Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (75 page)

We’d been on the phone for almost an hour, she’d been telling me how she hated being away, we’d counted the days she’d been gone and I just said, sort of wistfully: “Wouldn’t it be great to be married?” The instant I heard my own words slip out I hurried to make a joke of it, “Listen, at these prices on the phone two could live cheaper than one.”

She said, “It sure
would
be great, wouldn’t it?”

I was unable to continue talking. I told her I’d call back and we hung up. I sat on the edge of the bed, my hand still on the phone, hearing her answer over and over again.

But she was in New York and I was in California and she
couldn’t see my skin through the phone. Had she considered that after marriage comes children? And with us they might be colored? Was she prepared for that?

I let go of the phone, trying to break contact, forcing myself to face some reality. Did she know what she was saying? Had she thought seriously about it before, or had she answered too quickly?

I walked around the room thanking God she hadn’t said no, but knowing that I couldn’t accept her “yes” so easily. I couldn’t let myself go blundering happily on until a month or who knows when from now when we’d talk about children and she’d say, “I guess I didn’t really give it enough thought.” I owed it to her and I owed it to myself, now, once and forever to be sure she understood what she was doing.

I called her back an hour later and after we’d talked for a while I said, “You know how I love kids. Won’t it be great when we’re married and have lots of little brown babies?” I said it gaily, but I meant it to be clear and realistic.

“I’d love to. Lots of them. Sammy? … Sammy, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t
you
want little brown babies?”

I had to fight to hold the phone to my ear. I couldn’t speak. The tears were running down my face. I don’t know exactly what I’d feared—a deathly silence, or words that would cut me in half. I’d dreaded being one inch from heaven when the gate swings closed. But then to have all the fears miraculously disappear like a horrible dream from which you’ve just awakened and the sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day and you know that it
always
will be a beautiful day—the relief was paralyzing. A few hours earlier I hadn’t even known that I was going to propose to her, yet if she had turned me down, if she hadn’t wanted my little brown babies, I knew then as sure as I stand on God’s earth, I would have hung up the phone and blown my brains out.

I asked Frank, “Can I have a few days spare? I want to go to New York.”

“Sure, Charley. See you Monday.”

I told Jim to book us on a flight to New York with a return Sunday.

“Us?”

“Baby, I can’t go walking into the Sherry Netherland like ‘Hello America: Sammy Davis and May Britt are an item.’ Jane and Burt are in Florida and they gave me their apartment—it’s right around the corner from the hotel. I’ll need you to pick May up and bring her over and I want you to stay there like a chaperone so if anybody
does
get hip at least I can always prove this is no ‘Hey, they’re having secret love trysts.’ ”

I called May and told her I’d be in New York the next morning.

“Oh, Sharlie Brown, that’s marvelous. I can’t
wait
to see you. By the way, a journalist called me about us. You’ll probably see it in the papers tomorrow. He wanted to know if it’s true I’ve been dating you. I said yes, and he wanted to know ‘Is it serious?’ ”

“What’d you say?”

“I told him, ‘Any time I see a man more than once I consider it very serious.’ ”

“Darling, that was a beautiful Mary Moviestar line but do me a favor, don’t talk to any more press guys until we can discuss it.”

“Okay.” Her voice was touched with disappointment because I wasn’t thrilled with her statement. She asked, “When is your plane coming in? I’ll meet you at the airport.”

“No. Stay in your hotel and wait for me.”

“But I
want
to. I’ll rent a car.”

“Darling. You’ll wait in your suite. I’ll call you when I get in.”

“Boy oh boy I didn’t know I was marrying a dictator.”

“You’re marrying somebody who loves you and who’s asking you to do what’s best. Just bear with me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Her picture was on the front page of the New York
Journal American
, captioned, “Going Steady?” I knew that as soon as it became known and confirmed that we were going together the opinions would start flying, and with them would come pressures and stares and antagonism that was pointless to subject her to for a single day longer than absolutely necessary. It was almost mathematical: the moment it’s known, the furor will start building, it will reach its peak when we get married, then lose its heat and begin dying down. I can’t prevent the furor but I can spare her some of it. I put down the paper. “Darling, I’ve been thinking that with your divorce not final until September, we have five or six months before we can be married, so we’ve got to cool it with letting it be known
we’re going together. No more cute-ums bits with the press. We’ve got to let them forget us. We can’t be seen together—”

“You mean we can’t be seen together for six months?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“You mean I’ve got to duck journalists and give them phony answers? Why can’t I just come out and tell them, ‘Yes, I love him and I’m going to be his wife’?”

“Please, take my word, it’s better this way. God knows I’d love to make an announcement and say, ‘This is the girl I love and we’re going to be married.’ But if we do that then there’s going to be six months of a whole publicity free-for-all, with will-they-or-won’t-they, and you certainly don’t want that, do you?”

“Oh boy no. I’d hate it.”

“Then that’s it. We cool it.” She nodded agreement. “Darling, do your parents … do they know about us being serious?”

“Yes. I’ve written them all about you. And I know my mother has told my father how much she liked you.”

“That’s great but I’d like to meet him in person and give him a chance to know me and make up his own mind. I was thinking, I’ll be playing London in June and you mentioned you might visit your folks in Sweden around then—is there any chance you could come over to London with your father? That way we could meet and get to know each other. It would be beautiful if we could get his official consent.”

“Hey, that’s a great idea.”

We watched television, cooked some steaks, and talked. I gave her a complete run-down on my money situation. “It’s pretty disgusting to know that after earning maybe six million dollars, I haven’t got at least a million dollars put away. All I can do is tell you that I’ll start right now toward becoming solvent and building something for you and for the kids we want. Money has a meaning, a value that it never had before. I’ve been in touch with Joe Borenstein in Chicago. He’s my lawyer. He’s a nice, nice man and he’s been giving me good, sound advice, which I haven’t had the sense to follow. But now we’re going to start doing all the things he and Jim Waters have been noodging me to do for years. I hate like hell to begin marriage on an economy drive …”

“Sammy, I’ve sold stockings and washed dishes. I like luxuries but I can take them or leave them. Also, my salary is two thousand dollars a week. We can put our money together and be paid off that much faster.”

“No. I appreciate it but I’ve got enough coming in so that we can be cleaned up in a few years. All I have to do is cut out the waste.” I told her about the setup with Will, my relationship to Mama, Loray—everything I could think of.

“Sharlie Brown, I feel a little pushy listening to all this. What you did before we met is your business, and although I’m glad you’re telling me these things you certainly don’t have to.”

“I know, darling, and I appreciate it, but there’s a lot of little things that should be said now. Let’s not have any fine print in the contract. I want you to know what you’re getting into. This kind of relationship is a first for me and I’m not sure if I can have a marriage in the fullest sense of the word. I really don’t know if I can be half of two people instead of all of just one.”

“But you want to, don’t you?”

“Yes. But it’s not that simple. First of all I don’t begin to know what marriage is going to be like. Not only have I never gone steady with a girl, I’ve never even done light housekeeping.” She looked puzzled. “That’s an expression for when a guy has a girl and he pays the bills. What I’m saying is, I’ve never had a day-to-day relationship with a woman, to the extent that I’ve never even spent a whole night in bed with a woman.”

“Seriously?”

“Never. When it was time to sleep either they’d go home or I’d fall asleep on the couch or on the floor. I haven’t slept in bed with anyone since I was a kid and my father and I used to share a bed on the road. I don’t begin to know how to be around a woman like a man is around his wife or someone he cares for dearly. For example, I remember once I was going to an opening with a married couple. It was two blocks away and I felt like walking. We were in evening clothes and the husband said, ‘We’ll take a cab and meet you there, Sam.’ I thought he was a nut and only later did I learn that he was hip to the fact that it was a damp night and it was going to ruin her hairdo. A thing like that makes me realize there must be a million and one little things I’ve never even
begun
to think about. Plus the fact that I’ve never in my adult life had to think about anyone’s desires but my own. I could make my mistakes without affecting anyone except me. I’ve never had anybody I’d tell ‘I’ll be home at six.’ And, if I was with fifty people and I felt like bringing them home I’d bring fifty people home. I may start off as the inconsiderate husband of all time so you’ll have to bear with me. I’ve had thirty-four years of one-way living—on the other hand I’ve
waited thirty-four years before I fell in love with somebody so have no fears about how much I love you and how much I want to be Charley Married, but there’s a danger: I don’t know how much I
dare
to change.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look, I make a lot of money and I’m big in the business because of three things: I’ve got talent, I’ve worked hard, and every bit as important, I have let myself remain an individual. That doesn’t mean I’ve been a non-conformist deliberately making myself different, but neither have I been Charley Chameleon who permits his own ideas and tastes to be overwhelmed by the ‘accepted way’ of doing things until finally he blends into the masses and he ain’t never seen or heard from again. We’re all born as individuals and in a million and one little ways I’ve managed to remain Sammy Davis, Jr. I don’t go by a slide rule and a set of plans. I go by what I see works best for me. I do things on a stage that defy the common-sense rules of the business: I stay on too long, I do too many things—and if there were a book on how to be a hit it would definitely say
‘Hold it! Don’t do these things!’
but the book would be wrong because I don’t stay on too long for
me
and I don’t do too many things for
me
and the proof is in the audiences. Whether the people know it or not, my individuality is part of what they’re buying when they come to see me. What I’m saying is, I know I’m not perfect but whatever I am in sum total, my faults and my virtues have combined to make me one-of-a-kind, and it works for me. Somewhere in the overall scheme of things everything has its value. Maybe if I’d had an education I wouldn’t have had the desire to do all the reading I’ve done, maybe if I’d had a little more religion as a kid I’d never have gone out and found one I could really sink my teeth into. If I’d been born white, things would have been easier but maybe I wouldn’t have tried so hard and made it as I have. Who can say? All I can know is that I’ve got a winning combination and I dare not mess with it.

“Something has stayed in my mind since the first time I read
The Picture of Dorian Gray
. Oscar Wilde had a theory that when you love someone it must take away from you as an individual. I never before loved anybody enough to feel they’re as important as I am or more important so for their happiness I’ll change. But now that I’m in that position I can see that I’ve got to be extra careful. I’ve seen so many marriages where the husband or wife blended into each
other until there’s no way to tell them apart except he buttons his coat from left to right and she buttons hers from right to left. One has changed the other and maybe it’s fun—but for me it would be death. I live in dread of the day I turn around and find I’ve been made over and I’ve lost my individuality.”

The wisdom of a sensitive woman is a marvelous thing. I could see as I was telling her these things that she already knew them. Or at least she understood.

“Darling, if my business weren’t so closely related to my personal life I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure it’s nowhere near as serious as I’m making it out to be. I’m deliberately exaggerating it so that I’m positive I don’t make the mistake of unconsciously slipping into a different personality.”

“I can certainly understand that you can’t afford to be changed and I wouldn’t want to change you anyhow. I must say I don’t want to be blended with anybody either so that I just come out like a piece of macaroni with no shape of my own.

“Sammy, do you think you’ll hate losing your independence?”

“I was never independent until I met you.”

The seriousness in her face yielded to a smile. “Is that really true?” She clasped her hands behind her neck and leaned back against the couch, sighing contentedly, “Boy oh boy, I must be a wonderful person for you to love me so much.”

I smiled. It didn’t exactly require an answer.

“Sharlie Brown? Why do you love me?”

“Darling … ask Elizabeth Barrett Browning.”

“Seriously. I don’t mean the usual stuff like I love you and you love me. I mean what do you like about me?”

“You’re really going to put me through this, right?”

“Come on. Be a sport.”

“Your honesty, independence …”

“You think I’m honest?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, like she was caught and had to admit it. “You’re right.”