Sammy, what are you doing? Silber asked. The Amsterdam News and the Courier had both published admonishing editorials over the Davis-Novak affair, reminding him of his obligation to the Negro community.. His clumsy attempt to clear his name, in a no-holds-barred interview with BBC, Jerry Lewiss Costars Speak Out: He Grabbed Me. But no one could beat Harryhe was too smart, he was too sharp. Sinatra loved Davis and worshiped his talent; he had helped put his career back on track after the car crash. Men seemed to consider Davis ugly, because he was short and slight, his features flattened. Her only problem was, in the beginning, she wasnt a very good actress, and I think she knew that.. Daviss first break in a Las Vegas hotel came in 1946 at the El Rancho.
Mastin was very determined to keep the name Will Mastin out in front. Mastin and Sam Davis Sr. had grown up in show business as part of a colored revue known as Holiday in Dixieland; they had learned what they were allowed to do and what could get them run out of town: no speaking directly to the audience, no impressions of white people.
Nevertheless, three days before the inauguration, Kennedys personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, called Davis and disinvited him to the gala event. Columbia Pictures house designer Jean Louis was brought in to remake her wardrobe. . The newly elected president feared that his presence would alienate southern congressmen.
He had become obsessed with Miles, an icy, imperious beauty along the lines of Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren, but when Miles became pregnant and turned down the role, Hitchcock settled for Novak. We started with Mae West, Jean Harlow, Marilyn, then Kim.
Sammy, too, because we didnt know who was in the next suite.. They controlled the linens. Sitting in his penthouse apartment in the Westwood section of Los Angeles, one of Philippe Halsmans striking photographs of Sammy Davis dominating the room, Boyar reminisces about their long friendship. He would come out of the stage door having had six standing ovations and somebody would yell Nigger. There would always be something that would just cut through it all, that would just knock him down. Davis told Boyar, You know, I reached a point with the indignities, the injustices, the nastiness, the racial abuses . I loved Sammy and I had the chance to marry the man I loved, she says.
. And the way you handled that relationship was very important: either you hung out with the Mob and became very buddy-buddy, or you tried to keep a respectful distance. He even showed up in hot pants at a formal dinner party given by Mary and Jack Benny, two pillars of Hollywoods old society.
Rhodes remembers, She went crazy with the money. Davis was so grateful to her that he gave her a blond mink stole and a stunning ring of rose-cut diamonds and emerald baguettes. She would make her film debut in 1961 with Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracy in The Devil at 4 OClock. With a black-gloved hand, Madeleine touches a ring on the ancient tree and whispers, Somewhere in here I was born, and there I died. I said, Harry, weve been friends for a long time. He chose greatness. It was Sammys stepmother, Peewee Davis, saying, Hes coming on the next flight., How the hell did they let him go? Silber wondered.
Arthur Silber remembers that White used to call him up in tears, complaining that Davis was supposed to be married to her but was still running around with Kim. Whatever career advantage she thought she might have gained from marrying Davis never materialized. Its amazing. . What is it Sammys got that the girls go for?. How do you like that?, Arthur Silbers father booked Davis into Ciros. Judys reluctant transformation into the ghost of Madeleine is an eerie echo of her metamorphosis into a movie goddess. Cohn wanted to be known as the toughest, meanest mogul in Hollywood. All rights reserved. Sammy has to get marriedto a colored girl., Silber was with Davis at the Sands Hotel when the phone call came. In truth, Harry Cohn had much less value to the Mob. Novaks career went into decline after Cohns death. Confidential held a mirror up to Americas mid-50s paranoia and obsessions, its collective fears and fantasies: race, Communism, sex, miscegenation, homosexuality. Or she would be so overcome by emotion that she just couldnt write. Novak eventually retreated to an even more remote spot in the Pacific Northwest. Since there was already a Marilyn, the first thing that had to go was her name. I dont think thats the way I want to go out. Davis made the decision not to have the operation. Just two years earlier, all but three southern U.S. senators had signed a document known as the Southern Manifesto, which equated school integration with subversion of the Constitution. (The maverick senators were Lyndon B. Johnson and the two senators from Tennessee, Albert Gore Sr. and Estes Kefauver.) The marriage ended in 1968. The name he picked was Loray White, who happened to be performing at the Silver Slipper. Like Prousts madeleine, she exists only to arouse emotions in others.
They were together for about 45 minutes and they came back in. The four then went to the awards, Novak in a stunning backless dress, and to the Academy ball, where she and Davis danced. Altovise Davis, naturally, feels different about the relationship. The Charleston-based evangelicals had much in common: guns, God, Trump. She is essentially a cipher. But he was a guy you wouldnt want to meet in the street if he was after you. She was left alone with 20 pairs of shoes, a mink stole, and a dazzling ring. dancing down the barriers between us., Arthur Silber Jr. met Davis in 1946, when Silbers father became the agent for the Will Mastin Trio. He used to fire people all the timeusually on Christmas Eve.. Murphy would always stop on the way and buy a white rose and leave it for Sammy from her, Rhodes recalls, because thats what Sammy always gave Kim. The late 1960s and the 1970s were unkind to Davis in other ways. The two appeared with a man they called the boys uncle, Will Mastin, in a flash dance act (an entracte performed between movie showings) that became the Will Mastin Trio. Davis liked to inhale cigarette smoke in the middle of a song and exhale with the note and the smoke pouring out. Silber sat on his bed polishing his shoes in the suite they shared at the Sands Hotel. . Sammy liked his lookshe knew his face was ugly, but he worked on his body. Sammy went into his imitation of white stars, like Jimmy Stewart and Jerry Lewis, and these people were in the audience. Ad Choices, The feared and hated head of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, created Kim Novak to be his perfect blonde star, and with her performence in Alfred Hitchcocks, Matt Gaetz, Under Investigation for Sex With a Minor, Says Women Who Support Abortion Rights Are Too Fat and Ugly to Get Pregnant, Marvel's Phase Five: A Guide To All The New Movies and TV Shows, It Was Catastrophic: Inside Prince Andrews Misguided Bid to Explain Away Epstein, In the wake of Jeffrey Epsteins arrest and apparent suicide, Prince Andrew moved from the fringe of a swirling underage-sex scandal toward its white-hot center. Novak was so overwhelmed, outclassed, and terrified that at one point, Logan had to drag her from her trailer for a crucial scene as a hundred extras waited for her in the diminishing Kansas daylight and cinematographer James Wong Howe gnashed his teeth. So I say, We just cant do that anymore.
He called me and used a few vituperative terms. Davis left Altovise a $2.1 million life-insurance settlement and the beautiful house on Summit Drive, which he had worked his whole life to own. They were only supposed to do 20 minutes, but every time theyd go off, the audience would start to yell. You can relax., Burt Boyar never felt that Daviss life had really been in danger. They did close to an hour. . When Milton Berle found himself standing alongside Davis in the mens room at Chasens, Mr. She was being horribly exploited, paid $750 per week on loan to Otto Preminger for The Man with the Golden Arm, while Preminger was paying Cohn $100,000 for her services; for Jeanne Eagels she was paid only $13,000, while her co-star, Jeff Chandler, got $200,000. Another big-time gossip columnist who got into the act was Irv Kupcinet, who wrote Kups Column for the Chicago Sun-Times. He literally got down on his kneestears were coming out of his eyes. Finally Silber acquiesced.
Sammy and I were into the fast draw with guns, but it was playacting. His nose was broken countless times and permanently flattened; he was given beer to drink by his buddies that was laced with urine. The studio had wanted a gimmick to distinguish its blonde from the many other new platinum blondes on the block: Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren, Diana Dors, Joi Lansingall outsize girls signed to compete with Marilyn Monroe and built like the decades big Chevys and Buicks. And in the following year, S-H-H! She never regretted that loss, however. In that era, Cohn thought, Whos going to go see a movie star whos married to a black man? He just never stopped studying it., But being on tour from the age of three had taken its toll: for one thing, Davis never really learned how to write, although he was a voracious reader. Ill give him 24 hours. . The two of them went out in the backyard and Altovise and I went in the other room, and we let them talk. Giancana says, We can protect you here in Chicago, or when youre in Vegas, but we cant do anything about Hollywood, Silber remembers. After a year and a half of college, Silber went on the road with Davis and the two became close friends. . She visited him the day after Davis announced the engagement from the stage at the Sands. He knew that Sinatra wouldnt have let him out of his engagement at the Sands, even for one night. His final production would be a deluxe funeral mounted on two of Columbia Pictures cavernous soundstages, complete with a phony chapel, fake stained-glass windows, and plastic shrubbery. One day in early January 1958, at Hollywood Park, Cohen buttonholed Davis Sr. and said, Listen. Cliff Robertson, who made his film debut in Picnic, recalls, Kim was in a quiet hurry to leave Chicago before her beauty clock ran out. Have You Heard the Latest About SAMMY DAVIS JR.? Shirley Rhodes attended the wedding, which was held on January 10, 1958, in the Emerald Room, one of the convention rooms at the Sands Hotel. Heres a man dying of throat cancer, and his voice was glorious, like a nightingale. I was like a kid in a candy store, and he wanted me to have the best. Altovises tragedy is that Davis introduced her to a lavish world where a beautiful silver bowl, filled to the brim with cocaine, was kept on the bar. James Bacon caught the opening night: Everybody was at Ciros. That fourth horse, I think can do it., The next girl to walk through Cohns door was Marilyn Novak, a shy, plump, large-boned 20-year-old from Chicago with no acting experience but a breathtaking face. If I let you change me, will that do it? she asks Scottie.
George Sidney knew that Cohn was losing his grip. . Run time is about 13 minutes. You really have to understand that Mr. Mayer, Harry Cohn, Jack Warnerthese men with their blood and their money and their reputations, they smelled out who had star material.. His appearance in 1958 on General Electric Theater was almost canceled because the sponsors threatened to pull out for fear of alienating audiences south of the Mason-Dixon line. It caused a hell of a ruckus at the studio when Harry Cohn picked up my column and learned that his star was about to be destroyed, recalls Kupcinet. Ironically, the black press didnt always celebrate Daviss breaking of the color line. The first thing they did was to call Donjo Medlavine, but they couldnt reach him, so they called Mob boss Sam Giancana at the Armory Lounge in Forest Park, Illinois. At stake was not only Novaks career as a screen starby this time she was the No.
Every time she got married, her box-office standing eroded. Growing up in the segregated world of the black vaudeville circuit without any formal education, and having to overcome the racism of white audiences, Davis realized early on that he had no choice but to succeed. Josh Logan kept saying, Where the hell is she? He finally got on the megaphone and yelled, Kim, get your ass over here! He charged across the bridge with all the other actors holding their breath. Soon after the frightening events of 195758, he met the Swedish actress May Britt at the Mocambo Club on Sunset Boulevard. I had to make [the audience] acknowledge me, he told the Boyars. He was a black symbol performing for white audiences., Things would happen, Boyar remembers. The man known as the greatest entertainer in the world was onstage, the smoke from his cigarette trellising the air. Novak virtually left Hollywood in 1962 and, in some sense, returned to being Marilyn Novak.
Hed never been out of debt in his life, Marsh realized. You took no notice. In that moment, hidden in Madeleine, there is Judys masked yearning to live, to be noticed, to become real. Sammy had no choice but to tell me everything, Silber recalls, because nobody could touch that telephone, except Sammy or me. Sy Marsh, a top William Morris agent who left the agency to become Daviss business partner, says that till the day he died he could sign his name, but he couldnt write. My attraction to Sammy was his talent, Burt Boyar recalls. Ironically, Vertigo, the film with which Novak is most identified, wasnt even made for Columbia Pictures, but at Paramount. Goldberg, Giancanas code name whenever he was in Las Vegas dating the singer Phyllis McGuire. He was in the dark and suddenly the spotlight picked him uphe was electric, he was hot, it was almost a sexual thing. Kim Novak seemed to have disappeared during the Sturm und Drang of Daviss sham wedding. The lavender gimmick followed Novak to other studios when she was loaned out. But ongoing tax problems brought in the I.R.S.
A decade later, those present still want to know what each man wanted from the other.
. The Boyars would eventually collaborate with Davis on his two best-selling autobiographical books, Yes I Can in 1965 and, 24 years later, Why Me? She seemed to go into a trance when asked about her Hollywood yearsnot one of Madeleines beautiful phony trances but a real inability, or unwillingness, to remember the past. In 1957, Sammy Davis Jr. was at the height of his powers and his popularity. You had to see him: the gorgeous shirt, the cuff links, the way everything billowed. It started in 1957 at Chicagos most famous nightclub, Chez Paree.
People used to say, Im going to beat Harry, Sidney recalls. After a few months of clandestine meetings, she simply retreated. When Kilgallens item appeared, Davis called Novak and apologized, reassuring her that hed had nothing to do with it.
That quality hits you right between the eyes in William Inges Picnic (1955), in which Novak plays Madge, the small-town beauty who wants to be loved for herself. But after a while he got used to it, and hed say, Its getting me where Im going., Boyar also feels that Davis knew how attractive he was to women. That night would be the first and virtually the last time that Kim Novak and Sammy Davis Jr. would be seen in public together. I must have had a knockdown, drag-out fight every two days, he told the Boyars during the writing of Yes I Can. Shirley Rhodes remembers that Novak came to the hospital when Sammy was dying. He would make a point of it, he would say, Isnt that adorable? Boyar feels that he would have preferred to look like Cary Grant, but he was pretty satisfied with what he had. . In 1956 she had had a small part in Cecil B. DeMilles overwrought epic The Ten Commandments, and she had danced on Broadway. But Sammy Davis Jr. threw him completely. She was a black woman. I dont care anymore about me..
It was said that Harry Cohn put more people in the cemetery than all the other moguls combined. With the Boyars, Davis ventured into New York establishments that had previously been closed to him. Davis Sr. gracefully stepped aside, but Mastin just couldnt give it up. Alfred Hitchcock originally wanted to cast Vera Miles in the dual role of Madeleine/Judy. I tell you what, theres one chance, Cohen told him. Luna first met Davis in Chicago, where she was appearing in The Pajama Game. It was still the Will Mastin Trio with Sammy Davis Jr. at the time, even though Davis had started to push ahead of his father and uncle. Silber described them as just a glorified dance act at the time. Sammy was just a kid at heart, Silber told me at his home in North Hollywood, where hes writing a memoir about the years he spent touring with Davis. Back at Daviss suite, they got a call from Dr. Rolexes, Cartiers, what have you. As one of Daviss oldest friends observed, The I.R.S. There were rumors that the couple was taking out a marriage license, and supposedly a clerk in Aurora found that an application had been filled out but never filed. Wonderful, Mastin and Sam Davis Sr. were still part of the act, but everybody knew that they had stayed on too long. Not one picture, he said. He had created the notorious second skin glittering with sequins that Marlene Dietrich wore for her nightclub premiere in Las Vegas in 1953; he would also sew Marilyn Monroe into the sequined formfitting gown she wore when she sang Happy Birthday to John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in 1962. Her longtime friend Norma Herbert says, She is very happy in her forest. Cliff Robertson always believed that Novak played her cards carefully, kept her winnings, and finally left HollywoodI think she beat it!. He just pulled her across the bridge and said, Get in that goddamned boat.. On a tour of Australia, Davis collapsed from sheer exhaustion.
James Bacon, one of the first West Coast reporters to get wind of Novaks affair, called Novaks family in Chicago and was told by her father, Joe, that the star was returning to Los Angeles on the Union Pacific train. For Novak, Davis was perhaps more than just an exciting, sympathetic man. The good news was that she had become Mrs. Sammy Davis Jr. Even then he would search the audience every night for troublemakers. Cohen, barely five feet five, was a hotheaded thug with a taste for beautifully tailored suits.
She went public with her salary disputes with the studio.
Like Novak, Britt was a shy, towering blonde with a breathtaking face, who shone in Murder, Inc., The Blue Angel, and The Young Lions. Sy Marsh remembers her as a beautiful woman, bright, articulate, very well spoken. At 23, she had already been married twice and had a six-year-old daughter. She would have all the rights that Mrs. Sammy Davis Jr. would have, but at the end of the year they would dissolve the marriage. In December 1957, Davis returned to Las Vegas, where he was appearing at the Copa Room in the Sands Hotel, the nightclub Frank Sinatra helped run behind Jack Entratter. Sammy had been with hundreds of white girls, some quite big names, like Ava Gardneralthough that was no romance. The most sublime moment in the film is when Madeleine, in an immaculate white coat, stares at the cross section of a giant sequoia tree on the California coast. I think Vegas was the same way. With Sinatras help, Davis was finally given a suite at the Sands Hotel. When Cohn found out about Kim and Sammy, he put a contract outnot to kill him, really, but to break both his legs and to put out his other eye., We had to help ourselves, we had to do some straightening out, Silber says.
Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Harry Cohn was tied in very closely with the Mob at that time, the western part of the Mob, says Silber. I Was Dumbstruck, Women first interviewed by the directors behind, Epstein Had a Precise Plan: How the Only Known Photo of Prince Andrew and the Pedophile Happened. In the 1970s, Arthur Silber went back to work for Davis and noticed profound changes in his personality and behavior. Instead, Cohn decided to get back at Hayworth. My agent told me my career would be over if I continued to see Sammy. Amazingly, his voice actually improved in the last years of his life. So now I come in and I see Im paying Donjo Medlavine in Chicago. It was damned scary. I had been drafted into the army to fight, and I did . He had a liver that just defied the doctorsnobody knows how he stayed alive, Silber says. She contracted with a New York publisher to write her memoirs and managed to get through her childhoodwhich were not easy yearsbut she found that she had virtually blacked out entire events of her life in Hollywood. He got so mad at me and at the story and at her. Cohn blew his top. Silber recalls, He sat her downhe was sitting in a chair and I was sitting on the bedand he made her a proposition, to marry him for a certain sum of money. I was sent to Chicago to go to Kim and say, Sammy loves you.. We used to stage fightswe were really good at it, especially fast draw and gunplay. They compromised on Kim Novakthe name of the son of her Chicago friend and business manager, Norma Herbert, then Norma Kasell. Davis asked for the doctor, a reference to Dr. In her desperation to win the love of Scottie, the expolice detective played by James Stewart, she consents to being made over by him to look more like his ide fixe.
Whenever the Will Mastin Trio appeared onstage, Davis was always in the middle, between Sam senior and Mastin. Eventually, through a third party, Davis rented a beach house in Malibu for private rendezvous. When Marsh signed on as his business partner, he discovered that Davis was deep in debt. . Davis began having problems with his throat around 1988. I dont want to be here., Evelyn Cunningham, doyenne of the black press, who wrote a column for the black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier, was the first to call and congratulate Davis. Cohn had a last heart attack in 1958 and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, two months after hed first received word of the relationship. That was the problem. He and his stylish wife, Jane, were fixtures of New Yorks nightlife, and they befriended Sammy Davis in 1956 when he was appearing on Broadway in the musical comedy Mr. We broke up a restaurant once in Hawaii with our fake fights.. He watched as Davis, looking seignorial in his white terry-cloth robe, riffled through his address book. The squat, flat-roofed building on the Sunset Strip, which now houses the Comedy Store, was the hottest and most glamorous nightclub in Los Angeles. Davis had just come out of the army, and Arthur was still in high school. Kim Novak was Harry Cohns revenge on Rita Hayworth. Even without Novak complicating things, it wasnt going to be easy. Cohn was by far the meanest. He didnt want to create problems, Curtis remembers, so I said, Im going to have a party at my house. When he first invited Altovise up to his suite, she was wary of his reputation. Novak, however, found ways to dig in her heels and refuse to be completely made over by Cohn.
Vertigo has been called Hitchcocks most personal film, but in a fundamental way it is Novaks as well. It would open up more doors to his being accepted.. He would reach for the Jack Daniels when he was in deep trouble with himself. Silber didnt like Daviss new entourage. This documentary is a good overview of the series, from conception to final book, and includes footage of "Santa Martina" and the tiny house where the first six Sammy Keyes books were written. But Daviss marriage to Britt was another public-relations debacle, posing further threats to his careerand life. He was a showman, a complete, absolute, utter showman. Every hooker was there, as was Bob Harrison, who published Confidential and was really just a pornographer. He had to tell Frank because Frank had an interest in the Sands., Sinatra, in fact, wouldnt let Davis miss his scheduled performances at the Sands to go see Novak, who was back home in Aurora, a suburb of Chicago, visiting her family for Christmas. They controlled all the liquor. Every club wanted him, so they would say, Here, Sammy, take $5,000. So he wouldand then he owed them [an engagement]. See bottom of page for downloads available now: Casebook Activity,Character Costume Guide, two. There were bomb threats in Reno, Chicago, and San Franciscowherever Davis played. Paperback edition art has a different look, but the content is the same! He was too valuable. But there was a more intractable problem in the making: she had to compete with his need to perform, and that need ultimately won out. New Years/ Sinter Klaas (Dutch Christmas), The ripple effect of kindness and small deeds/ Endings and new beginnings. Nobody even took one picture! Twenty years earlier he and Novak would have been mobbed. He was singing to Kim Novak, sitting at a stageside table; she had just finished work on Alfred Hitchcocks Vertigo, the most challenging film of her career. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Silber caught it and flew into Los Angeles, then picked up an American Airlines flight to Chicago. America was still deeply segregated. I go to Medlavine, whos getting not a lot, say $500 a week, but he likes that money coming in. More than 2,000 people attended, which prompted the comic Red Skelton to observe, Well, it only proves what they always saygive the public something they want to see and theyll come out for it. Cohns widow confided to friends that she believed Novaks scandalous behavior had brought on Cohns final heart attack and caused his death. He was playing clubs to pay off his indebtedness., It fell to Marsh to put Daviss house in order. After a sleepless night he boarded a flight to Los Angeles, but the plane was almost diverted to Denver when the aging mogul suffered a mild heart attack, the first of several that would finally finish him off.
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