Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (82 page)

I saw May off on a plane to Sweden and a few hours later boarded my own plane to the States. As we taxied down the runway I settled back in my seat and tried to anticipate my return home and the reception there. I was fully aware that my intended marriage seriously jeopardized everything I had worked for, but I’d achieved all the golden dreams and they’d far from fulfilled the promise. If club owners said, “Sorry, we can’t book you any more” there would be no decision for me to make; if it meant packing all my gun-belts and my records and tape machines and moving to another country, I’d do it.

The Mosley thing was a forecast. For me hate held no unknown quantity. It might take a different form but essentially there was
nothing they could do or say that hadn’t already been done and said, and above all I had the experience of surviving it. But could May withstand its pressures? She’d shrugged off the friends who’d stopped calling, she’d absorbed the Mosley thing, but would she be able to absorb constant disapproval, suddenly closed doors, expulsion from movies? Sure, she’s a strong girl with a mind of her own but no man no matter how strong he is can step into the ring for his first fight and take on the heavyweight champion. I had to protect her from as much of it as possible. I had to keep every ounce of my strength and experience constantly at her side. I had to be thinking ahead of them, running interference, blocking, shielding, anticipating, softening anything that might be waiting. But ultimately, her ability to endure, the final measure of her strength, would be in the extent of her love and need for me.

The huge engines were roaring to their peak, the pilot released the brakes and we began hurtling up the runway. I looked out the window, glad for the chance to delay my involvement with the problems of the future and dwell for a few moments on the happiest weeks of my life. As we climbed into the sky I watched London grow smaller until it resembled a fictional place in children’s storybooks, a setting for fables which describe the beauties of the world and overlook the realities of harshness and unkindness. Ten thousand feet below me I’d left the hurt of Sir Oswald Mosley and a wire-service reporter, and as our jet moved into the clouds and London disappeared I took with me only memories of a fairy-tale city.

The thousands of delegates in the jam-packed convention hall applauded wildly as Frank’s name was called and he stepped forward. One by one we were introduced—Peter, Tony and Janet, and the others who’d been invited to appear at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles to make a show of allegiance to John F. Kennedy. My presence on that stage brought me the extra satisfaction of knowing that through television and the thousands of newspapers focused on the moment, millions of people from Los Angeles to Moscow who’d been exposed to race riots in Little Rock were also seeing democracy proving its definition.

My name was called and I stepped forward, the applause rang out clear and loud across the hall. Then there was a loud “Boooooooooo … boooooooooo… booooooo …” My head snapped upward involuntarily and almost every head in the hall turned with mine, searching.
It was the Mississippi block. Four or five men were standing, hands cupped around their mouths, still booing me, the sound cutting grotesquely through the applause.

I finished my bow and stepped back. I focused on a flag in the back of the hall and clung to it, standing there, torn to shreds inside, hurt and naked in front of thousands of people, in front of the world. Frank, looking straight ahead too, whispered, “Those dirty sons of bitches! Don’t let ‘em get you, Charley.” The tears exploded in my eyes and cascaded down the front of my face, blinding me from everything but a haze of color and light. I gouged my nails into the palms of my hands but the tears kept pouring out. “Hang on, Charley. Don’t let it get you!”

“It’s got me, Frank. What’d I do to deserve that?”

A voice on the public address system boomed across the hall. “Ladies and gentlemen, our National Anthem.” I sang The Star Spangled Banner, humiliated, fearful that I’d hurt the very thing I’d flown three thousand miles to help; if I might have swung a few votes toward Kennedy, how many might I be costing him?

Thousands of voices roared across the hall: “…
what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming
…” And as I sang the words I could hear my own voice telling reporters in London, “This could never happen in America.”

“… and the rockets red glare … the bombs bursting in air …
” The whole world is watching what’s happening here today. How can anyone hate me so much that they’d let the rest of the free world see that the men who might be selecting the next President of the United States are men who feel racial prejudice?

“… the land of the free … and the home of the brave.”

As we stepped off the stage reporters swarmed around me. “Why do you think they did that, Sammy?” I excused myself and found Frank and told him I wasn’t going to stay for the rest of the ceremonies.

“Okay, Charley.” His hand was on my shoulder. I could feel the tension in his fingers but his face showed nothing, like a man who couldn’t be surprised by people any more.

I stood on the street in front of the convention hall, looking for a cab, hearing bursts of applause from inside.

A cab pulled up. I’d planned to spend a few hours with May before going back to Boston but she’d been watching it all on television
and I couldn’t face her sympathy. I told the driver to take me to the airport.

I closed Boston and had a week free on the coast before opening in Washington at the Lotus Club. As I walked through the TWA gate I saw May running gaily toward me. I hugged her quickly, “Come on, darling, big stars don’t hang around airports.” She clung to my arm as I hurried her through the terminal building.

“How come Jim didn’t come with you?”

“I told him to meet us at the house. I was dying to meet my fiancé alone.”

“Where’s Rudy?”

“In the car. Out front.” She was holding a piece of paper. “Guess what this is?”

I saw a woman nudging her husband, motioning for him to look at us. He gaped, shaking his head, like “How dare they!” May hadn’t caught it. Her face was flushed with excitement. “It’s our wedding invitation. It’s only the sample the printer sent back but boy it’s beautiful! Look.”

I took it from her and put it in my pocket. “When we’re home, we’ll look at it like ladies and gentlemen, right? Let’s save it and enjoy it.” I could feel the attention building around us and I kept her moving quickly through the hum of whispers, of conversations breaking off in the middle of sentences, faces staring openly, accusingly, like: if we had any class we’d break up to make them happy.

As we came to the luggage counter May slowed down. I pulled her along. “Darling, your fiancé is much too big to stand around waiting for his luggage. Rudy’ll come back for it. I mean, if you’re going to be a star be a star.” As we cleared the front doors I saw, gratefully, that Rudy was parked directly in front of the entrance.

At home I sat her down on the couch, “Darling, it was beautiful of you to meet me and I dug it, but I don’t think you should do that any more. Let’s wait a while.”

“But it’s not a secret now, we have nothing to hide.”

“I know, but let’s keep attention on us down to a minimum. The other day Lee Mortimer ran a thing about ‘Hey, it’s just a publicity stunt, folks.’ What do we need that for? The less they see of us until after we’re married the less of that jazz we’re going to get.”

She nodded, like a kid. “I guess you’re right.” Then she perked up, “Can we look at it now?”

I took the invitation out of my pocket and held it for both of us to see.

“It’s beautiful. Incidentally, I spoke to Frank and asked him to stand up for me.”

“What did he say?”

“He knew it before I asked him. It was just a formality.

“Y’know,” I said, “I’ve been thinking, we should redecorate. Let’s face it, it’s not exactly feminine around here.”

“What about our economy drive?”

“I think this is important. I won’t feel that the place is yours if we leave it this way. I think we should at least do the bedroom, the living room and the kitchen. I can pay it off in a year with no problems.”

“You don’t have to do that. This will be my wedding present to us.”

“Hold it.
I
pay the bills around here. Maybe I’ll be a little slow but I’ll pay them.”

“Holy Toledo! Who cares whose bank account it comes out of? And the few thousand dollars it’ll be isn’t a drop in the pail compared to what it’s going to cost you to support me all my life.”

“Darling, it’s a drop in the
bucket.”

“Right, so what do we accomplish by getting more deeply in debt when we have the money?”

“I know, but …”

“In the words of Sharlie Brown ‘there’s no buts.’ ”

“Look, I realize I sound like an idiot doing the ‘no woman will ever support
me’
bits because obviously you’re right, but frankly, I’m pretty shook … no woman ever gave me
change.”

She hugged me. “Oh, thank you.” Then, gazing at the area in
front of the windows, “Do you know what I’d love? A dining set right there so we could have dinner and look out at L.A. With only six chairs so we can’t possibly have great big dinner parties. I hate it when there are so many people that there are ten conversations going on at once.”

“I’m with you on that. The crowd scenes’ll be in the Playhouse. Up here we’ll keep it strictly family and the few really close buddies.” I walked over to the bedroom. “I’m not going to sleep in here again until we’re married and we move in together.” I liked the romantic gesture, myself. “I’ll use the Playhouse or I’ll stay at the Hilton.”

“Boy,” she sighed, “that’s beautiful.” She was looking at me like I was D’Artagnan.

I had a bunch of people over for a Sunday afternoon. A long-time friend grabbed me by the arm, “I have to talk to you.” He steered me upstairs to the bedroom of the Playhouse, into the bathroom and closed the door. “Are you and May Britt really on the level? It’s
not
a publicity stunt?”

“You know I don’t do publicity stunts.”

He clutched his head with both hands. “You don’t know what you’re doing.” I waited for him to say something else, not wanting to accept what I had heard. Not from a friend. “Sammy … you’re out of your mind. You can’t do this. It’s no good.” He was holding me by the shirt. “You’ll ruin your life! And what happens when you have children? Have you thought about that? And you’re just getting started in pictures. Why ruin everything? She’s just a kick. You’ll get over her. If you want to get married, find yourself a nice colored girl. Can’t you see what I’m trying to tell you?”

“I see it. Thank you for telling me.”

I watched him going back to the party. How could I have known him for so long but not at all?

I glanced through the morning papers. Louella Parsons had: “His best friends have been unable to talk Sammy Davis Jr. out of the May Britt marriage. The reception will take place at one of the Hollywood hotels.”

We were in almost every column. Approval and disapproval were cropping up all around us. It’s a strange thing to find that your engagement is a case history, something to which each person was attaching his own significance—ten different things to ten different people, each starting from the point of seeing it as an interracial marriage, each viewing us as either hero or villain, none seeming to
grasp the basic point: you can hate by color but you can’t love by it; that I’d asked May to marry me, I had not said, ‘Will you intermarry me?’ ”

Rudy brought in the mail. In it was the usual assortment of letters from strangers—the few who took the trouble to write and let us feel their support, and the familiar-looking envelopes with no return addresses, the hate letters. One was addressed to both of us and I wondered if May was getting any of them at the studio.

“Rudy, while I’m out of town, May is going to be coming in and out of here with the decorator. Please check the mail carefully. Make sure none of this filth is lying around.”

I had the day free so I called May, to ask her to come over but there was no answer. A few minutes later she called. I laughed, “I just called
you
. Where are you?”

“Sammy, guess what? I was passing a store on Wilshire and there in the window was exactly the kind of dining set I was telling you about. Six chairs. It’s
beautiful!
I’m in the store now. How would Sharlie Brown like to drive over here so we can look at it together?”

“Darling, I’d love to but I can’t … I’ve got a heavy day. But if you like it then go ahead and order it.”

“No, I want to be sure you like it, too.” Her excitement had paled. “Do you think maybe you could make it tomorrow?”

I hesitated, despising the situation that was forcing me to refuse her such a simple pleasure, stealing what any engaged girl was entitled to. But what could be gained by giving her the pleasure of looking at some furniture if in the middle of it somebody cuts her in half with a lousy look or an out-and-out insult? There was enough attention, opinion, and snipes at us without me putting her in the line of it by doing “engaged couple” bits all around town. “Darling, I’ll tell you what. It’s in the window, we’ll run over there tonight and take a look.”

“Okay.” There was a pause, then “Hey, that’s a
great
idea!” Her voice was overcheerful. “Oh boy, I like that idea
much
better. If we do our window shopping at night we can have privacy, we won’t be bothered by a lot of autograph jazz. Gee, I’ve got a brilliant fiancé.”

I hung up heartsick from the realization that she was beginning to catch on, that it was inescapable, that the atmosphere of fear and caution and compromise, of walking on eggs, was surrounding her, slowly dragging her into the web, stifling all that love for life—forcing it into the prison of my skin.