Sammy Davis Jr. was an entertainer’s entertainer – starting his career as a child with his father and “uncle” Will Mastin in the dance troupe the Will Mastin Trio.  Over his long career, Sammy earned more than $50 million dollars, but when he died, there was little left.  Rumors have it that not only did those close to Sammy pilfer his home as he lay dying of cancer, but that even in death, they continued to try to squeeze out money from the use of the Candy Man’s image.

Sammy was born Samuel George Davis, Jr. in Harlem on December 8, 1925 of an African American father and a Puerto Rican mother.  When his parents divorced at age 3, Sammy Sr. took little Sammy out on the road with him.  While Sammy didn’t receive a lot of formal education, he learned a lifetime about dancing, singing, and entertaining on the road.  Mastin and Sammy Sr. tried to shield little Sammy from racism as much as they could, but in the early 20th century in America, that was not possible.  For most of his life, Sammy would be torn between his actions and what was expected of him by Black Americans.

After a brief stint in the Army, the diminutive superstar began releasing albums and playing nightclubs, but while returning from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on November 19, 1954, Sammy was involved in a horrible car accident.  He survived, but it cost him his left eye.  He wore an eye patch for several months before being fitting with a glass eye.  While in the hospital, friend Eddie Cantor pointed out to Sammy the similarities between the Jewish and Black cultures.  Sammy converted to Judaism shortly thereafter.  

In 1956, Sammy appeared on Broadway in Mr. Wonderful.  Three years later, he would become a part of a group that defined much of his life – the Rat Pack.  Hanging with Sinatra and pals was a fast living situation that Sammy loved.  The booze flowed freely and women were always available.  Sammy also seemed to have enjoyed the power that came from hanging out with some of Sinatra’s more unsavory friends such as mob bosses Sam Giancana and Lucky Luciano.  By many accounts, Sinatra would both protect Sammy and at the same time, take advantage of his friend through their long friendship.

Sammy headlined at The Frontier Casino in Las Vegas for years, but as a black performer, he was forced to lay his head each night in a rooming house on the other side of town.  Eventually, Sammy would boycott venues that practiced segregation.  Through the efforts of him and others, clubs in Vegas and Miami eventually ended segregation.  Another of Sammy’s proudest moments was when he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King for civil rights in the ‘60s.

But, Sammy often found himself on the outs with other blacks.  He dated white actress Kim Novak in the mid-‘50s until he was reportedly kidnapped by a mobster and strong armed into ending the relationship.  He married black singer Loray White in 1958, but the marriage ended the next year.  He married white actress May Britt in 1960, when interracial marriage was still illegal in 31 states.  The two had a daughter and adopted two sons, long rumored to have been Sammy’s biological children by other women. 

Always the performer, Sammy spent little time at home and that, plus word of his affair with black singer Lola Falana, ended the marriage in 1968.  Later that year, Sammy began dating Altovise Gore, a “Golden Boy” dancer, in which he was starring.  Sammy would later tell friends he never really loved Altovise and some said she suffered in the marriage, yet loved being “Mrs. Sammy Davis Jr.”  The couple later adopted a son.

Sammy had supported Kennedy in the ‘60s, but when Kennedy disinvited Sammy from his inauguration due to his interracial marriage, Sammy became interested in the Republican Party.  Genuinely believing Nixon wanted to help black Americans gain equality; Sammy threw his support to the administration, even giving Nixon a hug live on television, which further infuriated his peers.

Sammy worked hard through his career, but he didn’t pay attention to the books and the people he chose to help only seemed to have paid close attention if it profited them.  By the ‘70s, Sammy was in financial trouble, but Sinatra helped bail him out briefly with the “Together Again” Rat Pack tour in the late ‘80s. 

Still, Sammy invested in bad schemes over the years and owed the IRS money in back taxes.  In addition, he was spending way more than he was earning, including salaries of his enormous entourage.  Sammy learned he had throat cancer in 1989 and rather than have surgery performed to remove part of his throat, Sammy, thinking there was no life if he could not sing, choose against it.  He died of throat cancer on May 16, 1990.  Before he was buried, his wife Altovise removed all the jewelry from his body and his glass eye.

With Sammy’s estate in ruin, attorney Albert “Sonny” Murray, Jr. came into Altovise’s life to help not only get her clean and sober, but restore Sammy’s great legacy.  Murphy got the IRS to reduce the $5.1 million dollars owed to a little less than $400,000 and tried to set up recording and movie deals that would return Sammy’s image to the public eye. 

Murphy spent 8 years with very little pay pouring over hundreds of thousands of documents to try to find out what happened to the estate of Sammy Davis Jr.  What he found was mismanagement by managers and lawyers, so Murphy worked hard to get debts paid, locate Sammy’s master recordings, set up deals to restore Sammy’s good name, and even get Sammy awarded his only Grammy (posthumously), only to be dismissed with little fanfare by Altovise.  After the dismissal of Murphy, the estate again fell into disarray as the IRS settlement was not honored.

Sammy’s kids didn’t get much from his estate, about half a million each in life insurance.  Daughter Tracey believes the children were cheated out of insurance money by Sammy’s entourage including his manager and lawyer.  She produced a trust Sammy set up in 1964, giving her and her brothers the majority of any earnings from his name and image.  But, at his death, Sammy supposedly gave those rights to Altovise.  Tracey is still fighting for those rights.

For more information, read “Deconstructing Sammy,” a truly incredible, yet heartbreaking book just released by Matt Birkbeck.

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Tags: Sammy Davis Jr.

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