Sammy Davis Jr(4)
“What happened after Grandpa was thrown in jail over the dancing midget fiasco?” I asked.
“My father was to appear in court. Mama said: ‘Ain’t no one walking into that courtroom but me!’ Mama stormed into that Harlem court on fire. Told the judge that my own mother, Elvera Sanchez, was chorus girlin’ somewhere, no tellin’ where she was. Mama said the only person fit to take care of little ole Sammy was Mama herself! The judge had work documents from the house Mama cleaned with little white kids she raised, so he gave Mama full custody of me.” Dad smiled.
“Mama must have loved having that power,” I said.
“Oh, Trace Face, that day Mama came marching through our Harlem door on 140th Street and Eighth Ave like she was queen of the castle. Mama boasted to everybody, ‘The judge said his own mother and father ain’t capable of raising him, so he gave Sammy to me. Legal!’” Pop roared, slapping his knee.
“Bet Grandpa and Uncle Will respected Mama after all that!” I said.
“Utmost respect and a few little white lies to get us back into show business. Uncle Will made up some story about a big gig he lined up in Boston for us, paying money. Mama believed him and so did I,” my father explained.
“Mama started asking me questions like, ‘While you on the road, you ever been hungry, Sammy?’ I told her the truth, ‘No, Mama—Daddy and Massey been hungry, but never me,’” Pop said. He often called Uncle Will “Massey” back in the day.
“My father started packing bags and grabbed me to go. I said, ‘Where we goin’, Daddy?’ He said, ‘We’re going back into show business, son!’ And off we went.”
My father’s oeuvre of work as an entertainer was vast. But back in the 1930s and early ’40s, Boston was no show business treat for Pop. The Will Mastin Trio was homeless, sleeping on benches in train stations. Uncle Will would go up to the ticket counter every couple of hours to ask a bogus question, so they wouldn’t be thrown in jail for loitering.
The Mastin Trio in the late ’40s: Sammy Davis Sr., my father, and Will Mastin.
Uncle Dean, Pop, and Uncle Frank at their best.
My father in the “ring-a-ding” ’60s.
When the train station closed, the Trio moved to a nearby open bus station to catch some shut-eye on their benches. When it came time to eat, there was only enough money at the restaurants to order Pop a meal, so his dad and Uncle Will would leave with empty stomachs. On a lucky night, his father might put together enough money for a beer, anything to help ease the hunger pains.
“Ah, Trace Face, in those days, we were on the road, homeless and hungry, sleeping in terminals, hopping trains without no tickets. We paid our dues. Nothing like the scrumptious, delectable Sands Hotel ’60s days in Vegas,” Dad explained.
Six years after my father died, in 1996, the Sands Hotel was imploded to make way for the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. In an off-camera conversation, the Emmy-winning filmmakers of Biography: The Rat Pack, Luke Sacher and Carole Langer spoke with Vegas singer and dancer Claude Trenier, who said, “It’s not like it used to be. I liked the old Vegas. I’m sorry they tore down the Rat Pack room, and the Sands, and the Dunes. . . . These were landmarks! And what kills me, it seemed like the new breed wanted to tear out anything that reminded them of the old Vegas. They wouldn’t have the new Vegas if it wasn’t for the old Vegas.”
Back in its prime, Pop says, “The Sands was our ‘Rat Pack’ oasis, our home away from home. I hung out with Uncle Frank, Uncle Dean, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, and celebrities galore in a 3,000-square-foot plush suite. We ordered everything on the room service menu—spread out buffet style. Huge bowls of cigarettes with every brand in it—my Pall Malls or Camels unfiltered—whatever I needed, wanted, at my fingertips. When I was drinking, always had a Coke with bourbon on fresh ice handed to me by hotel staff standing by—or Strawberry Crush when I was on the straight and narrow. Rat Pack lifestyle. We owned Vegas, baby. We even had a private celebrity pool, not on the ground floor, mind you.”
“Pop, you always liked everything first class. Even now, I wonder, why you pay for all this stuff?”
“Because I can, Trace Face, because I can.”
In the 1930s and early 1940s the rise of motion pictures began stealing the light from vaudeville stars. My father, who claimed he was just turning five years old at the time of filming (the press mistake him to have been seven), made his big screen debut in “Rufus Jones for President,” a musical short with Ethel Waters. Pop performed a little tap number, singing around a stand-up microphone, dressed in his Sunday best with a top hat and all. A bona fide five-year-old professional, he never missed a beat or a step. Pop always joked, “The film stunted my growth. I could fit in the same darn suit today!”