The first two rehearsals were held at my father’s house. Pop would say, “Frank, all kidding aside, we still think of you as Chairman of the Board.” Dean would respond with, “Yeah, Frank. You’re the chairman and we’re bored.” Or sometimes you would hear my father on a mic offstage after Frank finished a song, “It’s wonderful that a man of that age can still sing like that.” And Dean would reply, “But let’s go out and help him before his oxygen runs out.” Dean was smiling, happy, distracted.
By the time they hit New York, the orchestra was rehearsing under Morty Stevens—the crew was back on track. Dean was joking with the stage hands and tech crew about Frank always sticking his finger in his food. He told Frank, “Everything I ate last night tasted like your finger.” Frank would play back, poking his finger in something else, “Here, Dean, you should eat this.” The clowning was back, and Dean was feeling strong.
At one point Shirley announced to my father that there were not enough black musicians in the orchestra. Frank took control and summoned over the contractor. “What the fuck is this snow-white orchestra? That stinks!” The contractor said it was too late to change them, that it would cost way too much. Frank said, “Bullshit! I want at least thirty percent black musicians. Pay what you have to. Fix it!” That was Frank, always took the bull by the horns.
Throughout the final tour, marquees read, “Frank, Sammy, Dean. SOLD OUT.” Dean did not last the entire tour and retired from show business shortly after, but the shows he did perform made the whole tour worth their while. My father and Frank accomplished their goal. They made Dean smile and laugh again, as audiences throughout the country stood up, applauded, and begged for encores. The Rat Pack were like blood brothers who looked out for each other till death do them part.
Dad stands in front of a poster for his 1964 Broadway hit Golden Boy.
CHAPTER 4
ICON
I arrived at Pop’s house the next morning, only to find him fast asleep. I sat outside in a chaise lounge with some of Lessie Lee’s famous fried chicken and a glass of Coke. I looked around at the plush garden oasis my pop worked so hard for, and thought, “Wow, my father really is a megastar.”
At the peak of his career Pop was a living legend, in high demand with a performance schedule that never waned. As one of the world’s top nightclub entertainers, my father reveled in the adulation he strove so hard to win.
Between 1961 and 1968 alone, he starred in numerous Rat Pack films as well as other movies, produced sixteen albums that generated at least eight hit singles, and won Emmy nominations for two television variety shows, one entitled, The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show. He had first hit Broadway as a star in the 1956 musical Mr. Wonderful, then again in 1964 with Golden Boy. In 1972, Pop had a hit record with “The Candy Man,” and became a star in Las Vegas. All of this and more earned him the nickname “Mr. Show Business.”
In Golden Boy, Dad played the role of a Harlem prizefighter who breaks out of the projects to become a famous star. The playwright of the original 1937 story was Clifford Odets, who recruited his buddy, William Gibson, to upgrade it to the composition of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams.
Pop hit Broadway with a bang in Golden Boy.
With Golden Boy costar Kenneth Tobey
On stage in Golden Boy: Paula Wayne, Kenneth Tobey, Dad, Charles Welch, and Ted Beniades
Pop injured his ankle during the run of Golden Boy in 1968 but he went on anyway. Here he is with actors Lon Satton and Gloria de Haven before a performance at the London Palladium.
While my father was starring in the play, my family lived in a plush apartment at 3½ East Ninety-Third Street, just off of Fifth Avenue. My parents enrolled me and Mark at Dalton. Jeff was just a baby. I remember the first day of school and not wanting to let go of my mother’s hand. Mom also enrolled me in toddler ballet classes at Juilliard. I ran all over the dance studio. A donkey on my feet, I was more of an athlete than a ballerina, and was delighted when the ballet phase mercifully ceased.
Mom told a story about one Halloween in New York during this time, when she attended a costume party with my father at a nightclub. Pop had never gone trick-or-treating as a child, so celebrating Halloween at a costume party was as close as he would ever get to reliving the “normal” childhood he was deprived of. Pop hired a top makeup artist to turn my mother into Vampira, and Pop into the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Mom said, “the makeup artist was so good, we thought for sure no one would notice us in our disguises.” My parents drove to the costume party. Mom had fake blood dripping down her mouth, and a truck driver pulled up at a red light and said, “Hi, Sammy!” Cover blown.