’t been mentioned in the papers yet, but in their own mysterious way her fans had found out that she was in town and there was a crowd of teen-age girls waiting with scrapbooks and pictures for her to autograph. She started signing and as the crowd grew she gestured to me, “I’m sorry,” and I waved back, “Stay. Crazy. Make it.”

As she approached the car, the kids spotted me and gathered on both sides of the car shoving pencils and papers to us through the windows.

We cruised around London sight-seeing and talking, walking along Saville Row, stopping to sign autographs, experiencing nothing but warmth and kindness.

“When do you figure I should meet your father?”

“As soon as he gets in. The sooner the better. Don’t you agree?”

“Yeah. Sure. The sooner the better. No doubt about it. Look, better still, why don’t you bring him to the club for the first show and then we can go out and have supper together?”

She was looking at me, tenderly. “You don’t have to impress him with your talent before you meet him.”

“Oh, now wait a
minute …
” I was caught like a rat. “Look, I just want him to like me.”

“Sammy, I love my parents, so I hope my father likes you and I hope you like him, but if you don’t or if he doesn’t, it won’t change how I feel about you.”

“Darling, that’s good to hear, but you’ll still come to the club first. Anything I can have going for me is just that much gravy, right? And I warn you—you’re gonna see a show like I’ve
never
done. And at dinner I’m going to be so sweet, he may get diabetes. It’s a definite ‘Sammy Davis, Jr. starring in
The In-Law.’
Hey listen, what about the suite? Is it okay? You think he’ll be comfortable there?”

“The suite is beautiful.” She smiled, “Stop worrying so much.” I got out of the car at the hotel and she continued on to the airport.

I had a four o’clock appointment with a newspaperman in my suite, then I had an appointment in the hotel bar with a man from one of the English television networks. I dashed out of the suite, twenty minutes late, and headed downstairs. The elevator door opened onto the lobby, I rushed out and collided with a distinguished-looking gray-haired gentleman. His hat flew off his head. We both reached for it and bumped heads together. I grabbed the hat but so did he. I tore it out of his hands trying to give it back to him. When it fell again I made such a lunge for it that I crushed the crown entirely. I kept bungling and apologizing and clutching the hat, like a slapstick comic. I heard a familiar laugh and I froze, bent over, afraid to look up.

“Sammy, I’d like you to meet my father.”

“No … it’s not fair …”

She spoke in Swedish to the man I’d been wrestling with and he began laughing too, and extended his hand. I stared with horror at
the hat clutched in my fist, destroyed. He looked at it and smiled. I wanted only to disappear, dissolve, evaporate. What in hell was going on with me and hats? First in front of the Queen of England. Now him.

We went into the bar, had a drink and made plans to meet later in the evening. I kept my appointment and then rushed upstairs to call May. “Well, your fiancé handled that with all the suave at his command, right? Only to
me
… with all the elevators in the world, I have to pick that one to come running out of like a madman.”

She was laughing. “Relax, Sharlie Brown. He hasn’t sent me back to Sweden, yet.”

“He must have a hell of a sense of humor. I almost knock the man down, then I break his hat—the whole fiasco …”

“But you apologize so beautifully.”

“Look, give me his hat size. At least I’ll send up a dozen new ones.”

May sat next to me at supper and her father was across from us. Throughout the meal I’d been rephrasing the question in my mind: Sir, I’m sure you know that May and I want to get married…. Maybe I should wait? Not push too much? Maybe let him get to know me for a few days? We were having our coffee and we’d still done nothing but chitchat.

He put down his cup and said, “We have so far spoken of all but what we wish most to say. Sammy, we know much about you. Maybritt has written us many letters … we will be proud to have you for a son.”

“You mean it’s—it’s all right?”

“I wanted to meet you, of course, but I did not come from Sweden to see you. I came to see Maybritt with you. Her mother and I wanted to know if what was in her letters was also in her face.” He spoke slowly, reaching for the English words. “Perhaps you thought we would care that you have a different skin. I will speak candidly because you will be my son. When Maybritt told us her desire to marry you we had fear for the hardship such a marriage faces in America where you will make your home. But we believe that if your love for each other is strong enough then there are no important problems which cannot be overcome. Your skin is not important to us,” he touched his heart, “we care what is here.
The happiness we saw in Maybritt’s letters is indeed in her face. And we have never seen it there like this before.” He smiled warmly. “You make us all very happy.”

I had to excuse myself from the table. Through all the excitement of the Command Performance and the opening, this had always been there—the wondering what he’d say, how he’d feel when he finally saw me face to face.

I hid in a hallway near the kitchen unable to hold back huge, racking sobs. I felt May’s arms around me. “Sharlie Brown, please don’t …”

I gave her my handkerchief. “Look who’s talking.” We pulled ourselves together and started back to the table, but her father had already paid the check and was waiting for us in the lobby.

I still had my late show to do and they were going back to the hotel. I walked them to my car and shook hands with May’s father. “Thank you.” He drew me toward him and embraced me, “God bless you, Sammy.” Then he got into the car and drove away and they didn’t see me start in all over again.

One of the London papers ran a short piece: “Is May Britt to Wed Sammy Davis, Jr.?” As the days passed people sent me others from American papers—the same sort of thing, but rough: “The gasps around London are over Sammy Davis, Jr. and May Britt and their ‘we-don’t-give-a-damn-who-knows-it attitude.’ ”

I told May, “I think the best thing we can do is announce it quickly and kill the ‘are they or aren’t they?’ jazz before it starts in heavy. If we come out and tell ‘em, ‘Yes, we’re engaged,’ it’ll get a flurry of attention and be forgotten. People love to speculate, but once they know something for sure they’ll lose interest.”

I took her hand. “Darling, I’ve also been thinking that maybe we should get married over here. Maybe the smart thing would be to come back here in October and do it quietly. That way, the story’ll break in the States, they’ll do all their objecting and how-dare-they and get it out of their systems and by the time we get back as Mr. and Mrs. Davis, nobody’ll pay much attention to it. It’s beautiful all around: it’ll even save your folks the trip to America.”

“Anything you like. I couldn’t care less where we get married.”

“We can have the ceremony right here in London. I’ll play a month in the provinces and then we’ll do like a two-month tour of
the continent. I can book my dates with plenty of free time in-between so it’ll almost amount to a three-month honeymoon.

“I’ve hired an English press agent, Al Hunt, who’s been coordinating my interviews and press things. I never had a man working for me who did a better job. I’ll tell him to set up a press conference for us.”

“Couldn’t we just give out a written announcement?”

“No. They’ll want to ask questions and it’s best to answer them loud and clear once and for all.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Britt and I have been subject lately to newspaper items questioning whether or not we are seeing each other and if we intend to be married. You asked me that yourselves when I arrived here. At that time I could not properly say ‘yes’ because I hadn’t yet met, and received the approval of, Miss Britt’s father. However, I am now at liberty to tell you that I have that approval and we are engaged to be married.

“I hope to impress upon you that I would not call you all here to make this announcement as if I believe it to be earth-shaking news. You’ve been overwhelmingly generous to me and I wouldn’t have the audacity to impose upon you for publicity’s own sake. We hope you will publish it for the one reason that we are anxious to avoid any of the unnecessary and sometimes vicious public speculation. We want it to be a matter of record so that we can end all that.”

They congratulated us warmly, then started asking us questions: “When do you expect to be married?”

“Probably in October.”

“How long have you known each other?”

“We met in Hollywood several months ago while I was filming
Oceans 11 or
just about to …”

An American reporter from one of the wire services stood up. “Sammy, how do you think this’ll go over in the States?”

“I don’t think it’s something that should have to ‘go over’ or not go over.”

“Well, uh, whattya think’s gonna happen when you get back home? Do you think you’ll ever be able to work there again?”

“I can’t imagine that my career is so flimsy that it could be ruined by marriage, but if it is, then it’s really not worth having, is it?”

He sat down but he wasn’t satisfied. Throughout the questioning by the English reporters, simple, pleasant questions such as where
we’d live and how many children we hoped for, he kept sniping, shooting the zingies at me: “Are you announcing it over here because you’re afraid to do it at home? Are you sort of testing for reactions?”

“No, sir. We’re announcing it here for the reason I stated clearly at the beginning of this conference.”

“I see … well, let me ask you this: what happens if you find you can’t go home?”

I lit a cigarette, slowly, using the time to calm myself. “You keep asking hypothetical questions, the best I can do is give you hypothetical answers. If, as you suggest, I find there is such a harshness against what I do with my personal life then I’ll pack my bags and leave because it won’t be the America I know and love. But, I must add that I’ve never thought about such an extreme, so I can’t be sure what I might do. Perhaps rather than leave my country I’d choose to stay under any conditions. If it should turn out that the stage is no longer open to me then I’d give up my career and do whatever I can to make myself and my future bride happy.”

The English press elbowed him out of the way with their own questions but soon he was back again.

“Isn’t this the first marriage between a Negro man and a blonde, white movie star?”

I could feel the muscles in my face tightening. “Perhaps it is. I don’t keep track.”

Again the English press came to my side. They’d already asked everything they needed to know and it was obvious they were just re-asking questions trying to nose this guy out, hoping he’d lay off, but he wouldn’t.

“Isn’t it kinda rough sledding at home on mixed marriages? I mean, the chances of making them work are …”

“Wait a minute. I don’t know what America
you’re
talking about, but I know something about mixed marriages. There are many of them and eighty-five percent of them work. Eighty-five percent. That’s higher than among people who are so-called ‘suited’ for each other racially and religiously. They work better because nobody who’s faced with it would step out of his or her race to marry unless the love was so great that they felt they could not be happy without it.”

“Well … what about the children?”

One of the English reporters said, “For crying out loud, he’s already said they hope to have many healthy, happy babies. If you
missed the exact wording I’ll be delighted to give it to you. This isn’t a trial, you know.”

I wanted to hug that sweet little Englishman.

The guy said, “But he still hasn’t told me what I want to know about the kids …”

Out of at least fifty reporters he was the only one who had been attacking, chipping away, looking for trouble, and I felt a mixture of deep dislike for him as well as embarrassment that it had to be an American. “What
about
them? Exactly what would you like to know?” Everyone in the room was glaring at him.

“Well … what about them? … you know what I mean …”

He was gutless, and I wasn’t about to make it any easier for him. “Exactly what are you driving at?”

“Well—I don’t know. I mean, well …” He looked at the floor. “What do you figure they’ll look like?”

An English reporter murmured, “Oh, now really!” and a heavy silence settled over the room.

“I said, “We expect them to look like babies.”

“No, you know what I mean … do you have some kind of preference about color?” He finally squeezed the words out, “Uh … how would Miss Britt feel if her kid turns out to be black—you know what I mean?”

“Buddy, I’ve known what you meant for forty-five minutes. Now as far as our children are concerned it would not matter to us, in terms of our love for the child, if it were white, brown, or polka dot. We don’t think in terms of color. All we care about is that if God graces us with a child it will grow up to be healthy and love us as much as we’ll love it from the moment its life begins.”

“Yeah, I guess we all want that, but … they’ll have a pretty rough time of it, won’t they? Isn’t it kinda rough for mixed-marriage kids to grow up?”

“Because there are people who’ll dislike our children even before they’re conceived, we’ll fortify them with every spiritual and emotional security that we can provide. We’ll give them all the love and affection parents can give, and buddy, you can bet your typewriter that when the day comes for our child to leave our home and make it alone, he or she will have enough love to lean on to support the weight of every bigot in the world.”

David Niven was the first person to send us a wire. He was in Europe making
The Guns of Navaronne
. His wife is Swedish. He
said, “Good-o, old chap. Lucky you, to have found a nice Swedish girl.”