A Conversation with the Mann (34 page)

On the fourth night, the fourth night of killing again, the fourth night of again watching lesser acts take sit-downs with
suits, I decided I needed to do something with myself. Something besides go back to the Colonial and look at my reflection
in a dozen phony smiles.

Outside. I hopped in my rental, drove for the Sunset Strip—a tease of bright-light nightspots for drinking or dancing or just
being seen at a scene. I got myself to Ciro's. Besides that it wasn't far from the Colonial, Ciro's was a cinch to find. All
you had to do was look for the line of people waiting to get in. There was always a line when the top acts played the top
nightclub in the West. That night the line was around the block. They'd come to see Sammy Davis, Jr.

Officially, the sign on the marquee read:
THE WILL MASTIN TRIO FEATURING SAMMY DAVIS
, J
R
., the other two of the three being Sammy's father and uncle. But the sign might as well have read:
SAMMY DAVIS
, J
R. AND A COUPLE OF OTHER NEGROES
. Sammy was a one-man show. He could sing, he could dance, he could do impressions, tell jokes, play instruments, do gun tricks
… He could and would do all that. He would do it, and do it, and do it some more, then for an encore give you another hour's
worth of dazzle. The show only ended not because Sammy got tired but because you were so worn out from watching, you couldn't
take any more entertainment.

Mr. Entertainment, they called him. Like his B'way show, they called him Mr. Wonderful. That was no lie. But he should've
been called Mr. You-Can-Line-up-to-See-Him-and-Wait-for-a-Bunch-of-Hours-but-That-Don't-Mean-You're-Going-to-Get-In. He drew
a crowd that made even the audience Sinatra pulled look barely big enough to fill a Hoboken whiskey joint. Jesus couldn't
sell out his water/wine shtick if Sammy was booked next door. All I could hope for was to maybe,
maybe
, get past the front door. But I felt like sucking up some Hollywood. Felt like trying. There were about two hundred other
people cooling their heels outside making the same try. I walked for the club entrance, passing a bunch of recognizable faces.
Stars. Mosdy TV personalities. No one too big, but they were three times my size at least. If they couldn't get in …

At the door was a humorless guy, young, suited, hands folded before him, standing behind a velvet rope. Might as well have
been a brick wall.

I said: “I'm Jackie Mann. I'm here to see the show.”

“You and everybody else,” the fellow said, nodding at everybody else in case I hadn't noticed them.

“ I was told a ticket would be left for me.”

“Yeah. A ticket. We got lots of tickets sitting around for jokers who show up last minute. You want one, or you want fifty?”
The guy was good with sarcasm. He must've worked at it daily.

“Is there any way—”

“The way is for you to stand in line with the rest, and wait for whatever empty seats we've got.”

I looked over at “the rest.” Ten more people and they could've petitioned to become a state.

I walked away from the guy behind the velvet rope. I was replaced instantly by an older man complemented with a busty redhead
who looked like he knew getting any play from her depended critically on getting the girl on the other side of that velvet
border.

The good thing at least was Ciro's wasn't too far off from the Sunset Colonial. I could make the short drive back to my room,
maybe read. Maybe watch some television. Maybe I could just sit around and watch night become day. Time was cheap to me.

“Mr. Mann! ”

I turned. It was the fellow behind the velvet rope. Only he wasn't behind the velvet rope. He was running for me, sporting
a sweat sheen that came from something other than the couple of yards he had to cover to chase me down.

Flustery: “Mr. Mann, I'm so sorry. I didn't… I was on vacation last week and no one told me that… We have your table, sir,
if you'd just please come with me. Please.”

Well, can I tell you: That last “please” wasn't asking, it was begging. The boy looked on the verge of tears, about to bust
out crying for the job he'd lose if he didn't manage to get me back to the club. I hadn't wanted to, didn't even know if I
should've used Frank's name first off. But it was plainly obvious it was the shadow of Sinatra that was putting the fear into
him, not me.

I just rolled with it. “Sure, kid,” I showbizzed. “Lead the way.”

He did that, body shaking a little as he piloted me with quick steps past the what-the-hell stares of those still in line,
and through the door. He went on with: “I'm so sorry. I didn't … I had no idea—”

“Don't sweat it, Charlie. We all make mistakes. You just keep up the hustle, you might still get a tip out of this.”

The kid got me inside and over to another guy, older and black-tied, who was only slightly less nervous about things. He introduced
himself as “Herman Hover. Forgive the confusion, Jackie. If you had just told Max here you were Mr. Sinatra's guest…”

I said, telling the truth but selling it big: “I don't like to drop names.”

Herman was a pleasant-looking fellow, round-faced and plenty of meat to his features. Between his thin eyebrows and thick
hairline was a billboard of a forehead. The tux he wore was cut nicely but didn't seem to fit him, like he would be more at
home in Bermuda shorts and an open shirt flipping burgers at a backyard grill. He looked, basically, not like the kind of
guy who would own the hottest club on Sunset.

Stepping aside, Herman swept a hand and welcomed me into his joint.

What a joint.

Saying it was plush was selling it short. Saying it was grand was an understatement. Silk tablecloths, the menus in French,
and the captains all in black ties. Even the bar, satin seats and top-shelf gas, was stricdy a boozer's heaven. The whole
of it made the Copa in New York look like someone had set up a card table and folding chairs in their basement.

And the final touch: the girls. The Ciro's Girls. The hatcheck girls with their Ava Gardner dos, the cigarette girls whose
skirts rode thigh-high over fishnets. They were, same as the sign next to the marquee promised “the most beautiful girls in
the world,” and by themselves just about worth the cover.

If you paid a cover.

When you knew cats like Frank Sinatra, all you got was a warm hand and shown in gratis.

The house was decent in size. The main room sat about five hundred, and another one fifty could fit in a banquet room that
overlooked the stage. That night you'd have thought six times as many were packed, shoved, and jammed into every hole in the
place. All of them, it seemed, stars. Rock Hudson, Anita Ekberg, Bob Mitchum, Kirk Douglas and his Mrs., Jimmy Stewart and
his Mrs., Liliah Davi and a whole string of cats wanting to be her man. They flocked to her as if her sexuality had its own
inescapable gravity. The whole of it was like a Mount Olympus reunion. Wall-to-wall gods. And they all just sat and talked
and laughed and drank with no regard to the lookie-lous at the edge of the room—the regular people, the off-the-street Charlies
who were somehow grace-of-God lucky enough to get tickets to the show—pointing and whispering at Hollywood in all its grandeur.

Herman walked me for a table. I figured, with that kind of crowd, a colored cat like me'd be lucky to get seated somewhere
near my room at the Colonial. Except, we kept heading deeper into the room, deeper, until we were past front and center to
just about ringside. There was a small table, and on it a little sign:
RESERVED
. Herman lifted the sign while the kid, Max, pulled out the chair.

Herman said: “In the future, Mr. Mann—not that I'm complaining—but for everyone's convenience … if you could just let us know
when you'll be attending … We've held this table every night and—again, not to complain—but we certainly could have used the
space”

“Next time? I'm not sure if any of this is happening this time.”

I don't know if Herman got that or not, but he laughed it up as if he did. Max joined in, not to be left out.

Herman, followed by Max, did some if-there's-anything-you-need bits, then took off and were quick-style replaced by a riot
of waiters, one to take a place setting, one to turn over the water glass; another filled it while another napkined my lap.
The leader of the pack—dark-haired, dark-skinned, Mexican, I think—suggested a few late-night finger-things to enjoy with
the show and I yessed them and he went away with his jacketed buddies.

I was alone.

In the middle of some eight hundred smiling, finger-waggling “luhv you, dahling” stars, I was some nobody Negro seated middle
of the floor at a table for one. I couldn't've been more obvious if my hair was on fire. Right about then I got to wishing
I was back in a restricted club shunted off to the side. That's not what I deserved, but no matter how much I faked things,
compared to these folks, that's where I belonged.

A tap on my shoulder. I turned. It took everything I had to keep from blurting out “Chuck Heston!” and act like it was normal
as sunshine at noon to have stars tapping me for attention.

He said: “Good to see you.”

“… Good to see you.”

“What's going on?”

“In town. Doing some sets at Slapsie Maxie's.”

“No kidding?”

“No.”

“I get some time off from my picture, I'll have to come down and see the show.”

“I'll leave your name at the door.”

He caught someone out of the corner of his eye, was already smiling at them as he said to me: “Good to see you.”

“Good to see … ” I let myself trail off. He'd already moved on.

I was certain for a fact Heston didn't know me from Moses. But he knew Herman Hover had personally walked me down and sat
me stageside at a sold-out Sammy Davis, Jr. show. No, he didn't know me, but he liked me for the people I knew. That's all
that mattered to him.

If not before, at that moment I was very much in love with Hollywood.

Pretty soon the lights went down. There would be no warm-up act. The audience who came to see this show came in hot, wet,
and ready. An announcer started in with an introduction:

“Ladies and gentlemen, Ciro's nightclub is proud to welcome to its stage the—”

After that the bodiless voice got buried under claps and whistles. Sammy Davis, Sr. and Will Mastin hit the stage and hit
it hard Bojangles-style in their old flash-dance mode tap-stepping for all they were worth. They kept it up for a minute,
a minute being all the more the crowd really wanted to see of them, then took a couple of steps back.

The announcer gave things another shot: “Featuring Sammy—” And one more time he got stubbed out, this time worse than before.
Stars, the biggest stars in Hollywood, were on their feet clapping, screaming like goofed-up teenage girls as Sammy Davis,
Jr. strolled out onstage. Strolled as if he had all the time in the ever-loving world. Strolled as if he were saying: “I don't
care who you are, I don't care how big you
think
you are. My show, my rules.” The crowd might have been full of showbiz glamour, but they were worshipers in Sammy's church.

“Black Magic” was his opening number. More applause as he started it, then people settled in to enjoy. Without pause Sammy
ran through a few songs, a few dances. All the while his pop and Will Mastin just stood onstage motionless. A couple of cigar-store
Indi ans. How desperate are you to be in show business that being scenery is okay with you?

Sammy wrapped up a set of numbers, sopped up applause, then slowed the show down a bit.

He stepped to the edge of the stage, said: “Thank you. Thank you so very, very much. On behalf of my father and Will Mastin,
let me say what a distinct pleasure it is to once again have the opportunity to perform both here at the magnificent Ciro's
nightclub, and for you splendid people.”

So well spoken. That was the thing about Sammy. He'd come out doing a show that was part vaudeville, part minstrel, and all
black lightning, then hit you with some talk that sounded as if he'd just a couple of hours earlier been knighted by the Queen
of England.

“If you would be so kind as to indulge me for just a moment; while there are so many dear, dear friends in the audience tonight,
there are a few whom I would be sorely remiss in not acknowledging their presence. May I introduce you to a man who is more
than just a talented actor, more than just a friend. He is a man I consider to be my brother, Mr. Jeff Chandler.”

Applause. The swing of a spotlight. At a table, a guy with features whacked out of stone and a thick wave of black/gray hair
half stood from his chair, and just as halfheartedly did a little wave that was full up with humility: Aw, shucks, don't bother.
I'm just an average big-time Hollywood star same as the rest of you. He threw part of that wave to Sammy, then sat down with
himself.

“If there ever was
the
Hollywood couple, then these two kids are it. My dear, dear friends—”

Were any of his friend not dear, dear?

“Mr. Tony Curtis, and the ever so lovely, ever so talented Janet Leigh.”

Tony was on his feet, playing not to the rest of his screen buddies, but to the handful of off-the-streeters who were whooping
it up, drunk on the disbelief they were
this
close to showbiz royalty. Janet finally got to her feet doing a “what, for me?” bit, as if she were just then being informed
of her celebrity status.

Sammy let the clapping die down, let the room get real quiet. “As you know, one of my most dear friends in this crazy business
of show, the man who, if not for him, I would most certainly not be standing here tonight—Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra …”

I looked. Everybody looked. The group murmur: “Sinatra? Here?”

Before the murmur got out of control, Sammy cut it off with: “So, you know any friend of my man Frank's is a Charlie of mine.”

My heart got a little speed to it.

“He's in town playing at Slapsie Maxie's …”

He was talking about me. He couldn't have been. But…