(Tape #7 with Sonny Day. Recorded in his study, February 28.)
HOAG: OKAY, SO YOU quit your TV series and moved back here.
Day: Right away, I feel different. Like something has gone out of me. Nowadays, they call it burnout. All I knew was I felt like I was just going through the motions. With Gabe. With Connie. I was very unsatisfied by my life all of a sudden. I was down. Gabe and I started a picture, Alpine Lodge. It was the same damned picture as BMOC, only with snow. Nobody seemed to notice. Or care. We did a couple of specials for NBC that season that were stale as hell—top-rated shows of the season. We did our six, eight weeks in Vegas. Again, stale. Again, sold out. It was fucking depressing.
Hoag: Did Gabe feel the same way you did?
Day: He did.
Hoag: Did you talk about it?
Day: Nah. We were like two people with a marriage that didn’t work anymore. Bringing out the worst in each other. But the love was still there. And so was the dough. We flat out couldn’t afford to break up, and we knew it, and it made us resent each other even more. I drank more and more. Took pills. Then my old lady died, and I don’t know, I felt like nobody was looking over my shoulder no more. I started kicking up my heels. But I was still low. Show you how low, Francis calls me up one day and says, “We’re doing a caper picture in Vegas together—Dean, Sam, Peter, Joey, everybody. Who do you and Gabe want to play?” And I said, “I don’t know. I’ll get back to you.” I never did. It didn’t sound like fun to me. We never did appear in Ocean’s Eleven.
Hoag: I understand you had an affair with Jayne Mansfield.
Day: Connie told ya, huh? She was a sweet kid. Hottest new piece in town. Everybody wanted her. For a while, I had her. And I felt, for a while, a little bit fulfilled. Until Connie threw me the fuck out. That’s when Wanda started to give us trouble. Stopped doing well in school. Got very quiet. Didn’t want to be around me anymore at all. I figured God was punishing me for fucking around. We put her in a special school. Sent her to a shrink five days a week. She just kept getting worse. Anyway, Connie and me decided I should move back in. Give Wanda as stable an environment as possible. So I did. So one morning we’re having breakfast, and I’m complaining to Connie about not wanting to go to the studio, not wanting to work, and it hits me.
Hoag: What hits you?
Day: This isn’t Sonny Day. If Sonny Day is unhappy, he should do something about it. I needed to stretch. It took me a long time to realize that. See, people were constantly telling Gabe to branch out so he wouldn’t be hanging on to my coattails. But nobody ever said that to me. This was a breakthrough for me. I started tummeling an idea with Norman Lear. It was a kind of satire on Madison Avenue, but it was a real statement on modern morality, you know, with depth and sophistication and a message …
Hoag: This would be The Boy in the Gray Flannel Suit,
Day: Warners thought it was brilliant. But they said, where’s the part for Gabe? I said there isn’t one, and they said put one in. They wouldn’t let me do it by myself. They also wouldn’t let me take it elsewhere. I was under exclusive contract—with Gabe. There was nothing I could do. Studios still ran things in those days. So I got drunk. Then Norman and I put in a part for Gabe. And guess what?
Hoag: He didn’t want to do it.
Day: He said it was stupid and one-dimensional. He wanted us to do a big musical, a Guys and Dolls kind of picture. Only, that didn’t interest Warners. Or me. He ended up by doing one on Broadway. And he was a smash. But my little movie he wouldn’t touch. The studio said to him, you don’t do this picture, we’ll make it without you. Give Sonny a new partner. Which they did—they gave me a kid named Jim Garner. I made him into a star. Anyway, it was a standoff. Gabe wasn’t bluffing. Warners wasn’t bluffing. They gave him a few days to think it over, but it was over. In the meantime, we kept on the happy face. Connie threw me a huge birthday party here at the new house. Must have been three hundred people. She invited Gabe and Vicki and they came. We hadn’t socialized in ages. And what a performance Gabe put on. All hugs and kisses. Even got up and made a birthday toast. He said, and I’ll never forget this as long as I live, he said, “Here’s to my best friend, Sonny Day. The man who gave me everything.” We hugged. He sang me our song, “Night and Day.” Henry Mancini played the piano. Then we sang it together. Everybody sobbed, it was so fucking moving. Nobody knew we was gonna bust up. Nobody but Heshie. The rest of them, the industry people, they thought Gabe would back down. Not even the wives knew.
Hoag: So Gabe was really the one who ended it? It was his decision?
Day: That was one helluva birthday party. We drank and danced and sang and cried. Next day, Knight and Day was history.
Hoag: Next day you had your fight at Chasen’s.
Day: Yeah.
Hoag: You’re saying it had to do with Boy in the Gray Flannel Suit.
Day: That was part of it.
Hoag: What else was?
Day: (silence) There was bad blood.
Hoag: It was alleged in the book about you, You Are the One, that the fight was over your gambling debts. That you sucked Gabe into debt with you.
Day: That’s not even worth discussing.
Hoag: At the time, you said the book was garbage. Now is your opportunity to refute it.
Day: All right, all right. Sure, I got in money trouble from time to time. So what? Gabe got in deep with his divorce. I bailed him out. He bailed me out.
Hoag: I see. (silence) Sonny, there’s also been an allegation concerning Connie. That she was …
Day: She was what?
Hoag: That she and Gabe Knight were lovers. Secretly, and for a number of years. And you found out about it. And that’s why the two of you fought.
Day: What? Where’d you hear that crap?!
Hoag: It isn’t important.
Day: It’s a vicious lie! No truth to it. Who told ya that crap?
Hoag: Sonny, I know this isn’t easy for you to deal with. I understand. But you’ve got to deal with it. I’m going to ask you again—is that what the fight was about? Be honest.
Day: What, you think I’m lying?
Hoag: No …
Day: Then why’d you say that?
Hoag: I’m simply trying to get at the truth.
Day: You do think I’m lying. I can see it in your eyes. You don’t believe me. You believe some lie somebody told ya. Just like that, the trust between us is gone. This is something. This is really something.
Hoag: Don’t do this, Sonny.
Day: Don’t do what? Get sore at ya? Wanna punch ya? For slandering my wife. For saying she’d fuck around on me with that …
Hoag: I’m only doing my job.
Day: Stirring up garbage? No. Forget it. I won’t discuss it.
Hoag: You must.
Day: Or what? You’ll print your lies anyway? Don’t try to bully me, pally. I been bullied by the best, and they’re still picking up their teeth all over town.
Hoag: Sonny, I’m not the Enquirer. We have to deal with this thing. Get it out in the open. Now, you mentioned to me once that Gabe broke your heart. Is this how? By sleeping with Connie?
Day: Turn off the tape. This interview is over.
Hoag: All right, then let’s address ourselves to the fight itself. It took place at Chasen’s the afternoon after your birthday party. What happened?
Day: Turn it off, damn it!
Hoag: Sonny, we’ve done a lot of good work so far. Won a lot of battles. But this is the big one. I know it’s tough. It’s hard on your ego, your pride. But you’ve got to take it on. We have to deal with it.
Day: You’re not dealing with anything, pally. You sure have knocked me for a loop. After all we’ve been through, the love I’ve given you. …
Hoag: I’m fired again, right?
Day: Clear out. You’re through. And that’s no lie.
Hoag: I see. (silence) You know, I do. I really do.
Day: You see what”
Hoag: Just one more question and I’m out of here—how did you figure to get away with it?
Day: Away with what?
Hoag: Not telling. I mean, this whole project has been nothing more than a publicity stunt, right? You wanted to get some attention, revive your career. You even made up the death threats. The truth is, you were never going to talk about the fight. You figured … hell, what did you figure? You’d get more publicity for clamming up? Is that it?
Day: You’re dead wrong, Hoagy. I acted in good faith. I just can’t do it. Don’t you understand? I thought I could. Now that I’m face-to-face with it …
Hoag: Face-to-face with what?
Day: I made a mistake. I’m a human being.
Hoag: You’re a master, is what you are. You suckered everybody. The publisher. The newspapers. And me. And that’s the part that hurts, Sonny. See, I came around to your side. I started to think there was more to you than all that bad press you’ve gotten through the years. I cared about you. And you’ve been wearing your mask this whole time. You’ve been working me, just like I was an audience in Vegas. Giving me what I wanted. Using me.
Day: You’re wrong about this, Hoagy. Believe me.
Hoag: Why should I?
Day: Because I’m telling you the truth, damn it.
Hoag: Tell it to somebody else. Put an ad in the paper: “Wanted—one stooge. No experience necessary.” That’s what you need. That’s what you’ve always needed. Good-bye, Sonny.
(end tape)