One by one, the Rat Pack faded away. Their days of hard drinking and partying had taken their toll. Peter Lawford died at the age of sixty-one in 1984 of cardiac arrest complicated by kidney and liver failure, but he was dead to Sinatra two decades earlier. Lawford, a British actor, was a Kennedy brother-in-law, married to JFK’s sister, Patricia.
Sinatra had built the opulent guesthouse at his Palm Springs compound for President Kennedy. Sinatra said Jack had told him it would be the Western White House if he were elected. Then Bobby Kennedy became attorney general and said Jack couldn’t stay there. The president instead stayed at Bing Crosby’s Palm Springs estate when he visited. Officially, it was deemed more secure because of its remote location, but unofficially, it was because Bobby didn’t want his brother to be associated with Sinatra’s perceived mob connections.
One night as Sinatra and I were having cocktails, the conversation turned to politics, and Sinatra told me how he’d been informed. Lawford, whom he called the “brother-in-Lawford,” called him and said Jack wouldn’t be coming to the compound.
“Are you listening carefully, Peter?” Sinatra said.
“Yes,” Peter said.
Sinatra slammed down the phone.
I believe this was one of the most hurtful episodes of Sinatra’s life, and it wasn’t one that he spoke about often. When you were Sinatra’s friend you were a friend for life, unless you crossed him.
From time to time Sinatra would talk about the guys from the old days—Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Henry Kissinger, even Richard Nixon—but other than that one time, I never heard him speak President Kennedy’s name.
Another Rat Pack member, Joey Bishop, was still alive, but they never spoke. I don’t know what happened between him and Sinatra, but whatever it was, it must have been significant. When I asked him why he and Bishop didn’t speak anymore, he laid those baby blue eyes on me.
“Don’t ever ask me that question again,” Sinatra said.
I never did.
After Dean left the tour, he and Sinatra never again hung out, to my knowledge, though they did occasionally see each other and speak.
So Sammy was the only member of the Rat Pack core who was still a part of Sinatra’s life. Sammy held special meaning for me as a manager, as well. He was the first person I had ever seen perform live.
It was 1958 and Ron Glazer, my old college roommate, took me to the Latin Casino in Philadelphia. I had never been to a nightclub show before. Sammy sang, danced, played instruments, and never stopped moving. I couldn’t believe it. He was incredible.
Years later, when Sammy asked me to represent him, I told him the story.
“You were the first live act I ever saw and the best act I ever saw,” I said. He was very touched. I’ve still never seen a better entertainer.
For a while, Sinatra kept Sammy out of his life because Sammy had drug issues. Sinatra had seen a lot of very talented people fall apart because of drugs and he didn’t want anyone with that problem near him, though, as I mentioned, he was more than happy to help them when in need. He and Sammy didn’t speak for years, but now that Sammy was clean, Sinatra was very happy to be back on the road with his old pal. We had switched out our black satin tour jackets that said FRANK, DEAN & SAMMY in red lettering for the ones that read FRANK LIZA & SAMMY in big gold script, and never missed a beat.
Sammy was working hard to get himself out of debt. He was upbeat and on top of the world. Meanwhile, we were traveling the world, including several dates in Germany.
When I told the Boss, he said, “Only if we go piss on Hitler’s grave.” I laughed but I have no doubt he would have done it if I had ever taken him there.
Around this time it was clear that Sinatra was on the decline. He was having trouble reading the lyrics off the monitors, despite an increase in the size of the print and there were memory problems. It was very sporadic and I was convinced the antidepressant was contributing to his problems. I didn’t know what to do. I watched him slipping, forgetting names and forgetting the lyrics. If you can’t remember the lyrics to something you’ve been singing for forty years, there’s a problem.
Once again, a doctor suggested he transition off Elavil and on to something else, but Barbara told me she was afraid of how he would react during the blackout period, so no change was made. I needed to devise some strategies to keep him strong onstage, but I didn’t know how to pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Meanwhile, Sammy’s personality sparkled onstage and one of the highlights of the night was his rendition of “The Music of the Night.” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera was the hot show on Broadway, and Michael Crawford’s rendition of “The Music of the Night” and its soft and building melody made it hugely popular, sung by men and women across the globe.
Sammy sung it with great power and emotion. He was well known for his renditions of “Candy Man,” “Mr. Bojangles,” and my personal favorite, “Birth of the Blues.” “Music of the Night” was stylistically very different but it became his biggest number on the Ultimate Event tour.
The dressing rooms all had speakers in them so the performers could track the show’s progress. Sammy was first onstage and “The Music of the Night” was his closing number. Sinatra would sit in his dressing room listening to him sing the elongated words, “slooooowly, sooooooftly,” and from the beginning of the tour it was apparent that Sinatra didn’t think that number should be in the show. It didn’t fit musically with the rest of the program and wasn’t a number you would ordinarily expect to hear Sammy do.
“What, does he think he’s an opera singer?” Sinatra said one night. “He’s a club singer and entertainer. This isn’t right.”
“Boss, Sammy does it so great.” We were in Sinatra’s dressing room, and I had to stick up for Sammy. After all, while Sinatra could hear the song, he couldn’t see the standing ovation it always received.
Sammy walked offstage and came to me, as was customary.
“How was the show?” Sammy said.
“Great, Sammy,” I said.
Then he went to the Boss’s dressing room during Liza’s performance and intermission.
When Sinatra went onstage to close the show, I saw Sammy in the hallway. Tears streamed down his cheeks. I was immediately concerned.
“What’s the matter, Sammy?”
“Frank wants me to cut ‘Music of the Night’ out of my show,” he said. “You know it’s a great song. I don’t understand it. If he wants me to take it out, I’ll take it out.”
Well, I had clearly failed at convincing the Boss. “Sammy, you can’t take it out. You have to stand your ground.”
“I don’t want to piss off Frank,” Sammy said.
“If you want me on your team, you should keep singing that song,” I said, clapping his shoulder. “He might bitch one or two times but then it will be over. Leave it alone.”
Sammy performed it for the next show and the one after that. Sinatra never said another word about it.
Toward the end of the European tour, we were in Dublin. The entire front row was filled with people in wheelchairs. As hard-nosed as Sinatra could be when he wanted to, his compassionate side was never far behind. He sang his heart out for that front row and then did something he rarely did: he walked off the stage and went to greet each one of them. It was very touching.
Maria was on the road with me, as was Susan Reynolds. They planned a birthday party for me at a traditional Irish pub, with ornate tin ceilings, and rows of Irish whiskeys. The down-home local food and color was a great change from the opulent hotels we stayed and usually dined in. There was no pasta or Chinese food in town so the pub served corned beef sandwiches and Maria found someone to make pizzas. She hired traditional Irish jig dancers who came out kicking their heels, tapping their toes, and beating tambourines. Sammy, an expert tap-dancer, couldn’t resist. He jumped to his feet and joined in. At least he tried.
“Sit down, Sammy!” Sinatra yelled, laughing all the while. “You can’t keep up.” We all howled as the dancers kicked their legs higher and higher. Sammy didn’t know the steps and was way behind. Sammy tapped his way back to his seat.
The real hit of the night was a local comedian by the name of Brendan Grace, whom Maria hired to perform. Brendan was hysterical. He wobbled and stumbled his way through the tables, slurring his words and scratching his beard like a drunken Irishman. Between the drunken act and the heavy brogue, I don’t know how we understood him, but we did and we couldn’t stop laughing. Sinatra laughed so hard he cried. (Grace was so good we booked him as an opening act in London about a year later. Unfortunately, Irish humor doesn’t translate to the Brits. He bombed.)
At one point Sinatra picked a green carnation out of the small vase on the table and tucked it behind his ear. He wore it all night long. And at the end of the night one of the dancers handed me the tambourine that was used in their performance. It said, “Happy Birthday Eliot.” Everyone at the party, starting with Frank, Liza, and Sammy, signed it. A photo of it actually made the local newspaper the next day.
The tour was officially over in May 1989 and everyone went on a short break. Within a month, I was at the Sands in Atlantic City for a series of Sinatra solo shows.
“Hey, Moneybags, get me five thousand,” Sinatra said, meaning get him some cash to carry around. Sinatra sometimes called me “Moneybags,” because I settled out the box office. I called him Boss, Mr. S., or FS. I never called him Frank while he was alive. It just didn’t seem right. Maria went as far as calling him Francis once or twice, which he let very few people do.
Sinatra loved playing smaller, intimate venues, like the Sands in Atlantic City and the Desert Inn in Vegas. When we played cities with large arenas we would change the typical end stage setup, where the performer is always facing the audience, to either a theater in the round or a boxing ring configuration. That maximized the amount of good seats available for the audience and Frank was most comfortable that way. He said it felt more personal.
Bringing him off the stage in an arena could be tricky. He had to walk down the steps and through the crowd. I would walk backward, with my arms extended, and my right foot, which naturally turned out, would shield him from the onslaught of pushing fans grabbing for him. He hated to be touched.
I always kept eye contact with Sinatra. I made sure he didn’t miss the steps in the dark while I glanced backward so I wouldn’t land on my ass. I also had to keep an eye on the security behind Sinatra to ensure they were doing their job.
Like many celebrities, Sinatra had his share of stalkers and threats, and of course, Frank Jr. had been kidnapped. There were always legitimate concerns about any performer’s safety. End stage theaters were easier venues from a security standpoint. There were wings on either side so the performer just walked offstage and back to the dressing room.
I stood backstage during Sinatra’s performance at one of the casino venues. I was talking to Merrill Kelem, who headed Sinatra’s security whenever we were in Atlantic City. Merrill also cleaned and serviced Sinatra’s pistols at least once or twice a year.
“That’s a nice pistol he has out there with him tonight,” Merrill said.
“What?” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“The gun he’s carrying tonight. It’s a nice-looking weapon.” Merrill seemed very blasé about it.
“He has a weapon onstage?” I said.
“Yeah. He usually keeps it in those custom-made boots he wears. Sometimes in the small of his back, or hip.”
I knew Sinatra had a license to carry but I had no idea he carried onstage.
The boots Merrill was referring to were made by Pasquale Di Frabrizio. Zippered and rising to mid-calf, they were always well polished and Sinatra wore them often. The height of the boot allowed his tuxedo pants to fall naturally when he sat or leaned back on the bar stool during a performance. It also provided a place to conceal a weapon. Fortunately he never had to use it.
After Atlantic City, I went home to South Florida. Sammy was in better shape financially, as far as I knew, and had paid off a portion of his debt. He had a new, vibrant step about him and was a pretty happy guy. He had a corporate date in Orlando for General Motors. My son Eric and I took a ride up there to work with him on his schedule. We had parlayed the success of the Ultimate Event into numerous bookings for Sammy. The tour had brought him back and he was in demand.
We went to the hotel he was scheduled to perform at and Eric and I visited him in his suite before the show. His assistant, Shirley Rhodes, was there.
“Sammy, you better rest up,” I said. “I have a year and a half worth of bookings here. You start this fall and are booked through all of 1990.”
He was so happy. He turned to Shirley and said, “We’re not flying DC-10s anymore,” referring to a spate of recent commercial plane crashes, though not all of them involved DC-10s. “Now we’ve got something to live for,” he said.
We laughed and hugged and Eric and I went downstairs to the hotel ballroom to watch him perform. We were proud of what we had done and were looking to the future. It could not have happened to a nicer guy. Sammy had seen his share of tough times, and he was finally turning it all around.
Then something inexplicable happened. In the middle of a song, Sammy stopped singing. I don’t remember the song; I only remember the shock of seeing him stop. It was something I had never seen him do in the decades of watching him perform.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I have to clear my throat,” he said.
He stood onstage for what for me was a painful ten or fifteen seconds. I can only imagine what it was for him. Then he looked to the orchestra.
“Let’s start up again,” he said and then he continued with the show.
I was scared. It was obvious he didn’t stop because he had a frog in this throat. He stopped because nothing was coming out. I was hoping he had a cold or a vocal cord problem, but I was worried.
We immediately went to his suite and waited for him to finish the show. Sammy entered with a worried look.
“Are you okay?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Sammy said.
I knew he was frightened. I didn’t want to make him more afraid than he already was, so I tried to be cool. I could see in Shirley’s face that she was concerned, too.
Two days later he went to see Dr. Joseph Sugerman and Dr. Ed Kantor in Beverly Hills. They were the top throat specialists and treated many well-known entertainers through the years.
Shirley called me.
“Are you holding on?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Sammy has throat cancer.” I could hear the emotion in her voice.
I didn’t know what to say. “So what’s next?”
“I don’t know,” she said. Then the bad news got worse. “It’s inoperable.”
At this point, I wasn’t worried about him singing or making the dates, I was worried about him living. Sammy was a big smoker and drinker. I called Dr. Kantor, who explained that the mixture of nicotine and alcohol in the throat in large amounts was often a fatal one.
That Labor Day, Sammy was the New York host of the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. It was shot out of the WWOR studios in Secaucus, New Jersey, where my coauthor, Jennifer, was the nightly news anchor. She made a brief appearance on the telethon and was talking to Sammy in the control room.
“I never thought this would happen to me,” he said. “You have to tell everyone you know not to smoke. If only I had understood.” He was sad and emotional, confiding his fears to someone he barely knew. It was as if he just needed to tell someone, anyone who would listen.
“You’ll be okay, won’t you?” she said. “There are all kinds of new treatments now. Hopefully everything will be fine.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t know.” And then he went out onstage and made an emotional plea to help Jerry’s kids.
That telethon raised more than $42 million and set a record that year.
It was Sammy Davis Jr.’s last scheduled public performance.
He appeared in public one more time, for the November taping of an all-star salute to his sixtieth anniversary in show business. The three-hour show was produced by George Schlatter, the creator of NBC’s groundbreaking Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and one of the finest television producers and directors in the business. It was hosted by Davis’s friend the comedian Eddie Murphy. Friends and show business fans came out to pay tribute to a man who blazed trails, broke color barriers, and opened doors to the future.
Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Anita Baker, and Ella Fitzgerald all sang, danced, or otherwise paid tribute to the legendary entertainer who started in show business at the age of four and never stopped performing. Sammy was in the first integrated group in the U.S. Army and started doing impressions of white actors like James Cagney. He befriended Sinatra and the Rat Pack and took over Vegas. He did concerts and movies, made records, and performed on Broadway.
“Sixty years, that’s a lot of bourbon under the bridge, baby, I’ll tell you that,” Sinatra said. “Here’s to you, Sam, you know I love you. I can’t say it any more than that. You’re my brother. You’re the greatest,” he said.
Then he started to sing, “It seems we stood and talked like this before. We looked at each other in the same way then. But I can’t remember where or when.…”
“Sammy, I can remember those great times we had at the Sands back in the sixties, you, me, and what’s-his-name,” he said and then read a few tributes.
We were shown a video of an old interview with Sammy, taped many years earlier, in which he confessed that his greatest fear was to end up down-and-out in his old age, just like Mr. Bojangles, talking about what he used to be. “Don’t ever let ’em say, ‘Gee, I didn’t like the performance,’” he said. “At least they’ll be able to say, ‘He performed for me, man, he gave his all.’”
He was undergoing treatment and so couldn’t speak live that night, only on tape, but at one point dancer Gregory Hines coaxed a somewhat frail Sammy onstage. He helped him put on his tap shoes and together they did one last dance for a standing ovation. As usual, Sammy left his whole heart on the stage.
The show raised half a million dollars for the United Negro College Fund.
After the show, we took a photo with all of the celebrities who performed and everyone signed it. There was Sammy in the middle of this gathering of some of the greatest artists of our time, with Michael Jackson draping his arm around him. I have that photo hanging in my office. From time to time I look at it and wonder, Will future generations see a group of talent so great, come together to honor a star so bright?