Selects: Sammy Davis Jr: National Treasure

Summary

Stuff You Should Know: “Selects: Sammy Davis Jr.: National Treasure”

Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Date: April 18, 2026
Podcast: Stuff You Should Know (iHeartPodcasts)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Josh and Chuck delve into the extraordinary, complicated, and fascinating life of Sammy Davis Jr., exploring his rise from poverty to stardom, his struggles with racism, personal setbacks, relationships, and the broad scope of his entertainment career. The hosts highlight how Davis navigated being a Black Puerto Rican Jewish performer in an era of intense racial prejudice, and how his choices—both personal and political—impacted his career and legacy. True to SYSK style, the episode is replete with humor, insightful tangents, and heartfelt appreciation for Davis as both an icon and a complex human being.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Early Life, Family & Start in Show Business

• Poverty & Early VAUDEVILLE Roots (09:16–11:42):

  • Davis grew up poor, performing from a young age with his father and "Uncle" Will Mastin on the vaudeville and chitlin circuits. He never attended school—learning to read and write only in the Army.
  • His lack of formal education made him self-conscious, feeling a responsibility as a representative of the Black community.

• Surviving & Navigating Racism (11:42–14:00):

  • His family shielded him from much overt racism until his Army service, where he confronted it directly and fought back physically—before realizing that excelling in entertainment could be a more powerful form of resistance.
  • Quote (13:01, Josh): “He would fight back. He would not step down. And he spent a lot of time in the army physically fighting white racists... but that it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. And so he decided then and there that what he could do is fight prejudice through his performing.”

Breakthroughs & Rat Pack Era

• Las Vegas, Impressions & Sinatra’s Support (15:14–16:59):

  • Davis wowed Vegas audiences with impressions, dancing, and singing. Sinatra took notice, made Davis & the Mastin Trio his Vegas opening act, and championed him, even as Davis faced deep segregation and humiliation (e.g., being forced to stay in subpar accommodations and banned from pools).
  • Quote (16:19, Chuck, from Davis): “In Vegas, for 20 minutes, twice a night, our skin had no color. But the second they got finished... we had to go through the kitchen with the garbage.”

• Legendary Break (1951, 23:11–24:54):

  • The Will Mastin Trio’s mega-break came at Ciro’s (now The Comedy Store), impressing the Hollywood elite—Davis’s impressions of white celebrities were groundbreaking and changed the course of his career.
  • Quote (24:54, Josh): “Sammy Davis Jr. became known for his impressions. He was groundbreaking... up to that time, if you were a Black performer, you could do impressions of other Black people—and that was it. Sammy Davis Jr. just started doing white people, and the white people loved it.”

Challenges, Identity & Relationships

• Car Accident & Conversion to Judaism (26:10–31:18):

  • A 1954 accident cost Davis his left eye. During recovery (with support from Sinatra), he was introduced to Judaism and later converted, drawing parallels to the Jewish and Black experiences.
  • Quote (31:11, Chuck): “He very humorously started referring to himself as a one-eyed Black Jew… or a one-eyed Black Puerto Rican Jew, which was very sort of in keeping with his self-deprecating style.”

• Personal Loyalty—The Will Mastin Trio (29:01–30:39):

  • After his break, Davis contractually ensured the trio received a one-third split of his earnings for 15 years—even after his solo career took off.
  • Quote (29:38, Chuck): “He ensured contractually that they would get a three-way split that endured 10 years after he left as a solo performer... That’s really amazing.”

• Controversial Relationships & Racist Backlash (32:02–37:19):

  • Davis faced threats and both public and private fallout for relationships with white women, notably Kim Novak. Pressure from the entertainment establishment and the mob forced him to break off with Novak and hastily marry a Black woman.
  • His marriage to Swedish actress Mai Britt further spurred condemnation, even impacting his role at JFK’s inauguration—Kennedy personally disinvited him.
  • Quote (37:35, Chuck): “Sammy Davis Jr. had been scheduled to perform at the 1960 inauguration and [Kennedy] disinvited him because of his marriage to a white woman.”

Activism, Contradictions, and Public Perception

• Civil Rights, Nixon & Alienation (42:39–45:49):
  • Davis marched at Selma and was a fervent financial supporter of civil rights. Yet he also embraced Nixon—who treated him with personal kindness, but whose administration pursued policies harmful to Black Americans.
  • His USO tour of Vietnam at Nixon’s suggestion deepened his alienation from the Black community, despite his civil rights bona fides.
  • Quote (45:49, Josh): “He was legit, for sure. But he also was… friends with Richard Nixon. So one kind of tarnishes the other, you know.”

The Rat Pack, Show Business & Kitsch

• The Rat Pack & Racial Jokes (46:14–49:49):
  • Davis’s contributions were central to the Rat Pack’s success. Their dynamic included racial jokes at Davis’s expense—considered “all in good fun” at the time, but now seen as problematic.
  • Quote (49:08, Josh): “Whoopi Goldberg... said they went hard on everybody. But as far as Sammy was concerned, he wasn’t secretly... putting up with this to be a member of the Rat Pack... that it was just part of the act.”

Eccentricity, Hedonism & the Church of Satan

• Swinging, Church of Satan, and Hollywood Weirdness (52:05–56:52):
  • In the 1970s, Davis explored swinging, orgies, heavy drug and alcohol use, and joined the Church of Satan (as an "honorary warlock").
  • Participated in notorious Hollywood events, including a bizarre TV pilot called Poor Devil (1973), where he played a demon trying to corrupt Jack Klugman’s character.
  • Quote (53:18, Josh): “He was apparently at the first [satanic orgy]… someone in a hood is trying to get his attention... lifts the hood, and it’s his barber, Jay Sebring.”

Decline, Legacy & Final Years

• Financial Troubles, Declining Health & Death (58:38–61:23):

  • Reckless spending and poor tax management left Davis deep in debt at his death in 1990. Despite his immense contributions, his estate was sold off and his widow left with financial burdens.
  • Quote (61:05, Chuck): “He did accomplish everything he set out to accomplish. He showed everybody who said this diminutive, little, mixed-race, kind of funny-looking guy is never gonna amount to anything. And he had a lifelong career from the age of 3 to 65 in show business.”

• No Regrets & Final Reflections (61:34–61:54):

  • Davis reportedly had no regrets about his life, expressing pride and fulfillment.
  • Quote (61:34, Chuck, paraphrasing Davis): “I look at the young performers today and I go like this—yeah, man, go ahead, cook. I’ve been there. That’s it, man. I have no envy. I did it all.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sammy Davis Jr. (Impression, 02:43, Chuck): “I love how Sammy Davis Jr. always said 'cat' and 'baby,'... he was such a cool dude.”
• On Racial Barriers in Entertainment (24:54, Josh): “He was groundbreaking in the sense that he would do impressions of white people. Up to that time... you could do impressions of other Black people, and that was it.”
• On Holding No Regret (61:34, Chuck quoting Davis): “I have no envy. I did it all.”
• On Constructing His Identity (31:11, Chuck): “He very humorously started referring to himself as a one-eyed Black Jew.”
• On Vegas Segregation (16:19, Chuck quoting Davis): “In Vegas, for 20 minutes, twice a night, our skin had no color. But the second they got finished... we had to go through the kitchen with the garbage.”
• On Friendship & Loyalty (29:38, Chuck): “He ensured... that [his family] would get... a three-way split... for 15 years... That’s really amazing.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• (09:16–11:42): Early poverty, showbiz beginnings, lack of schooling
• (11:42–14:00): Encounters with racism & Army years
• (15:14–16:59): Vegas, Sinatra, and the realities of segregation
• (23:11–24:54): Breakout at Ciro’s, impressions, and industry respect
• (26:10–31:18): Car accident, conversion to Judaism, forming identity
• (29:01–30:39): Loyalty to Will Mastin Trio and family
• (32:02–37:19): Marriages, Kim Novak, Mai Britt, and political fallout
• (42:39–45:49): Civil rights activism, Nixon, and Vietnam USO tour
• (46:14–49:49): The Rat Pack, racial humor, and group dynamics
• (52:05–56:52): Church of Satan, swinging, legendary TV flop “Poor Devil”
• (58:38–61:23): Financial collapse, death, and reflections on legacy

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Episode Tone & Style

• Informal, humorous (frequent tangents, pop culture references like "Seinfeld", "Mythbusters", and "The Cannonball Run"), occasionally self-deprecating.
• Deep respect and fascination for Davis, interspersed with critical acknowledgment of his contradictions and flaws.

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Final Thoughts

Josh and Chuck present Sammy Davis Jr. as one of show business’s most complicated, talented, and audacious figures—a man who broke racial barriers, struggled with identity, and managed to leave an indelible mark on American culture. The episode offers a nuanced exploration, resonating with admiration, sorrow, and plenty of laughs, cementing the idea that Sammy Davis Jr. truly was a “national treasure.”

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Josh Clark]

And for this week's Sysk Select, I've chosen our February 2020 episode on Sammy Davis Jr. If I'm not mistaken, this is where I, you and the rest of the world finds out that Chuck does a killer Sammy Davis Jr. Impression, thus buoying the podcast for years to come. I don't think anything else is needed to be said about this one. Just enj.

[Chuck Bryant]

Welcome to stuff youf should know, a production of I heart radio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's guest producer Dylan sitting in again like a great guy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like a cool cat.

[Josh Clark]

Baby, I thought you were doing evil German doctor For a second, and then I figured it out.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, man, wait.

[Josh Clark]

I haven't said it yet. And this is stuff you should know. Okay. That was a good one. That no, man, was wonderful.

[Chuck Bryant]

I love how Sammy Davis Jr. Always said cat. And, baby, it was just. He was such a cool dude.

[Josh Clark]

And. Okay, do Sammy Davis, Jr. Saying, We have ways of making you talk.

[Chuck Bryant]

What sounds German about any of that?

[Josh Clark]

Just do it, please, Please.

[Chuck Bryant]

We have ways of making you talk, man.

[Josh Clark]

That was pretty great. Pretty great.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's a little soft shoe.

[Josh Clark]

It's great stuff, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you know Billy Crystal used to do Sammy Davis Jr. Way back in the 80s when blackface was super cool to do.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And not controversial.

[Josh Clark]

Did he do Blackface Sammy Davis, Jr.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, dude. He did Blackface Sammy Davis Jr. Eight years ago at the Oscars.

[Josh Clark]

What?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. You don't remember that?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's the last time he hosted the Oscars in 2012. What? They did, you know, a remote intro thing where he was doing different things, and the last bit was him and blackface again. And people were like. And then this is in 2012. So there was Twitter and there was Facebook and this social media, and people were like, that wasn't cool in the 80s. And I can't believe he's doing that now.

[Josh Clark]

For real.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sammy Davis Jr. S daughter came out and said, you know what? If there's one thing I know is that my dad is looking down and laughing and smiling at Billy Crystal doing this. He was roasted pretty heavily for it, rightfully so. And he hasn't been around a lot, but he wasn't around a lot before then, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Do you think, like, that did it? Like, that was the demise?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't think it helped.

[Josh Clark]

I was. Yeah, I haven't seen him in a while either. Man. How did somebody not step back and be like, okay, wait, we're about to do blackface.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know. Like, how did no one on the production crew of the Oscars say, not a good idea?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. Yeah, well, he did it. So I came across something that I thought was pretty interesting. I saw a 1985 interview with David Letterman.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That's all.

[Josh Clark]

That's so good. And Sammy Davis Jr. Says in this interview, he did blackface.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

He was a little kid. Apparently, his skin was lighter when he was a kid, and they wanted him because he used to tour with his uncle and his dad, as we'll see. And to get around labor laws, they would pass him off as a midget.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

And to do that, their words Right. Yes. Thank you. They gave him a candy cigar and put him in blackface and told anyone who had listened that he was a little person.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Although again, they didn't say little person.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, they didn't.

[Josh Clark]

Boy, this is a really controversial episode right out of the gate.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, there's a lot of sort of. I mean, he was a complicated guy who was, you know, his father was black, his mother was Puerto Rican. He eventually would endorse two presidents, both Kennedy and Nixon. He served in the Army. He was a Rat Packer. He was shunned by racist and also shunned sometimes within his own black community.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like a little pinball getting bounced around.

[Chuck Bryant]

And little is right. He was also a little guy who always, I think, had a complex about his height, about his looks. He had this weird sort of underbite jaw that would jut out to one side when he talked. Just a really fascinating guy that was super, super talented and had his little tiny fingers in a lot of pies from singing and dancing and performing live and in movies and on TV and just really, really fascinating guy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. When you look back at the Rat Pack, he was the one that brought the actual talent to the Rat Pack. Like Sinatra could sing, Dean Martin could sing.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Rat Pack was talented.

[Josh Clark]

Right, right. But he was multi talented. Like dancing, doing impressions. Yeah, he. He had like a little gunslinger routine.

[Chuck Bryant]

Dude, did you see any of that?

[Josh Clark]

I did.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's amazing.

[Josh Clark]

I watched a PBS documentary for their series American Masters on him, and it was like an hour almost two hours long, and it was really in depth and really good. But they had some amazing footage of him just doing all sorts of different stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff.

[Josh Clark]

So I guess. Let me revise that. Yes, the Rat Pack was talented. Sammy Davis Jr. Was. Was more talented than all of them put together.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

So he made. Did you see any of that documentary of the USO tour?

[Josh Clark]

There were a few clips in there.

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[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So if you want to see a different. If you think Sammy Davis Jr. Is as just the Candyman or Mr. Bojangles, babe.

[Josh Clark]

Man, watching him do Mr. Bojangles and knowing how he felt about that song, it's very heartbreaking.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is. But if you see this documentary, in 1972, he did a USO tour of Vietnam where he performed at drug rehab camps and some other forward bases. If you look at this, man, this is swinging 70s kind of rock and roll as it gets. Really, really cool stuff. He was a bad. A performer. He was at places like some of them were kind of Full on productions where they were capable of pulling that off. Other times there's this great footage of him where they had nothing but a microphone and he's just like, all right, give me the mic and I will basically kind of do my own beatboxy rhythm section and sing and dance. And the. The soldiers are just loving it, man. They're eating it up.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And this is 1972, I believe. And like, I mean, like his, like he was a world famous star by then, but also he was an older dude, you know, like, he, he'd really had his heyday in the late 50s and throughout the 60s. And this is 72 and he's out there in Vietnam belting out Motown hits and drumming on the mic stand. So, yeah, I didn't see all of it, but yeah, you can tell, like,

[Chuck Bryant]

it was pretty cool.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he's even more of a talented performer than people realize because, you know, you do think of him as doing like standards and show tunes and stuff like that. And he did mostly do those things, but he was talented in all sorts of different ways.

[Chuck Bryant]

So the Grabster helped us out with this one. And he said that there were a few defining sort of things about Sammy Davis Jr's life that inform who he was.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

One was that he came from poverty. He performed with his, like you said, his uncle, which was not his real uncle, but his dad and his uncle Will Maston as the. Was it the Maston Trio?

[Josh Clark]

The Will Maston Trio, Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they came from nothing and he did not have any money. And he talked later in life about the thrill of leaving a waitress a hundred dollar tips and walking around with $1,000 in your pocket. He said, yeah, later on in life, yeah. He's like, that was a year's salary. And he was like, no one understands that unless you've been at the bottom.

[Josh Clark]

Right? And he was definitely at the bottom. And he and his father and his uncle Will worked their way up, you know, all through. They started all throughout the Depression on the chitlin circuit, doing vaudeville. And he didn't go to school once because this is really important to understand. He spent his entire life in show business and the earliest years constantly on the road with his uncle and his dad.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, so that's the second point. Never went to school at all. Did not learn to read and write until he was in the army and always apparently had trouble writing. And he always looked at it as. He was always sort of ashamed of it. He was proud of who he became, but always was ashamed of his lack of formal schooling. And he called his. What he had was the facade of intelligence, which Ed rightfully points out is just bunk because there are many kinds of intelligence. He was a very intelligent guy. He just didn't have formal schooling. But he was very self conscious of this and about representing the black community. So, like, if he ever mispronounced something because he didn't know, it would make him feel really bad because he thought that that represented black people as a whole. So that's number two. And the third thing is that early on, his family, his dad and his uncle, really kind of shielded him from racial prejudice. He certainly encountered it on the chitlin circuit, but he didn't really get the full deal until he went into the army. And it was a big shock to him.

[Josh Clark]

Right. I think this kind of explains that he approached racism differently than some of his contemporaries, Especially when he got to the army and was confronted with the full brunt of it. And that that kind of informed how he viewed race and racial discrimination and the dynamic between the races in the United States in the middle of last century. Because he hadn't really seen it firsthand or experienced it firsthand. He hadn't been in school, and so other little white kids hadn't bullied him, or he hadn't been around town and just lived in a. In a set space where most kids were introduced to racism firsthand. He didn't get that until he was 18. And so by the time he was 18, he was like, this isn't right. What are you? What are you? Who do you think you are? And so when he got to the army and was confronted with it full on, he approached it differently. Whereas other. Some of his contemporaries in the army who were black just kind of kept their head down and, you know, tried to go along and get along. He would fight back. He would not back down. He would not step down. And he spent a lot of time in the army physically fighting white racists who were trying to make things hard for him. And apparently at some point he fought one. He fought one guy and won. He beat, beat up some white guy who had done something racist to him. I'm not sure what it was. And then after the fight, the guy beaten said, you know, you may have beaten me, but you're still black. And apparently this got to Sammy Davis Jr. In such a way that it just transformed his approach that he realized, like, he could fight white boys his whole life.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And probably win some of the fights, probably get beat up. A lot of the fights he had his nose broken at least twice, but that it wasn't going to get him anywhere. And so he decided then and there that what he could do is fight prejudice through his performing. He would be such a good performer. He would transcend race, at least while he was performing. And he managed to do that, or as much as anybody ever has in the history. In modern history, at least in the United States.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So he's discharged in the army in 1945. Goes right back to the Mastin Trio and touring with them. And he was sort of. Even though he was just a little kid growing up in that trio, he was sort of the star still.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Little Sammy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Little Sammy, like little Stevie Wonder.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He actually. Chuck. He won his first contest at age 3 at, like, an amateur hour or amateur night. And he's saying, I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal, you. That's what. He knocked the house down at age 3. And that was the formal start to his show business.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he won 10 bucks.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, about 150 bucks today. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which for him, I mean, that's a lot of dough for sure, for a very, very poor kid.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So he gets out of the army, goes back to the Mast and trio. And this sort of corresponded with the same timeline as when Vegas started to become a big deal and a big entertainment center. And they played Vegas a little bit. And, you know, we should point out, too, on the chitlin circuit, they were never making much money. No, it's a grueling thing. And they did get paid. But it's not like they were getting rich out there.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, you'd have to be a vaudeville superstar to make a lot of money. And this was also during the Depression largely, too. So people didn't make money in general.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. But doing three, four, or five shows a day on that circuit. But goes to Vegas, starts performing in Vegas, starts doing impressions, which he did throughout his career. Was very good at them. And audiences ate it up. And then Frank Sinatra, the chairman of the board, as they say, gave him a call or gave their people calls and said, hey, I want this guy opening up for me in Vegas. This trio opening up, took him under his wing.

[Josh Clark]

That was a big deal.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was a very big deal. Said, you know, you do these great impressions. You do me. It's hysterical. You're so talented. Open for me in Vegas. And that was where he said, you know, In Vegas, for 20 minutes, twice a night, our skin had no color. But the second they got finished, he said, other acts to go out and gamble and socialize. Have a drink. He said we had to go through the kitchen with the garbage. And that's when it would all sort of hit home once again.

[Josh Clark]

They had to stay in, like, an entirely different part of Vegas that, from the looks of it, almost didn't have electricity.

[Chuck Bryant]

They're still segmented.

[Josh Clark]

Dusty roads. Yeah, that's where they had to stay. They were beloved performers, but that's where they had to go stay after the show. And I saw that even after he was a member of the Rat Pack, a superstar, he had used the pool at the Sandstone, and guests in the 50s complained enough that the Sands agreed to drain the pool and refill it because Sammy Davis Jr. Had been using the pool. And this is after he was a star already. That's how vile the segregation was, even in a place like Vegas.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, let's take a break and we'll come back and talk more about the Candyman right after this.

[Josh Clark]

Burning stuff with Joshua's stuff. You should.

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

So Sammy Davis Jr. Wrote a bunch of memoirs and autobiographies over the years, and one of them is a very great Spinal Tap joke. I know you still haven't seen it, right?

[Josh Clark]

I saw it, but I've only seen it once, and it was a couple years ago.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so one of his, I think his first one was called Yes I Can.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And there's a great scene in Spinal Tap when Bruno Kirby as a limo driver is talking about it. And he said, he said something about Yes I Can. He said, although the real title should have been Yes I Can. If Frank says it's okay because Frank called the shots for all those guys.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. I remember that, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a very funny joke.

[Josh Clark]

Like, he just keeps going off about that, doesn't he?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah. It's good stuff. You know, Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby had a very Famous falling out. And legend has it, Billy Crystal sort of had him blackballed.

[Josh Clark]

What is up with Billy Crystal? My impression of him is changing dramatically. He really sells it when the cameras are on, huh? Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, that's what you do, you know,

[Josh Clark]

that's crazy, though, to be that. Wow. Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, we know the game. People think you and I like each other.

[Josh Clark]

Right. We got everybody cooled.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Like, what were their names? The Mythbusters.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like, the day the cameras stopped rolling, they released press statements saying, we never liked each other.

[Josh Clark]

I know. Why would. Why would anybody do that? Even if you didn't like each other, why would you just let it go, you know? I don't know, but it's Jamie and Adam.

[Chuck Bryant]

Adam.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Adam Savage. Adam's a great guy. I know him a little bit.

[Josh Clark]

So are you implying Jamie's not.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know him any.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm not siding.

[Josh Clark]

This took a really weird turn, didn't it?

[Chuck Bryant]

It did. So back to Sammy Davis Jr. He also started. His star started rising. Well, his star had already risen. But in the 70s, when the variety show came about, which was a big deal in the 70s and even into the 80s, Sammy Davis Jr. Was perfect for that medium.

[Josh Clark]

Well, this was, I think, even earlier than that, when TV really started to dominate. The earliest shows that they had were vaudeville shows that led to variety shows.

[Chuck Bryant]

He had his own variety show later in the 70s because he was. So. It wasn't a huge hit. But for someone who can dance and sing and do impressions and do comedy and for God's sakes, is a real deal gunslinger, a variety show is pretty great.

[Josh Clark]

It really was. So he's, you know, he's getting onto tv. Their Vegas gigs have really put the Will Maston Trio on the map, and they were doing really well. They had reliable work, that kind of stuff. People knew who Sammy Davis Jr. Was. He was already, you know, a protege of Frank Sinatra by this time. But it wasn't until 1951 that the big break came through. And it really came through in, like, a really kind of Hollywood story kind of way, where, like this, they. They were given this one shot in this one particular spot at just the right time in front of just the right people, and they killed it. And that was it. They. The. Sammy Davis Jr. Was a star from that moment on.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And that was at Janice Page and a show at Ciro's, which is now the Comedy Store.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Oh, really? I didn't know that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Yeah. It became The Comedy Store after Ciro's, but was sort of a legendary place, you know, of its own in its own right.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But everyone. You know, apparently it's debatable whether or not it was an Oscar party after party or not. But regardless, there were a lot of

[Josh Clark]

Hollywood people there, Including Bogey and his Rat Pack.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure. The original Rat Pack, which wasn't called the Rat Pack.

[Josh Clark]

No, it was actually.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was. Yep. Well, why did. Oh, never mind. I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

[Josh Clark]

What?

[Chuck Bryant]

That's all right.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

So he kills it there. He's doing impressions of people that are in the audience. Everyone loves them. They sign with the William Morris Agency, and an overnight Sensation, you know, 20, 30 years in the making starts happening.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And we should say so. Sammy Davis Jr. Became known for his impressions. He was groundbreaking in the sense that he would do impressions of white people. And up to the time Sammy Davis Jr. Started doing impressions of white people, if you're a black performer, you could do impressions of other black people, and that was it. It was just not okay for you to do white people. Sammy Davis Jr. Just started doing white people, and the white people loved it. And at that show at Ciro's, he was doing impressions of some of the people in the crowd. Like, he did a killer Cary Grant. And Cary Grant was a member of Humphrey Bogart's Rat Pack. And he was probably there that night. So there were a lot of people who were getting impressions done of them. They just loved it. Killed. And I think Janice Page said I was the headliner tonight. I think these guys should be the headliner from now on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which is pretty cool of her to do that, you know, it's amazing. Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

So he gets a record deal after that. He's putting out, like, show tunes, old standards. He does a pilot in the mid-50s with his father and uncle about a trio of black entertainers that are kind of struggling called we3.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I would love to see that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, there's another pilot we'll talk about later that you definitely need to see.

[Josh Clark]

I haven't checked it out yet, but I know. I know the one.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's pretty legendary.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So a big thing happened that same year in 1954 is Sammy Davis Jr. Had a wreck in his Cadillac. And the Cadillac. And this is just horrific to think about because I've seen these, you know, in the middle of the steering wheel, they had these little decorative cones that stuck out.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

His left eyeball hit that thing, and he lost it and wore an eye patch. For a while. And then. A glass eye.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Apparently he remembers coming out of the car with holding his eye in his hand, and then that's the last thing he remembers. The next thing he remembers after that was waking up in a hospital bed. And when he woke up and realized that he'd lost his eye for life, his eye was gone. He was really, really scared that his career was over.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

This is 1954. He'd just gotten his big break three years before and was on his way up, and now, all of a sudden, he loses his eye. And the thing about losing your eye, in addition to, say, you know, having to sit for publicity photos and try to be a leading man in movies or on Broadway or that kind of thing, you have to relearn spatial awareness.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You're going from binocular vision to monocular vision, and that has all sorts of weird, tricky effects on you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

So if you're a dancer or a gunslinger or doing some old soft shoe or whatever you're doing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You have to relearn how to move. And apparently one of the things that Sinatra did that was really stand up for Sammy Davis Jr. Was he had him basically come convalesce at Sinatra's place. Yeah. And really guided him in saying, like, you need to relearn how to move. You're gonna be fine, but you're gonna have to start really attacking this. And you can't really sit around and feel bad for yourself. You need to get, you know, relearn movement now rather than, you know, spend a year feeling sad. And that was a huge help for him.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was. And he also was kind of. I don't think. I mean, maybe his life did kind of pass before him, because he definitely had an awakening of, what have I done here with my life so far? What greater purpose have I served and what can I do from this point forward?

[Josh Clark]

He.

[Chuck Bryant]

And put a pin in this. But this was the first exposure to Judaism in the hospital. He got a visit from a rabbi and just put a pin in that because that will come back again later.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is there a pin in it?

[Josh Clark]

Well, look, all right. It's a very nice picture. I don't even know where this pin came from. Do you?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't. Well, you do have that pin cushion right there, but.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. This little tomato one with the strawberries dangling off of it. Do you remember those?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

Was there a 70s mom that didn't have one of those?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. With a macrame owl hanging on the wall behind him.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So here's where it gets really kind of great as far as knowing what a standup guy Sammy Davis Jr. Was. His success is booming. And you would think, Sammy Davis Jr. You can leave that Will Mastin Trio behind.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because it's really all about you. He said, no, man, shine us all up, babe. Three way split. And that's what they did. He ensured contractually that they would get a three way split that endured 10 years after he left as a solo performer. He was still giving them 33% each.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. For 15 years total. They got a third of the profits each of them. And yeah, they, where, you know, originally they were still doing their Vegas show as the Will Maston Trio featuring Sammy Davis Jr. But then over time, you know, remember his uncle and his dad were a good 20 years older than him.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

By this time he's in his 30s. So, you know, they're starting to get. They're, they're losing their step a little bit. So they start to not be in the show quite as much. Stepping back. But even still, he made sure they were taken care of for another 15 years. Third. A third. And this is a third during Sammy Davis Jr. S peak earning years. So he got one third of what he would have gotten had he just basically said, dad, Uncle Will, thank you for teaching me everything. I know. I'm gonna move on now. Best of luck. Let me know if you need a loan. Instead, he just took a third of what he could have gotten and gave the other 2/3 to those two. Which is for 15 years. Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That's really amazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's pretty great. So that pen, it actually wasn't in there that long. We can go ahead and take the pen out because he, after that first meeting with a rabbi, he reads more and more about Judaism. He draws a correlation between the plight of the Jewish people and the plight of black people. And it really spoke to him and he converted. And some people said, oh, this big publicity stunt. He's like, no, this is not a publicity stunt. He said, this is my new religion. And he very humorously started referring to himself as a one eyed black Jew.

[Josh Clark]

Sometimes a one eyed black Puerto Rican Jew.

[Chuck Bryant]

Black Puerto Rican Jew. Which was very sort of in keeping with his self deprecating style.

[Josh Clark]

For sure. He's like Tim Whatley. He converted for the jokes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man, I remember that one. I've been plowing through Seinfeld again. Yeah, I love. One of my favorite things that always gets me is when Jerry calls George Biff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

It never fails to make me laugh. Biff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So good. Oh, no, let's not take another break. Let's plow on here. Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so dating wise, he is dating black women and white women. When he dates white women, he gets racist threats from white people and he gets condemnation from the black community for betraying the black community by dating a white woman.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

He can't win.

[Josh Clark]

No, he really couldn't win. And apparently, from what I saw in that. That American Masters documentary, he really, really, really was in love with Kim Novak.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

From what I saw, she may have been the love of his life. At the very least, he never got to explore whether she was or not. But when he said that he intended to marry her, I guess it was in the 50s. There was a contract put out on his life by the studio head at, I think, Columbia, where Kim Novak was an actress.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Harry Cohn was the studio head. And this was back when Vegas and Hollywood were. You know, there was some mob and Mafia dealings going on for sure. And Sammy had some mob friends, too, just because he was friends with Frank. And, you know, that was just sort of the thing. These guys would come to these Vegas clubs and he would meet them. He sought protection from a Chicago gangster that he was in with. The Chicago gangster was like, I can't help you in California. He's like, I'm no good there. I can protect you in Chicago. I can protect you in Vegas. Can't do anything about California. That's not my territory. And supposedly. And this is where it gets a little hazy. Cause some people say it happened, some people say it didn't happen. Supposedly he was even kidnapped for a few hours to scare him. But who knows if that's really true.

[Josh Clark]

Well, apparently one of his friends who was there said, no, it wasn't true. He was never kidnapped. But the contract basically said there was a contract that said you have 48 hours to marry a black woman or you die. And whatever it was, whether there was an actual contract, whether word just got to him that there was, it didn't matter to Sammy Davis Jr. At that minute, because he broke it off with Kim Novak, much to his own heart's break. And married a black woman. Yeah. Proposed to a woman named Lora White. Who. She was a black singer. And I think they had dated years before. And I guess he never copped to the. To the idea that it was an arranged marriage. That was basically a business proposal.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But that is definitely how it's portrayed by the people who were there at the time, who were his close friends that he even paid her $10,000 to do this. And I'm sure it was very, you know, kind and congenial to it. But they, they described that day, his wedding day to Laura White as probably the worst day of his life. Tied for first with the day that he lost his left eye.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And he, you know, we can't look over some of the ugly parts of that day. He got drunk and physically assaulted her in the car just after the wedding reception. Not making any excuses for the guy, but it was certainly not right to do that.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So their marriage didn't last terribly long. I didn't see how long it lasted. Did you?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, a little over a year.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So about a year. And I guess he considered that the heat had gone down or whatever by that time. But I get the impression that the fact that Kim Novak had been taken from him strictly out of racism, like Harry Cohn, I'm sure was a racist, but he was also a businessman. And the reason that he was doing this was because he knew America was racist. This is at a time when there were laws that prevented black men and white women or vice versa to marry.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It wasn't legal yet.

[Josh Clark]

No. So the idea of one of his biggest stars, Kim Novak, marrying a black man, he decided that he just couldn't take that risk business wise. And so he threatened Sammy Davis Jr. Whatever the reason was, Sammy Davis Jr. Really bristled under that. And so in 1960, this was a few years after he had to break it off with Kim Novak. He got married to a woman, a Swedish actress named Mai Britt. And he had children with her and was married to her, but he also ran around on her almost constantly, from what I understand. And you get the impression that Mai was in part A, I'll just put it as PG as possible, thumbing his nose at all of the racists out there who took Kim Novak from him. He was saying, I think, as somebody put it, I'm big enough now that you can't tell me who to marry. And I'm going to marry this beautiful six foot white woman.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Who looks like Margot Roby, sort of.

[Josh Clark]

She does, yeah, she does a little bit. I hadn't put my finger on it. And their children were incredibly beautiful, thanks largely to their mom, too. But they had three kids together and they were married for eight years. And I think it's very sad because my Brit immediately lost her career. So she gave up her career to be with Sammy Davis Jr. I don't know, she must have fallen in love with them because she had three kids with them too. But she gave up a lot and he gave up nothing. And I think that it was very unfair on his part to ask for what he asked for from her and give so little in return.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And what was also not fair and sort of a black eye on John F. Kennedy was that Sammy Davis Jr. Had been scheduled to perform at the 1960 inauguration and he disinvited him because of his marriage to a white woman.

[Josh Clark]

Kennedy personally had him disinvited. This wasn't like Kennedy's advisors or anything like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nope, it was him. And he said, you know, apparently people said he, you know, it was a political move because he didn't want to alienate southern Democrats. But either way, that was a big fracturing of the relationship between JFK and Sammy Davis Jr. He never got over that.

[Josh Clark]

No, he never did. And it was also a moment where Sinatra, who had stood up for Sammy Davis Jr. Multiple countless times against racists, against studio heads, against record company executives, against all sorts of people, didn't. He did not stand up and argue and try to persuade JFK to change his mind. He just quietly went along with it. And I think that broke Sammy Davis Jr. S heart as much as JFK betraying him and probably even more because he expected more from Frank than he did from Kennedy. And the other thing about Kennedy rescinding that invitation, Harry Belafonte's invitation wasn't rescinded. And Harry Belafonte was married to a white woman and was there with his white wife at this inauguration party. So Sammy Davis Jr. Couldn't help but take it personally. And he really did. Yeah, it was a big deal, a big moment in his life and a very sad moment. And a lot of people think that it led to him later on embracing, probably ill advisedly, the Nixon campaign in the early 70s.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

You want to take a break?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, let's take a break and we'll talk a little bit about his work in the civil rights movement right after this.

[Josh Clark]

Learning stuff with Joshua, stuff you should do.

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

And it was a really fond memory.

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[Josh Clark]

This cat is interesting, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know if everybody's picking up on it. Did you know this before? Because this is your pick, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah. I've always been pretty fascinated with him because we haven't even gotten to the super weird and interesting stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which happens in the 70s. So in the 60s is when, and possibly because of the JFK treatment is when he really starts to get more socially aware, starts donating money to the cause, and marches at Selma for the civil rights efforts. He, when he supported Nixon, it was not just a thumbing of the nose at Kennedy, but he bought into Nixon and thought that it was gonna be a good choice for black America. He regretted that later on, of course, but it wasn't just a poopy pants move, like, hey, well, I'm gonna support Nixon now because you disinvited me.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. And so one of the other reasons that he embraced Nixon was that Nixon embraced him as a human being and really stood in stark contrast to the treatment he received from Kennedy. And in that, Nixon actually seemed to really like Sammy Davis Jr. A lot of people are like, the Nixon administration was just using Sammy Davis Jr. They were at the same time using what's called the Southern Strategy, which is they were stoking racism among Southern whites to get them to turn on the Democrats. But he also apparently really did like Sammy Davis Jr. And admired him. And under Nixon's administration. Tastes like bitter acid saying this. Sammy Davis Jr. Became the first black person to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And apparently Sammy Davis Jr. Was an avid Lincoln fan. And sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom with some of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln's personal effects in this room just blew him away.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I'm sure.

[Josh Clark]

And that was actually how he ended up in Vietnam doing this USO tour in 1972. He said, what can I do to help? And Nixon said, that would probably help a lot, but that just contributed even further to his alienation from not just black people, but young black people too. Because it was a really tone deaf move, as I saw it described at the time. That was not the kind of thing you did. Vietnam was so unpopular that even the troops weren't particularly supported at home. You know, it's not like today where it's like, you know, we really, really hate this, you know, these endless wars. We really disagree with the, you know, the hawks and the military industrial complex that supports us. But we're still going to be supportive of the troops who have to go there, who are over there, whether by their own choice or, well, I guess it's all volunteer army. They still deserve support, these individuals over there overseas. That was not necessarily how it was during the Vietnam era. So Sammy Davis Jr. Going over there to support the troops after embracing the Nixon administration really furthered this rift between him and the black community, which, and I don't know if we really said this enough, was unfair and unjust because he was a fervent supporter of the Civil Rights movement during the 50s and 60s.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, fervent. Like he marched in Selma with Martin Luther King Jr. Scared to death, apparently. But he still went and he still did it. He contributed a ton of money to the Civil Rights movement. He was legit, for sure. But he also was, you know, friends with Richard Nixon. So one kind of tarnishes the other, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So. So in the 60s, he is blown up. He's everywhere. He's on stage, he's recording records, he's on tv, he's doing Celebrity Roast, he's on Broadway, he's writing books. He's doing the gunslinger thing. He's making a lot of money at this point and starts spending a lot of money because he came from nothing, like we said. This is when the Rat Pack thing really heats up. And he's hanging out with Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, and of course, the chairman.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And started their first movie together, which was Ocean's 11. Not a great movie.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, disagree.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think the original is not very good.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I liked it.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought the remake was great, but did not care for the film.

[Josh Clark]

I like the original.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Have you seen Robin in the Seven Hoods?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Also not great. I don't think the Rat Pack ever made a great movie.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's just my opinion.

[Josh Clark]

What about Time Bandits?

[Chuck Bryant]

Fantastic.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

They were hanging out at the Coconut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel, which is a place that I have a neat little quick story. Did a commercial shoot there before they tore it down. And it was, you know, an empty hotel at this point that they just used for movie shoots. And it was an overnight thing. And at like, 2 in the morning, I was working in the art department. They said, here, you need to go assemble all these flags that we're going to hang. And they said, just go in the Coconut Grove and do it, because there's plenty of room in there. And I went in there all by myself, sitting in the dusty old shadows of what was once the Great Coconut Grove. And for like an hour and a half by myself, like, sitting in a booth that the Rat Pack might have sat in.

[Josh Clark]

Wow, that's amazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really pretty neat. And later that night, got to go see where Bob Kennedy was shot.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's where he Was shot in the Ambassador Hotel.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right, yeah. In the kitchen. And one of the guys, the overnight security guy, it was just sort of one of those slow shoots. He was like. To me and my friend, he's like, you want to go down to the kitchen, see what happened? And we went, oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Wow. That's amazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it was super cool and creepy.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, anyway, that's a great story, Charles. They're hanging out with the Rat Pack. And this is where it gets a little, like, dodgy. Because the Rat Pack, they were all best buds. They genuinely loved each other. But when you look at their old shtick, there is a lot of sort of racial joking about Sammy. It's all in good fun. But there were often jokes made about him being black, being the only black member. Dean Martin, one of his famous jokes was he would pick little Sammy up on stage. Cause Dean was a big guy and Sammy was small. And thank the audience for the NAACP Award. So stuff like that.

[Josh Clark]

So in that documentary, and I'm not justifying that at all, but in that documentary, Whoopi Goldberg is like, you know, you could take any segment of their show and be like, this is really offensive to Italians or alcoholics or women or black people or Jews. And she said they went hard on everybody. But from what I understand, at least as far as Sammy was concerned, he wasn't secretly. Didn't secretly have a chip on his shoulder. And he had to just put up with this to be a member of the Rat Pack. He seemed to really not like he didn't take it as if they were being hostile or cruel, that it was just part of the act, and that's how he took it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, it was certainly a different time. I mean, there was no doubting about it that back then you could make jokes about all kinds of things that you can't joke about now.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And it's not like I used to hang out with Sammy Davis Jr. And had quiet talks with him or whatever. So it is possible that he did harbor resentment from it. But that's not the impression that I have from the research that I've done.

[Chuck Bryant]

Let me tell you, Josh.

[Josh Clark]

Right. But apparently no one did. Because this is a really bizarre thing about him when. When he was talking about converting to Judaism, I think in, like, a 1966 Playboy interview, he was talking about losing his eye and then, you know, converting to Judaism. And that it happened during a period of soul searching. And that he did all this and went through all this, even though he was convalescing at Frank Sinatra's house, even though apparently Jerry Lewis spent seven days at his bedside when he was in the hospital. Had all these telegrams coming in and all this outpour of support. He considered himself alone and that he was a loner. And that.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

That was.

[Josh Clark]

That's really bizarre when you step back and look at that, because Sammy Davis Jr. Always had friends. He was always the life of the party. He was always a good guy. Everybody wanted to be around him. He was always having fun. But he considered himself a loner. And apparently he didn't let people in. So even if I had been hanging around with him, he probably wouldn't have had that conversation with me anyway.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're like, sammy, I don't feel like I know the real you.

[Josh Clark]

Come on, Sammy, let it.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he said, that's by design, babe.

[Josh Clark]

I feel like I'm tripping or something right now.

[Chuck Bryant]

So his career is booming in the 60s and into the 70s. And the result of that, of course, well, through the 60s, I guess, is that he's not around much. He had a lot of regrets about not being around as a father, as a husband. He was floundering, he was drinking a lot, he was using drugs. So in 1968, he got divorced. In 1970, he married a woman named Altaviz Gore, who was 18 years his junior. Great name, backup dancer. His children did not like the fact that she was so much younger, but they stayed married for the rest of his life.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he was like, oh, if you got a problem with her, you should probably not know about everything else I'm doing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So here's where it gets really interesting.

[Josh Clark]

Very interesting.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sammy Davis Jr. Had a convergence of two interests. In the 70s, he became a member of the Church of Satan.

[Josh Clark]

He was an honorary warlock.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he got really, really into porn. And porn. You know, there's no better way to say it than he was a swinger. He was an orgies. He participated in satanic orgies, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was actually. I don't know if it was his first orgy or not, but that's how he became part of. Involved in the Church of Satan. You know, like the original Church of Satan with Anton lavey there and everything.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like the real good golden years of Church of Satan.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. He went and participated in a satanic orgy. Sammy Davis Jr.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which I think is like a regular orgy, but with just more like red candles.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And pentagrams and black robes and stuff like that. But then the black robes come off. But I think the pentagrams Stay on. But he. I read this really interesting Vice article about it.

[Chuck Bryant]

I read that, too. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

He was apparently at the first one, and this would have been in the late 60s, and somebody in a hood is trying to get his attention. And it turns out he lifts the hood, and it's his barber, his barber, Jay Sebring, who would later be killed with Sharon Tate by the Manson family. But he was basically like, hey, Sam, it's me, Jay. How you doing? Isn't this awesome? And then they went back to they're coming.

[Chuck Bryant]

He pulls the mask back down.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, but he. Yeah, he was hugely into pornography. He was into orgies, into swinging. He loved cocaine and love drinking. I saw Arsenio interview with him. Must have been very shortly before his death, where he's like, you know, I had to give everything up. And I don't miss all the other stuff, but I miss booze, I miss whiskey, I miss vodka. I love that stuff. But then I also saw another interview where he basically said the same thing to Larry King. Like, I've given everything up. I don't smoke anymore or anything like that. And then somebody went backstage, and There's Sammy Davis, Jr. Smoking a cigarette, drinking a brandy. And he goes, sammy, what are you doing? You just told Larry King that you gave all this up. He's like, I plan to. So who knows what he actually gave up or didn't do? But his whole jam was, I want to experience every possible human experience I can. And I approach all this stuff without judgment, which is how he ended up becoming involved in the Church of Satan, which went on for years.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, no judgment here. If that's his bag, it's not hurting anybody. Did you see the one quote about the ritual with the lady who was tied to the bed

[Josh Clark]

where he decided, like, it was okay?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. He was talking about it, and he was like, that chick was loving it, man.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I won't say the rest of the quote, but do you remember?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I remember. I remember.

[Chuck Bryant]

So all of this led to what we were talking about earlier, this TV pilot that is legendary in Hollywood as one of the weirdest, worst things that Hollywood has ever produced. And it was a pilot for a TV show in 1973 called Poor Devil, which was about a man who was a low down on the totem pole, or I guess, high on the totem pole.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Coal shoveler in hell, who is offered the chance to work his way up the ranks in hell if he can get the soul of Jack Klugman, a living white man on earth.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Jack Klugman, Quincy, Md.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and it is on YouTube. And, dude, it is amazing.

[Josh Clark]

I have not had a chance to see it yet. I can't wait to see it. But it sounds amazing. I saw it described as, like, he's a reverse Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life, which you wouldn't possibly understand that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sure.

[Josh Clark]

But just imagine that somebody's not trying to get you to be good so that they can or understand how great life is. He's trying to get him to follow his most bitter revenge impulses and stuff like that. But at one point, apparently Jack Klugman wants to get in touch with Sammy Davis Jr. The Devil, and is like, oh, I know. I'll call the Church of Satan downtown. They'll know how to get in touch with them. And the Church of Satan went. Because apparently the pilot was aired and they were all about Sammy D at this point. They made him an honorary warlock. He used to flash, like, the devil horns at them from stage when they. When he would do a show in San Francisco. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Christopher Lee, by the way, played the devil, which is pretty on the notes, but perfect. Yeah. So that doesn't succeed, obviously. It's terrible. The 70s and the 80s. His star starts to fade a little bit. He's still around, of course. He was on all in the Family in a very famous episode where he kissed Archie Bunker on the lips. He was. We have to talk about the great, great Cannonball Run.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, he was in that, wasn't he?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, man. He and Dean were partners. They played.

[Josh Clark]

I forgot about that.

[Chuck Bryant]

They dressed up as priests.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Heavily drinking, smoking priests. They played themselves, basically, as priests who wanted to drive fast.

[Josh Clark]

That's pretty great.

[Chuck Bryant]

But, you know, even though we revere that film, I don't think it was looked at generally as one of the big highlights of his career.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I'm sure not. By this time. He's kitschy Sammy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

From what I understand, like, he was fine with that. As long as he was working, he was okay. Because I said earlier that, like, he had a certain affiliation with that song, Mr. Bojangles.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Where if you listen to it, it's about an old performer who's washed up and has been washed up for years, and he's still drinking and just doing. You know, he's. He's been reduced to doing basically sidewalk performances. And apparently Sammy was scared to death about that being his future. Yeah. So even just doing what he was doing with Dean and Cannonball Run, I'm sure was just fine in His. In his mind. Because he was still working and performing.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Yeah, of course.

[Chuck Bryant]

He looks around and there's. There's Burt, man. There's Adrien Barbeau. It was. You're digging the Sammy now, aren't you?

[Josh Clark]

Yes, dude. I think Sammy needs to be a recurring character from now on in Stuff youf Should Know episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

We'll see. We'll see.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. He's the new hippie, Rob.

[Chuck Bryant]

So in the 80s, he gets into some financial trouble, to say the least. Because I love how Ed put it. He'd been struggling with tax payments since the 1960s. I think it was a Willie Nelson sort of deal, from what I could gather.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, I think he wasn't really paying his taxes.

[Josh Clark]

Sure, sure. And apparently he had also. I don't know if he got bad tax advice or what, but he had claimed some very extravagant stuff as a write off. And the IRS came back and said, nope, that doesn't count. You also owe on that. And his estate was worth. Or his net assets were worth about 4 million, but he owed about 7 million. And he was a profligate spender of money. I saw one interview once where a guy said that he walked six blocks in New York with them. He even named the streets. So it seems like he really did just walk six blocks and dropped $50,000 along the way, stopping in different stores.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought you meant dropped it out of his pocket on the street.

[Josh Clark]

No, no. Buying stuff. Just buy, buy, buy. He just spent it because he had come from nothing and he knew, you know, that thrill of spending money. He was terrible with his money. And so as he. As he found out he owed $7 million, he started to organize some shows and specials to try to raise some money to help him pay off this debt. And after the first one, I think in 1989, he found that he had a sore throat. So he went to the doctor and ultimately was diagnosed with throat cancer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. After that very first show. That's like such cruel irony to raise all this money because when he passed away in 1990, in May 16 of cancer, he left that tax bill to his wife. Like that carried over.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Altavist.

[Chuck Bryant]

That really left her kind of destitute for the rest of her life as well.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, like, she basically owed $3 million. And his estate was sold off, like basically at a yard sale auction. All of his stuff was. And yeah, that was the negative part of his legacy was that tax debt, leaving that behind.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, in one way, it's like, kind of a sad ending with the financial stuff and obviously dying way too young of cancer.

[Josh Clark]

But, yeah, 65, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

He did accomplish everything he set out to accomplish. He showed everybody who said this diminutive, little mixed race, kind of funny looking guy is never gonna amount to anything. And he had a lifelong career from the age of 3 to 65 in show business.

[Josh Clark]

And one of the things Chuck is he did not really harbor regret. He apparently whenever he talked about his life, he talked about it with great satisfaction, which is pretty reassuring.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that quote on that Letterman show was great. On the 85 episode, he's talking about the younger generation and he said, I look at the young performers today and I go like this. Yeah, man, go ahead, Cook. I've been there. That's it, man. I have no envy. I did it all.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Pretty great.

[Chuck Bryant]

Go ahead, Cook. That's great.

[Josh Clark]

Sammy Davis Jr. Everybody, round of applause. You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

Got nothing else.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to know more about Sammy Davis Jr. Just start watching some of his old performances. They're pretty amazing. And while you're doing that, we're gonna just move on ahead to listener. Man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, this is about the 911 pizza thing. We heard from a lot of 911 people.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'm glad that you picked one of these, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is good. Hey. While we are not specifically trained to send EMS to calls where people pretend to order a pizza, most 911 dispatchers will in fact ask you, this is 911. Did you dial the wrong number? And if they respond no, we will then say, are you in a situation where you can't ask for help? And then they can say yes or no. Obviously, there are many stories of this working out, most in domestic violence or kidnapping situations. So even though it isn't protocol necessarily or set in stone as a way to ask for help, it could help many people in bad situations. We will not just hang up on you. Even if you keep ordering a pizza and do not acknowledge that you need help, most will still send out law enforcement for a welfare check due to the suspension. Suspicious nature of the call.

[Josh Clark]

I'm glad to hear this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Please let this be known because in a last ditch effort, this may save someone's life. And that is from responder Brooke. Diane.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks, Brooke. And thank you also. Not for being like Josh was. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I don't remember. Did you say that's not true?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I said specifically, it's an urban legend.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay. I don't even remember that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, so I was really glad when people started writing. I'm glad you picked one to say like, no, this is. This is for real. Okay, great. Thanks again, Brooke. That was fantastic. If you want to get in touch with us like Brooke did, even if you do want to say Josh was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, that's all right. We love to hear that kind of thing. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastheartradio.com

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Sponsor Voice 1]

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[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.