Sammy Davis Jr.

by Tracey Davis

  During the filming of Ocean’s 11, Pop’s schedule was insane. The ensemble continued to perform concurrently at the Sands Hotel each night, in an extravaganza they referred to as “the Summit.” I heard it was a reference to the East-West Paris summit that took place that year between the United States, the USSR, United Kingdom, and France.

  A movie poster for Ocean’s 11. Illustrated from left are Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Pop, Peter Lawford, and Angie Dickinson.

  “The Summit”: Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Dad, and Joey Bishop during the time they were making Ocean’s 11.

  The stars of Ocean’s 11

  The Rat Pack in all their glory.

  Dad as Jonah Williams in Sergeants 3, 1962

  “The way we did our shows, we made it look like all fun and games. But we worked hard. Like I said, we were wild, but how hard can you really party when you perform one to two shows a night and are due in for call-time and makeup on a major feature film the next morning, sometimes before sunrise? The only time we got any decent sleep was in the afternoons, after the shoot before a show,” Pop explained.

  I always loved the final shot of Ocean’s 11, when the eleven compatriots referred to in the title walk past the Rat Pack’s own famous marquee in front of the Sands hotel—Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. The last billed, Joey Bishop, was also the last of the Rat Pack to pass away, on October 17, 2007.

  Producer Budd Schulberg visits Dad on the set of a television special, “Memory in White,” in 1961.

  Pop approached his rigid schedule like clockwork, never missing a beat. 1961 began a period of Rat Pack activities for Dad that included a whirlwind of making movies, among them Sergeants 3, Robin and the 7 Hoods, and Johnny Cool.

  There were “Summit” performances with Uncle Frank and Uncle Dean in Atlantic City in August 1962. There were shows at the Villa Venice in Chicago in November 1962, and back at the Sands Hotel in both January and September of 1963.

  Dad made an appearance in the 1962 movie Three Penny Opera.

  “Frank asked me to work John F. Kennedy’s campaign show. He was obsessed with getting JFK elected—pushed favors with the mob to turn West Virginia and Chicago voters in favor of JFK. But really that was none of my business, though, there are rumors to the contrary. I can tell you after working the JFK campaign show, I was delighted that JFK received the Democratic party’s presidential ballot in 1960. I wasn’t thrilled about Mississippi booing me when I sung the national anthem, though. But no racial slurs surprised me by that point. Brush it off and move on was my motto!” Pop explained.

  “What about Joe Kennedy? I heard some stories about him!” I said.

  “I got one story about Ambassador Kennedy I bet you have never heard.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Awww, well, poor Peter Lawford was just a kid, sixteen years old, parking cars on the wrong side of town in West Palm Beach, Florida, for twenty-five bucks a week. Peter became buddies with two black valet cats he worked with. One day, a rich client saw Peter on break, eating lunch and playing cards with his colored buddies. The rich client was outraged and complained to the parking lot owner that it was a disgrace to see such a good-looking white boy fraternizing with colored kids. Poor Peter almost lost his job. Turns out the client was Joe Kennedy. How Peter survived being Joe Kennedy’s son-in-law fifteen years later is beyond me!” Pop said.

  “How did you survive being the son-in-law to mom’s father? I mean he was Swedish, she was Swedish, interracial marriages were forbidden by law in thirty-one states when you got married.” I asked.

  Dad in the 1962 film Convicts 4

  “I adored my father-in-law, and your mother said he loved me, too. Your grandparents didn’t have an ounce of racism in them. They were kind, loving, and supportive. Incredible folks. That’s why your mother was the way she was,” Pop smiled.

  “I remember my first appearance as an entertainer in London. I was booked for a $12,000-a-week nightclub act at the Pigalle in London. Your mom was already telling friends she’d probably become Mrs. D, but she was finalizing her divorce from [Edwin] Eddie Gregson, son of a distinguished widower and Southern California real estate millionaire. Your mom flew to London to see my show, and flew her father in from Sweden. She was determined to introduce her own father to her ‘soon-to-be groom,’” Pop said.

  “That’s so sweet. . . .”

  “Luckily, her father had already gone back to our London hotel and didn’t have to see the hate banners and all the public booing outside the Pigalle. Your mom and I had to face horrible insults from bigots. About thirty followers of Sir Oswald Mosley waved banners saying, ‘Go home, Nigger’ and ‘Get divorced first, Slag’ in reference to my plans to marry your mom after her divorce was final,” Pop explained.

  “As I always say, being a star made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to get insulted!” Pop smirked.

  “Gosh, and you two were only just dating,” I replied.

  “Your mom was like Grace Kelly with all the elegance, beauty, class, and charm, but fierce as a tiger. She told the London press that her love for me could not be destroyed by fascist hate attacks,” Pop explained.

  “A kind British journalist for the Daily Mirror, by the name of Sir William Neil Connor came to our defense, pleading for people to stop the slander, get off our backs, enough was enough.” The guy wrote under the pen name of “Cassandra” taken from Greek mythology, in reference to a tragic character given the gift of prophecy by Apollo but is ultimately cursed so that no one will believe her.

  “Your mom continued to pay the price for the London racial slurs, though. Back in Hollywood, eighteen days after the racial slurs by Sir Oswald Mosley’s followers in London, a Twentieth Century-Fox spokesman released a statement that May Britt’s contract would not be renewed,” Pop explained. “This was June 1960. The studio refused to say if the action was a result of her plans to marry me or the London racial slurs, but the timing was more than a coincidence.”

  With Henry Silva in Johnny Cool, 1963

  I could see my father’s eyelids grow heavier. Mentally, our talks were therapeutic for both of us, but physically draining for him. I put a throw blanket over him and let him nod off for a spell. As I watched him sleep, I thought of my mom, always so proper on the outside, dressed to perfection, bag hanging on her forearm, never leaving the house without her eyeliner—she was so put together, so beautiful. On the inside, she had enormous courage, strength, and resilience. She would not only marry a black man at a time when interracial marriages were shunned, but do it at all costs.

  Uncle Frank, Dad, and Uncle Dean in Robin and the 7 Hoods, 1964

  Taken on the day my parents announced their engagement to the world, 1960

  My mom, Swedish actress May Britt Wilkens was born on March 22, 1934, in Lidingö, Sweden. Her birth name was MajBritt Wilkens, but she later changed it to May Britt. Her father, Hugo Brigg-Wilkens, was a postal clerk; her mother, a housewife. Mom had a younger sister named Margot. Mom always said there was very little racism in Sweden, at least in the town where she grew up.

  Mom and Dad had a deep, undying love for each other, while courting, through marriage, and divorce—even after my father’s death.

  Mom always said, “It was your father’s kindness, his thoughtfulness that interested me the most. He was very intelligent. He studied people, he understood people—he could always spot someone across the room and tell if they were a phony or not.”

  Mom still says, “He was a good father, Trace, even if his schedule kept him from being around all the time. As an entertainer, when you are hot you are hot, you have to work. Can’t stay home and hold your wife’s hand all the time. Your father had to work his butt off. And it was also his life blood, his passion. He thrived on it. He loved entertaining.”

  Mom had a great career before she met my father. Her first job was as a photographer’s labor
atory assistant in the Stockholm suburb where she was born. At eighteen years old, she left for Italy. In 1952, she was discovered by producer Carlo Ponti at a retouching studio. My mother became one of fifty actresses who Ponti auditioned for the film Yolanda, Daughter of the Black Pirate. Mom landed the role and off to Rome she went, chaperoned by her own mother, for the filming of Yolanda. In 1957, my mother moved to the United States after five years under contract to Carlo Ponti in Italy.

  In 1957, Mom escorted her good friend, Montgomery Clift, to the Hollywood premiere of the American Civil War drama Raintree Country, a film in which he starred with Elizabeth Taylor. Clift had a nearly fatal car accident during the filming, which is evident in scenes where the left side of his face was partially paralyzed. The director of Raintree Country, Edward Dmytryk, would later direct my mom in the 1959 film The Blue Angel. Mom fit in well in Hollywood. She and fellow Swedish starlet Ingrid Goude were invited to the filming of television’s Panorama Pacific. Mom was also cast in the role of Kristina “Kris” Abbott in The Hunters—a Twentieth Century-Fox feature film adapted from a novel by James Salter.

  In 1958, Mom attended a dinner party given by Southern California real-estate mogul Edwin Gregson Sr. My mother met his son, Eddie Gregson. Eddie left Stanford University in 1957 to follow an acting career, getting a small part in The Naked and the Dead. My mother spent a lot of time with young Gregson on the Strip and in Malibu, and on February 22, 1958, Mom and Eddie Gregson married in Tijuana, Mexico. He was nineteen; she was twenty-three.

  My mother and grandmother, Elvera Sanchez

  Mom and Marilyn Monroe, as houseguests of Frank Sinatra. Mom was pregnant with me at the time.

  Although Mom and Eddie found a nice house in which to live way up in the Canyon, Mom’s relationship with the young Gregson was not destined to rise much higher. The two parted for the first time when she returned to Sweden alone and he was off on a movie assignment. In June 1958, Mom returned to the States, followed by my aunt Margot. Mom and Eddie reunited in a new house in Palo Alto. Gregson left the film business, with dreams of returning to Stanford to study law. By late October, Mom was sent to New York City to do publicity for The Hunters. There she took photography courses, while Eddie went to San Antonio, Texas, to serve with the Air National Guard for two months.

  Mom became an overnight sensation on film posters and magazine covers galore after she won the part in The Blue Angel. The film was a remake of the 1930 classic of the same name that had made Marlene Dietrich a star. The part had previously been slated for no less a star than Marilyn Monroe. Mom said there was never any tension between her and Marilyn. She said, “Years later we were houseguests at Sinatra’s place. Marilyn, like me, was shy. Neither of us were the life of the party. I was pregnant with you at the time, and Marilyn and I had our picture taken together. Later it became quite a famous shot.”

  My mom all in white, Dad all in black. Pop courted controversy while courting my mother, but they didn’t care—they were in love!

  In the summer of 1959, Mom planned a trip to Sweden to visit her parents with her husband. Eddie announced his plans to take summer classes at Stanford. Tension mounted. Mom asked her husband not to visit the set when she was singing for The Blue Angel. Mom and Eddie soon announced their separation. With her marriage unraveling, Mom turned down a role in the film The Seven Thieves, a part that went to Joan Collins instead.

  Mom had become quite well known. Her marriage was on the rocks and the press was on it. Mom was feisty when it came to the press. In March 1960, she told columnist Earl Carroll at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York City: “My name is My! I hate to be called May!” Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reported in August 1959: “May Britt’s split with her husband, Ed Gregson, wasn’t much of a surprise to local cafe-goers . . .” By September 8, 1959, Mom and Eddie separated for good. Mom filed for divorce two days later in Santa Monica, ending her nineteen-month marriage. By the end of September, Mom had an interlocutory divorce decree from Gregson. But the divorce was yet to be finalized.

  Mom next filmed Murder, Inc. at Filmways Studio in New York City. She was expected to return to Hollywood and then on to Hawaii to board and surf at Waikiki. But instead my dad entered the picture and changed her life forever.

  My mother attended one of Pop’s shows at the Mocambo nightclub, which opened in 1941 at the site of the old Club Versailles on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. “Your father was in a car with a female friend. He saw me walk across the street, and told his friend he wanted to meet me,” Mom still recalled about fifty years later. “He called me, told me after the show a group of people would be going up to his house on Evanview Drive above the Sunset Plaza to watch a movie, would I care to join?”

  “I did join, but what I thought was so endearing, so kind, was that your father drove me all the way home to Malibu after the party. He invited me and my mom in town from Sweden to his show at the Sands. I thought that was so nice and thoughtful,” Mom explained, smitten.

  “I always adored Frank, too,” Mom would say. “I remember one time when I was planning on heading to Vegas for one of your father’s shows. I had a horrible cold, and told your father I didn’t want to come up and get the whole Rat Pack sick. Your father told Frank, ‘May’s not coming up. She has a cold, doesn’t want to make us sick,’ and Frank said, ‘What a classy broad.’”

  Pop had been involved with a twenty-one-year-old Canadian singer named Joan Stewart. He quickly broke things off and began his pursuit of my mom. He even asked his Mama (his grandmother) what she thought about him marrying my mom. Dad had a talk with her. “I’m going to marry May, Mama.” Mama liked my mother, but looked at him with the concerned eyes of a wise old woman from Harlem, “I won’t say, do you know what’s ahead of you, Sammy?”

  In April 1960 in New York City, Mom declined to confirm or deny reports to the press that she and Sammy Davis, Jr. were planning to get married—since she was still not officially divorced from Eddie Gregson. Eddie had already moved on and was being seen around town with actress Cara Williams. The Hollywood wedding was scheduled for October 16, 1960, but had to be postponed until November 13 due to technicalities involving my mom’s divorce. Finally, on September 28, 1960, Mom’s divorce from Gregson became final.

  Mom decided to convert to Judaism before her wedding to my father and on October 17, 1960, a spokesman for Hollywood’s Temple Israel announced that she was accepted into the faith of Judaism. My father always joked with me about her conversion. As the story goes, he was driving with my mother and she blurted out:

  “Sammy, how come you never asked me to convert? To become Yewish?”

  My father laughed and said, “Well, for openers, if you keep giving it that Swedish J—I don’t think they’d even take you.”

  My mother smiled, and whipped out her certificate of conversion from Temple Israel. She explained how she was satisfied as a Lutheran, but thought it would add unity and support to the family, once they married and had children, if both parents were of the same religion. Now they could be married by a rabbi.

  “Darling, there’s no nicer present you could have ever given me,” my father said.

  Mom replied, “Then you wanted me to convert? Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I didn’t feel I had the right to. I wanted you to do it, only if it was your own desire. I’m the last person in the world to say, ‘Do it my way because my way is better,’” Dad said. My father took her hand and kissed it. “Thank you.”

  Only eight days later, three youths wearing swastika arm bands paraded outside the Huntington Hartford Theater where my father was headlining. Officers had to take my parents into protective custody. But that did not stop them. On November 9, 1960, Mom and Pop took out their marriage license in Los Angeles.

  My father postponed the wedding yet again due to the racial tension in the air, the press, and Sinatra’s allegiance to JFK. Frank was planning to be his best man, and Dad didn’t want him to suffer in the press for it. He just couldn�
��t believe his friendship with Frank could affect a national election, but for JFK, every vote counted, from the liberals to the bigots. Pop had told me that he received a letter one day that read: “Dear Nigger Bastard, I see Frank Sinatra is going to be the best man at your abortion. Well, it’s good to know the kind of people supporting Kennedy before it’s too late.”—An ex-Kennedy Vote

  Mom said, “We got death threat letters all the time, but we didn’t save them. We just hired a bodyguard. It just became a way of life. We heard it so often, we shrugged it off; otherwise we would go crazy. Your father had met JFK several times, was fond of him. He asked me if I would mind putting off the wedding until after the election. It was disappointing, but I was prepared for anything. I knew what I was getting into.”

  Ostensibly trivial incidents would escalate into major threats and even hate group demonstrations outside places where my father was entertaining. Outside the Lotus Club in Washington, D.C., white picketers carried signs: MARRIAGE TO MAY BRITT WILL BE AN INJUSTICE TO THE NEGRO RACE! and GO BACK TO THE CONGO, YOU KOSHER COON! To my father’s credit, when he walked onstage that night, the audience rose to their feet, applauded his courage, and exclaimed, “To hell with ‘em, Sammy. We’re with you!”