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Interview with Altovise Davis
Aired May 27, 2002 - 21:00 ET
He was arguably the greatest entertainer that ever lived, the incredible Sammy Davis Jr. in phases of his life. He was a child star, too, with the Will Mastin Trio. Sammy was a dear friend of yours truly and this program. And tonight, we have a tribute and a look inside the life of Sammy Davis with his widow, Altovise Davis, the widow of Sammy Davis Jr., who died May 16, 1990 -- my God, it's been 12 years -- at the age of 65. Just a little while before that, he appeared on this program.
How did you meet, you and Sammy?
A. DAVIS: Really, we met -- every night, we'd go to a bowling alley.
KING: And you were in what show?
A. DAVIS: I was in "High Spirits" with Bea Lillie and Tammy Grimes.
KING: Why not a return to Broadway?
S. DAVIS (CLIP): I would love to, Larry. I would love to come back to Broadway, because there is a love and an affection that I have for that street and for the city of New York, because they were always supportive to me. But I can't find the property to get back in, because I'm 61 years old. I'm not the boy wonder anymore.
KING: "Mr. Wonderful" won't work.
S. DAVIS: Yes, "Mr. Wonderful" and "Golden Boy" won't work for me anymore.
But if I could find something, I would like to come back and show to the people who love theater, both the performers and the people who support theater in America, that I have a great deal of respect for it, because I think, maybe in the past, some of the things that I did, in running around -- and that was a different time, a different place some 25 years, 30 years ago -- I think maybe they got the wrong impression. And I'm a different person than I was then.
A. DAVIS: I loved his mind. I loved hearing him talk.You know, he was an avid reader. And he was very gregarious.
KING: Of course, he had a deep, abiding love for you, didn't he?
A. DAVIS: Yes, he did. It was like a Stevie Wonder song, "I've got someone who needs me," you know? "I've got someone who loves me who never loved me before."
KING: You had a little boy, right? He's now 22. He went into the Army, just like his dad. And he's now out of the Army now.
S. DAVIS: You know, being a celebrity doesn't protect you from racism. I'm even more aware of my brothers and sisters who have to face it who don't have the cloak of celebrity to protect them.
So, you got to fight it every day we can, all of us. And when I say my brothers and sisters, I mean good people, period. I'm not just talking about black or white. I'm talking about everyone who is disenfranchised. But the bitterness is overridden by the fact that I'm in a position. I have survived. And I think and I pray to God that I can do some good and eradicate it more and more. But, personally, I would be dishonest if I said I didn't have a little bit of it.
KING: You will agree, Sammy, that you probably saw less of it than the average American black.
S. DAVIS: Absolutely. Wait a minute. I said that.
The cat on the street, the man on the street, he hasn't got celebrity. That's what I mean. At least you're protected by that. I can buy my way into this now. Those days I couldn't, because they wouldn't let you into the hotels.
There was no such thing as normalcy, as far as I'm concerned. I was raised in show business. I never had a day of formal education. I'm not using these things as an excuse, because I know some of the smartest men and women I know never went to school. But I'm not proud of the statement that I never went.
But I never did have a formal education. I never -- my first time being exposed to outside of show business was when I went into the Army when I was 17 years old. That was my first touch with reality, with our society as it existed in the '40s.
KING: His illness: Sammy smoked.
A. DAVIS: Yes, he did.
KING: When he was first diagnosed, can you tell me your memory of that, what he told you with the cancer? How did that happen?
A. DAVIS: When he was first diagnosed, I think he was devastated.
S. DAVIS: Doctor Shagodin (ph) walked in and he said, "You have an ulcerated carcinoma, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)"
And I went, "Are you telling me I got cancer?" And he looked at me like this. I said, "Because I don't know them other words."
And he said, "Yes."
I said, "Is it on the vocal cord?"
He said, "No, it's behind the vocal cord."
Now, you must remember, hearing this, this has been the straightest period of my life, taking care of myself.
KING: No drugs, no booze.
S. DAVIS: No booze, no nothing, never sung better in my life than I have in the last 3 1/2, four years.
KING: And then what? It came back?
A. DAVIS: Then it came back. And then that was the hard one. So he had choices to make.
S. DAVIS: We talked about whether I should take chemotherapy, which I was afraid of. I didn't want to go in physically and have them do an operation, because I didn't -- I had a fear about, then, that something would happen and...
KING: Foreign object in your throat.
So, what was the third?
S. DAVIS: Radiation.
KING: And that's what you chose. S. DAVIS: I had 40 treatments.
S. DAVIS: I haven't talked about this. You must forgive me. That's why I'm not too articulate about it. It's funny, because I haven't, because everybody that I've discussed this with is close, are so close to me, Altovise of course, Shirley Rhodes (ph), friends.
KING: It took him -- it was like two years, right, wasn't it?
A. DAVIS: Yes, just about.
KING: But he sneak-smoked, didn't he?
A. DAVIS: Yes, you know, like a little boy in a candy store.
KING: No, on this show, he said he stopped smoking. He went into the green room and smoked.
KING: Do you now regret having ever smoked?
S. DAVIS: No. I'll never smoke cigarettes again, of course never. But I won't be...
KING: But you don't blame them, or...
S. DAVIS: No, I can't be hypocritical, as much joy as I got out of lighting a cigarette and doing the jokes.
KING: You used to have signs in your dressing room, "Please smoke."
S. DAVIS: "Please smoke."
KING: Yes.
S. DAVIS: And, you know, so what am I going to say now, because it happened to me? Of course it's dumb, Larry. Of course it's dumb. It's like, whatever caused your ill effects with your body...
KING: He died at home, didn't he?
A. DAVIS: Yes, he died at home. And my son, my eldest son, Mark (ph), took days with me staying, because we had a nurse around the clock, staying one night. And I stayed another night. And the two middle boys, Jeff and Mark (ph), they stayed together upstairs.
KING: It was, as Frank Sinatra said, a bad death, wasn't it? I mean, he was in pain. He looked terrible, right? Was it hard for you?
A. DAVIS: Yes, it was very hard for me. And he couldn't talk so much, so I would have to really lean down and listen to him. And he would talk to me very quietly in his ear.
And people would come in the room and talk and talk so loudly. And he would say, "Would you tell them I can hear; it's just that I can't talk?"
KING: Did he know he was going to die?
A. DAVIS: I think he knew. When you start to give things away, I think you know.
KING: What do you mean?
A. DAVIS: Well, he would give things to his son-in-law, gave things to his daughter.
KING: Things like what, watches?
A. DAVIS: Yes, watches, jewelry.
KING: You estimate spending $50 million in 20 years?
S. DAVIS: Somewhere in the -- I'd say between $30 million and $50 million.
KING: And where is it, Sam?
S. DAVIS: In smoke. It went up in the air.
I sometimes analyze that what I could have done with that in terms of self, but also what I could have done with it in terms of goodness and just better I should have thrown it out of a window and let the people have the money, as opposed to sitting and losing millions at gaming tables, giving watches and, you know -- $2,000 watches to strange people on the street that didn't mean me or our society any good.
But it was front-running. And when you get on that roll where you're front-running, Larry, and you've seen too many people, like I have, now I look at them and I can spot them a mile away. But I couldn't see myself at that point in time.
KING: Did you have a big debt when he died? A. DAVIS: Yes, I did have a big debt.
KING: Internal Revenue.
A. DAVIS: Very slowly. It had to be worked out slowly. I mean, they had an auction at Butterfield (ph). The house was sold, the big house on of Summit Drive. And things just kind of went slowly. A lot of friends did help me and to help me, see me through.
KING: What was it like the day he died?
A. DAVIS: The day he died -- now I get chills.
The day he died, it was early in the morning. And I guess -- I guess one knows it when you are going to die. And the nurse who was there, that's the nurse I really liked. And she said, "Mrs. D., I think it's time."
And I got up and I went. And he held my hand. And he kissed me. And he says, "I always loved you." And he didn't want me to really look at him. He didn't want me to look at him in his face. And he just held my hand and he turned his head. And that was that.
KING: Sinatra took it badly, did he not?
A. DAVIS: Yes, Sinatra took it badly, because Dean had died before.
KING: Yes.
QUESTION: How do you think Sammy should be remembered?
FRANK SINATRA, SINGER: Well, from my standpoint, he should be remembered as one of the finest human beings I ever knew in my life -- and, of course, multi-talented. He was a wonderful, wonderful boy.
A. DAVIS: Sinatra came. And Liza came. The Sinatra family came.
KING: How did Sammy deal with Dean's death?
A. DAVIS: Sammy -- I think -- Sammy dealt badly about it. He wanted Dean not to leave when they were doing their tour together. And he really talked him into it and talked him into staying. But after that one morning, Dean was just gone. But Sammy was the one that talked to him. Frank didn't talk to Dean.
KING: Frank was mad, right?
A. DAVIS: He was mad. Well, yes, just a tad bit.
KING: Frank could get angry.
KING: He and Sammy had some differences at times, didn't they?
A. DAVIS: At times, yes. They always had differences, but there was a love-hate relationship. They were like brothers.
KING: Has Sinatra's friendship always remained constant?
S. DAVIS: Always.
It has been there. Even when we were not speaking, it was there -- because he didn't like my lifestyle. And he would not be dictatorial, but word got back to me, and Frank says: "He doesn't want to go near you as long as you're into this and you're into that. And what are you doing with your life? And he doesn't" -- and, subsequently, the girls -- the ladies, I should say -- Barbara Sinatra and Altovise, my wife of 19 years, they were responsible for getting the two of us back together again for a sit-down where we had dinner at Caesar's Palace.
And I made commitment to him then. And I'm the better for it, because I knew the man that spent, at that point in time, almost 30 years in caring about me.
A. DAVIS: And they always got back together again.
KING: And Sammy was like the bridge between Frank and Dean, right?
A. DAVIS: Yes.
KING: Was Frank supportive after his death?
A. DAVIS: After his death, you know that Frank was starting to get sick himself.
KING: But still a long way from going.
A. DAVIS: Oh, yes, a long way from going. I would talk to them. I saw them occasionally for dinner. And I would take Manny to dinner. And I would also see little Nancy and big Nancy.
KING: I mean, but did Frank call a lot? Did he come over a lot? Did he...
A. DAVIS: He didn't come over a lot, no. I guess maybe that brought back memories, but he did call me every once in a while.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, JUNE 1, 1989)
S. DAVIS: I always wanted to sing with the delicacy and the sensitivity of Frank Sinatra. So, that part of it, long before we became buddy-buddies, I always looked up at him. I took it to far. I became, by public opinion, I think, a fawning dog at the feet of the masters. But it was not at the behest of Sinatra. He never wanted me to act that way. He treated me as an equal. I wouldn't accept the equality.
A. DAVIS: He used to tell me that Frank use to -- after they used to play at the Sands, they used to -- afterwards, they would do a movie, and then they would do a nightclub, and then they would go out and hang out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MAY 15, 1987)
KING: Were you an alcoholic?
S. DAVIS: Well, I don't think an alcoholic in the sense that everyone thinks of an alcoholic. I think I was -- I was dependent upon it.
Like, I'd get up in the morning and all of the cliches that go along with it: an eye-opener, a little bit of the snake that bit you, all of that. And it was, I had to have that little shot before I went on the stage. And I had a liver problem. And I almost died three years ago, 3 1/2 years ago. And good doctors and people of medicine saved me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MAY 15, 1987)
KING: You've worked a lot with Jerry Lewis. And that seems like an unusual booking, only in that the two of you are such total entertainers, one is surprised. Who opens?
S. DAVIS: Well, there is no opening. We both open up together. We both hit the stage at the same time. We do about -- depending on the reaction from the audience, we do 15 to 20 minutes together.
Then I proceed to take over for 40 to 45 minutes. Jerry comes back out. I rejoin him, we do some more together, and we end together.
But the whole concept of Jerry and I working together was based upon the fact that we wanted, Larry, to do the kind of Las Vegas show business that the town was built on.
SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: The kind of free-form, have fun, no computerized jazz going on. But let the audience join into the fun, and thank the good Lord it worked.
And no egos, man. That was the first thing we both decided upon.
(BEGIN VIDEO) KING: Were you ever pessimistic?
SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: Yeah. About three weeks in, having to play a hero, see, ...
KING: Because you were playing it pretty good. No problem.
SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: No problem. Everything's going to be all right.
And suddenly you're alone, and it hits you. Then all the fears come. What if -- then I had to make decisions.
But thank God, the people around me who cared about me, who lived with me, who saw this 360 that I made in my life, you know, to such a positive point and saw this happen, who were as frustrated about it as I was -- they had to go along with the fact that, hey, this is it. This is God's will. And there's nothing you can do about it.
(END VIDEO)
KING: The legacy of Sammy Davis, Jr. Arguably, although maybe it's not even arguable, the greatest entertainer since Jolson. Some say the greatest of them all.
Yet despite all this he never won an Oscar, he never won a Grammy, he never won a Tony, he never an Emmy. But he was a great actor, and a great singer, and a great performer and a great musician.
And he could play drums, and he could jump around, and he could dance with the -- how good a -- you were a dancer, right? You were a trained dancer. Sammy didn't take lessons, right?
A. DAVIS: No, he didn't.
KING: How good a dancer was he?
A. DAVIS: He said I could dance better than he, but he was a better tap dancer.
A. DAVIS: He was a good dancer. He had a wonderful sense (ph). And we looked good together, even though I was about -- he said we were the same height.
KING: You were taller.
A. DAVIS: I heard (ph) so.
KING: Him and Vegas, that was a marriage, right?
A. DAVIS: Yes.
KING: Why did he love that city so much?
A. DAVIS: He loved the city because, even after he would do two shows, do you know he would still do a third show for everyone on the Strip?
And the day he had died, it was the first time ever in the history they turned the lights out on the Strip for a minute-and-a- half. It was dark in Las Vegas, a minute-and-a-half, two minutes.
KING: Did he have any enemies?
A. DAVIS: Not that I know of. I think everybody liked him. He may have had enemies at one point, but he always bridged the gap.
I mean, it's like when he walked down with Mayor Bradley, we walked down with Martin Luther King, when there were riots or there were things.
And I was talking to Mayor (ph) Lindsey, and they both had on white shirts, walking down New York City, you know, and trying to keep peace.
KING: Do you ever look at -- with Sammy and Dean and Frank -- that an era passed? You know, that that's ...
A. DAVIS: That era ...
KING: ... you're not going to have that kind of show business ever again.
A. DAVIS: Ever again. I look at it with nostalgia. I look at it, heart-rendering (ph), and I really try and remember the times being with them, the times cajoling and laughing and being with Frank and Dean, and being with Sammy and hearing how they joked and how they reminisced.
And I try and write that down, because some of it was so much fun.
KING: Thank you, Altovise.
A. DAVIS: Thank you, so much.
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