Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (91 page)

I heard the phone ring in the other room. “Sammy, that was Jane and Burt. They’re on their way over. They said the traffic is very heavy and we should be downstairs or we’ll miss the overture.”

I rolled over, keeping my eyes closed, “Five more minutes …”

“But Sammy, if you don’t get up now we’ll miss the show.” I could smell her perfume. I didn’t want to look at her and see her all dressed and ready with her make-up on. “Well, if you’re this tired you’d better sleep for another hour or two. We can see the show some other time.” I was aching to tell her, “Darling, I don’t want to sleep away my day. I love you and I want to see you happy. I don’t want to keep your beauty locked in a closet. I’d give anything to be able to take you to the show as we’d planned, to take you everywhere, but I don’t dare.”

I stayed in bed long after she’d left the room, certain I’d done the best thing, yet, what was it costing? Incident by incident, disappointment by disappointment, would it become so unpleasant for her that eventually, layer by layer, it would wear away the love?

I stood in the doorway of the living room, wearing a robe and pajamas. May got up from an arm chair and hugged me.

I held her tight, then kissed the palm of her hand. “I’m sorry.” Jane and Burt were on the couch. “I’m sorry, guys. I just couldn’t have gotten out of bed if my life had depended on it.”

Burt shrugged. “We saw it once. You’re the ones who missed it.”

“Look, I’ve been doing two shows a night and three on weekends without a day off for months and I plain ran out of strength.”

May poured a cup of coffee for me and looked at Jane and Burt. “Coffee?”

Jane smiled. “No, thanks. We’re already awake.”

“Hey,” May said, “he’s my husband and if I’m not angry at him then you guys have no right to be.”

They didn’t care about the show. They were annoyed and puzzled by the way I was treating May. There was no way they could understand without my telling them and it was better that they didn’t understand and couldn’t pity her. I said, “I’ve got a swinging idea for dinner tonight. Instead of ordinary room service we’ll have a full-dress dinner party. We’ll really make an occasion out of it. The guys’ll wear black ties and the girls’ll wear long dresses …”

“And you’ll be sleeping, right?”

“I’ll ignore that, Jane. We’ll order caviar, lobster cocktails, champagne, steaks or maybe some duck …”

“What if I don’t like caviar?”

“Then you can sleep through it, Jane. Don’t ad-lib with me. Where was I?”

“You were cooking a duck.”

“Right. Now for dessert we can have a soufflé or baked Alaska, cordials with our coffee—we’ll do it banquet style for like two hours and we’ll keep a waiter and a captain here to serve the whole meal. We’ll be so chic we’ll hate ourselves.”

Jane and Burt left at four-thirty to get dressed. They sent flowers and arrived at six. I had music playing softly in the background. I’d ordered a magnum of champagne and I poured drinks for the four of us, offered a toast and we sat down for dinner. It went off with all the luxury I’d planned, but all I’d accomplished was to raise the level of the prison.

A gust of Miami heat swept through the doorway of the plane as I stepped aside to let Jane and Burt off ahead of me. Paul Newer’s partner, Ray Wilson, who was replacing Paul for a while, said
quietly, “No autographs, no stops for anything. Let’s get out of the city of Miami as fast as we can.”

I moved through the terminal building flanked by Jane and Burt and Harold Gardner, the head of the Fontainebleau’s publicity department, on one side, and Ray and Murphy on the other. The car was waiting in front of the nearest exit and the chauffeur started rolling the instant the doors closed. Ray pressed down the locks.

Some of the pressure eased as we rolled off the causeway over Biscayne Bay and onto Miami Beach. I smiled at Harold. “Thank you for meeting us. I appreciate it.”

“You’ve got a beautiful suite in the new building,” he said.

Jane asked, “Is that the controversial one that blocks the sun from the Eden Roc?”

I looked at her. “Why bother to ask? Wouldn’t you know that if there’s a controversial building I’ll be in it?”

May’s voice over the telephone was heartbreaking. I told her, “I miss you, too, darling. I really do.”

“Are Jane and Burt there?”

“Yes. They asked me to send you their love and they’ll call you tomorrow. Harry’s playing next door and Augie and Margo are on the bill with him.”

“Who are Augie and Margo?”

“They’re the best dance act in the business and they’re good friends of mine. I’ve known them for years.”

“Everybody’s there but me.”

“Darling, let’s not talk about it, okay? We’ve been over it a hundred times and there’s nothing new we can say, right?”

“I guess so. Do you
really
miss me?”

I sat on the bed long after we’d hung up, still hearing the semi-doubt in her voice. When someone doesn’t understand the real reasons for something they begin analyzing and they have to come up with the wrong answers. I was afraid what those answers might be: “Is he more concerned with his career, afraid a few people might stay away because of me?” She could be thinking anything and I realized that in order to spare myself humiliation I was causing her the needless anguish of doubt.

She answered the phone on the first ring.

“May … I want to explain this Miami Beach jazz.”

“Well, as long as you mention it, I must say I don’t understand, although I sure would like to.”

“Okay. Try to understand that we haven’t only committed the cardinal sin of the South. It’s not that simple. Florida has a state
law
against miscegenation—a white person mixing with a colored person. They could put us in jail for a year if they wanted to.”

“It’s against the law?”

“That’s right.”

“But we’re married …”

“Forget it. Down here I don’t have the right to even walk down the street with you despite the fact that we’re married.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Darling, I have to have a special police card or if I go out on the streets at night I can be arrested. I need a police card so that a taxi driver will take me … look, it’s an old-fashioned thing but the law still stands. It’s changing but it still hasn’t changed enough.”

When she spoke there were tears in her voice. “Oh, God, I feel rotten making you tell me that … I’m so sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. You couldn’t know.”

I invited some friends up to the suite a few days after the opening. As it thinned out leaving Jane and Burt and Augie and Margo, Big John stopped by. “Can I talk to you a minute, Sammy?” I followed him into the bedroom. “They keep asking me over in Miami what you want to do about your suite this year.”

“Baby, tell ‘em thanks but I don’t need it. I work at the Fontainebleau and I live at the Fontainebleau. That’s
it”

“You know what they’ll start saying.”

“That’s their privilege.” He frowned apprehensively. “John, I can’t beat people into liking me and I can’t beg ‘em for it, either. And isn’t it long past time I stopped trying? Frank doesn’t keep a suite in the Italian section of town just to show ‘em he’s still one of
them
. They can like me or hate me but it’ll be on the basis of what I am. I wouldn’t be helping any cause by living over there, or in Southside, or Westside, or in Harlem. The one thing the Harlems of the country do not need is more colored people.”

He smiled. “Ill give ‘em the message.”

It was so ridiculous that I was embarrassed I’d ever done it at all.

As I walked into the living room Burt asked, “Anything wrong, Sam?”

“No, baby, I was just musing over something I used to do when I was young—last year. What’ve you guys been talking about?”

“Your show,” Augie said. “We think you’re better than you ever were.”

Burt nodded. “We noticed it at the Copa and even more here. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is but your performance has an extra dimension.”

All that had changed was “attitude.” I wasn’t “the kid” anymore. I was working just as hard, but not as wildly, not wasting anything as I used to. I was making everything count.

Jane said, “You’re not dancing as much.”

“Do you miss it?”

“I love seeing you dance, on the other hand you’re doing more humor, and it’s great. I never heard straight comedians get such laughs.”

The changeover had been coming on gradually. It seemed as though God was helping me; as my energy diminished He replaced it with more wit, more insight, more maturity on the stage and, as a result, an even greater rapport with the audience. I’d dreaded the day when I wouldn’t have the strength and the energy which had always been the very heart of my act, but when time finally forced the necessary changes the “irreplaceable” had been replaced, and by something even better.

Things seem to level off and work themselves out. At thirty-five I couldn’t possibly go out there with the physical strength and speed that I had at twenty-one. But maybe if I’d still been able to do the go-go-go stuff the audience would have grown tired of it after all these years. Perhaps the newness, the changing personality, had a sustaining quality built into it.

“Augie,” I glanced between him and Margo, “are you holding your wife’s hand because you love her or are you afraid she’s going to hit you?” I looked at Jane and Burt. “Only I have to sit here alone, like an idiot.”

Jane looked at me unsympathetically. “All you have to do is call her and tell her to come down.”

Things had been quiet, there were no indications of trouble and if we stayed within the hotel grounds maybe it would be all right. The Fontainebleau was like a city in itself, with shops, restaurants—there was nothing we’d have to go outside for.

When I told her she sounded like a kid. “Do you really mean it? I don’t want to be pushy like the other day.”

“Darling, I miss you terribly. Ask Jim to get you on the first plane
he can tomorrow. Have him tell Arthur I’d appreciate it if he’d keep you company on the trip. I won’t meet you at the airport. Ray’ll come down in Ben Novack’s car.”

I was up early the next morning getting weather reports, and stocking up on things she liked. On my way downstairs to the florist shop I passed an open door to another suite. It was only partially furnished but it was gorgeous.

I called Ben Novack, the owner of the Fontainebleau. “I just saw a suite down the hall, Ben. You’ve got to let me have it.”

“Sammy, you’re in the most beautiful one I have.”

“I know and I appreciate it but my wife is coming in today and I know she’d particularly love this one. Her favorite color is yellow….”

“But it’s not finished yet.”

“Ben, please, I know it sounds crazy but do me this favor. Put eight guys in to finish it right away if you have to. I really want it.”

Two hours later I was moved in and Mrs. Novack was supervising a small army of men who were running around like a Mack Sennett movie, bringing in lamps, a coffee table, porch furniture, hanging curtains and a chandelier over the dining table. The top of the dresser was covered with about a dozen bottles of perfume I’d picked up at the drugstore. Jane and Burt came in behind three bellboys who were bringing up the flowers. She smiled, “Did we miss the ceremony?” Then she said, seriously, “It’s beautiful.”

I knew that while I was doing the shows May’d be with Jane and Burt, but if they were living here, in the suite, she wouldn’t feel like a drag, like they were always coming up to keep her company.

I called them into the second bedroom. “Listen, I just had an idea. I can’t shake you guys no matter how hard I try. I mean, we’re together like twenty-four hours a day as it is, and when May gets here it’ll be the same thing, right? So why don’t you move your stuff in here and stay with us?”

Burt nodded, “Sounds great.”

I waited for Jane to say something. I glared at her. “What’s wrong, Jane?”

“It has no full-length mirror.”

“I’ll
get
you a full-length mirror.”

She laughed, “Okay then.” She hesitated. “What about May? How do you think she’ll like the idea?”

“First of all, you know I wouldn’t have asked you if I wasn’t sure she’d love it. You’re buddies, right? And now with this mirror jazz I begin to understand why. Secondly, as far as privacy goes the place is big enough so that if after a while you can’t stand looking at us or if we can’t stand looking at you we’ve got the whole living room and dining thing between us, you’ve got your own private entrance … and just so you won’t feel I’m out-starring you the bedrooms are both the same size.”

She grinned. “Separate but equal, right?”

“Watch that, Jane.” I picked up the phone and called for some bellboys to move them.

I put a handkerchief into a seersucker jacket and looked around the living room for my sunglasses. “Where’re you guys going today?”

May said, “Jane and Burt say there are some pretty good stores in Surfside, so we’re going to look around there. And we might go to see the jungle.”

“Great.” I looked at my watch. “It’s a definite off to meet the press.”

She walked over to me. “Poor Sammydavis. It doesn’t seem fair that you work so hard and the three of us run around like we’re on a vacation.”

“That’s how it is when you’re a very big star.” I kissed her. “Have fun and I’ll catch you back here around five for cocktails.” I hurried out the door and slowed down only when it was closed behind me.

Day by day I’d found reasons to be away in the afternoons—benefits, interviews, playing golf with “somebody important.” I didn’t dare just stay around the room with her because it would emphasize the fact that we were never going anywhere together.

I ordered huge tables of hot hors d’oeuvres to be delivered every afternoon at five o’clock and I invited everyone I thought she’d like. Harry and Julie came over a few times, Martin Luther King was in town and he came over, so did Sidney Poitier and Henry Ginsberg, who’d produced
Giant
. June Allyson was in the hotel for a few hours and she came up and had lunch with us. The economy plan went on a Florida vacation. In ten days my little campaign to brighten up hotel life resulted in a $2,500 bill for drinks and hors
d’oeuvres. I was the Mad Social Director, waiting only for the day when I could walk down the street with my wife.