Sammy Davis Jr(31)
“It was a monumental day in many respects. First of all, more than any single incident, the galvanizing of what the Civil Rights Movement was about was that day. It showed that we could live together, the black and whites and Hispanics and everybody else, that we should be pulling together.
“I think it was the most American day in the history of our country, save for perhaps the Battle of Bunker Hill. Or, maybe the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s to be put on that level, for me, it’s on the level of that kind of an occasion.
Twenty years later to the day of the march we all went back. And we recaptured it, the affection, and to see people who had been there twenty years earlier and to see the people who now were there, the young faces, it was joyous. A couple of kids came up to me and said, Sam? You were here before. Is this what it was like? I said: Yeah. Keep it going, man, keep it going.
My father and Peter Lawford in the 1968 film Salt & Pepper
My father was feeling in good spirits. “Okay, I got a good Lessie Lee story. I remember after your mom and I got divorced—we’ll save that for another day—your mother eventually moved the family to Lake Tahoe. I would do a Harrah’s show and ride my three-wheel chopper over to visit with you kids. Your mother would say all excited, ‘Oh look, here comes your father on a motorcycle!’ and Lessie Lee would mutter under her breath, ‘Fool!’” My father laughed hard.
“Lessie Lee is just a character. Mom always said she knew from the first minute she met Lessie Lee that she was the one to help with the kids and stay with our family for a lifetime,” I said.
In June 1963, Pop was in Vegas working. Lessie Lee was caring for me and my brother Mark. My mother went off to attend the premiere of Cleopatra. She was part of the fourth night charity event or something. There was my mother in the audience, watching the film, when someone tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Your house has been robbed.”
“Oh my God, really?” Mom exclaimed.
As the story goes, three men posed as policemen and forced their way into our home on Evanview Drive. The doorbell rang, Lessie Lee looked through the peephole, saw police officers, and opened up the door. They tied up Lessie Lee, took a $15,000 diamond necklace, loads of other jewelry, and at least seven jeweled watches. Thank God, me and Mark were safe, being so young. Lessie Lee was scared out of her mind, poor thing.
“Pop, remember the robbery on Evanview? Is that why you moved to David O. Selznick’s mansion in Beverly Hills?” I asked my father.
“Well, we were planning to move, anyway. Your mother was looking for another house. It didn’t happen right away, because I remember late that year after the robbery we entertained Bing Crosby and his wife, the actress Kathryn Grant, for dinner and a film in our screening room. We called the screening room ‘the playhouse’ on Evanview Drive. But one day I was out of town working, and your mother called and said, ‘I found this house, it is simply elegant, pure class, doesn’t scream gaudy, just breathtaking and homey.’ So I told your mother, ‘Get it!’” Pop said.
“Sight unseen?” I asked my dad.
“Sight unseen!” Pop said.
“Geez, Pop, you were generous!” I said.
“It cost a fortune back in the day, but happy wife, happy life,” Pop said.
My father would not be the only celebrity to own producer David O. Selznick’s former mansion over the decades. Ed McMahon and George Hamilton are among the house’s other former owners. In 2010, it went on the market at $15.9 million.
The 1934 mansion was designed by Roland Coate and built in Beverly Hills for Selznick, who won a Best Picture Oscar for Gone With the Wind. It was a simple, traditional house, with all the trimmings of sheer elegance. The house had seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms with more than three-quarters of an acre of manicured grounds including a pool. It had a two-story entry, a formal living room, and a dining room with multiple fireplaces with original Greek keystone-shaped marble. The house had a walk-in bar in the family room, a library, a billiards room, an office, and two maids’ quarters.
With Cicely Tyson in the 1966 movie A Man Called Adam
Judy Garland appeared on Dad’s show in 1966 and they performed a memorable musical routine dressed as hobos, just as she had done with Fred Astaire in the film Easter Parade.
The nurse came out to check on my father. She suggested that it might be time for Pop to go inside and rest. Together we assisted father inside and up to his bedroom. I gave Pop a kiss on the forehead.
“I had fun today, Popsicle,” I told my father.
“Me, too, Trace Face.” Pop grinned.