Show si 3 destroyed limseit This is the story of his road back -i- y- c ne On 3 3 Omnin 'C IK L ':i11 Lg Mil n t 4 t E profile and signature "I knew there was' another reality out there When I joine4 the Army I only read comic books But there was a black sergeant who took me under his wing and gott me reading books and explained things I read that I didn't understand He was probably the best influence on my life But it also was during his Army years 1 in the 1940s that Davis experienced rac' 1 ism at its most cruel He was attacked many times and often was the subject of verbal abuse "In show business" he ex- plained "we stayed in our own hotels we ate in restaurants Peo- 1 ple liked you or they didn't depending on 1 whether your act was good or bad It wasn't a racial thing Well I got into ' the Army and saw it and wanted to fight back I want people to know that this kind of thing did exist this crazy hatred Even today I know when I walk into I a party I can tell in people's eyes what they're really think- - k x 0 ing It's veiled and I've learned to just -2- -ignore it or co- or-- 10) g tia caw! - r '11) oh a0 1 ' ' t exist with it I C ': -- -a - - 5'''- i-- - ' ') r " V:'-''''- l' Nt - 11 Ll' 0 rc ' - 411:: SEPTEMBER 24 1989 ' i I io4 increasingly drug- - and booze-addle- d life of parties womanizing and ostentatious spending In 1960 he had married the beautiful blond actress May Britt a union that caused a storm of public controversy "It made me defiant" Davis recalled "When you go out with someone are you going out with them because you know it's controversial or are you going out because you really enjoy that person's company? Are you going out be7 cause you know it's going to start tongues wagging and you can get away with it and you dare them to do something about ' it? I think it's a combination of all the above When I married May I tried to ' ' settle down We had our kids—Tracey was born and then we adopted Mark and Jeff—and we were in New York at the time and I was doing Golden Boy from October 1964 to March 1966 and I suddenly realized I wasn't fighting any 40 ) dragons anymore I was a lousy father I wasn't meant to be one I missed being i1 Sammy Davis Jr this thing I had created The limelight Emotionally I turned myself around and decided to be ambi11 tious again and work work work And when I got that drive going it split up 4A my whole home life" Davis shrugged as if it were all inexplicable "Things just got out of hand I was spending money before I made it "This was the '60s man" Davis continued "A little coke Everybody had their little thing with their gold spoon with the diamond in it But I knew I wasn't performing the way I should perform I was too busy concentrating on where the next party was going to be It was just enough to take the edge off And once you get the edge off and you can feel it slipping here comes defiance: 'Nobody's going to tell me what the hell to do!' I remember saying to my conductor after a show 'Jeez that was my best joke and the audience didn't laugh' He said 'They laughed the first time you told it' I couldn't remember having told it so I told it again" What I asked did he think drove him to use drugs and later drink heavily at the very height of his success? He thought a moment "Maybe what drove me to succeed in the first place" he said quietly "I always knew I wasn't 6 feet 2 handsome with a gorgeous body I was skinny I was little I didn't like myself I "Because of my wife's love had a second chance Because of all we went through And my growing up:' self-dou- bt PARADE MAGAZINE ' (3 I know when I get P YAllitt ir' t out there on stage I have to take care of business—that's S tk1 what they came for And I better do it I 41:t I and do it the best they ever saw any- - g body do it!" d Davis paused t then continued: "I I I don't think I ever 'J would have been a "I never had a childhood" Davis at 9 was while recovering in a hospital that he decided star without fight-- in act with his father (I) and Will Mastin to convert to Judaism feeling a great affinity ing Will and my fa- between Jews and blacks as historically oppressed then And if I hadn't had to fight prejudice most of my life If I didn't have to prove to people that I could be peoples as dignified and as knowledgeable and as strong as By the 1960s Davis was one of the most popular and highest-pai- d entertainers in the world From that anybody else It was always 'I'll show them I can do time until 1980 he made more than $50 million He had it! I'll walk right through that wall if I have to!'" a huge Broadway success in Golden Boy did TV speAfter the war Davis rejoined his father and uncle cials and had a string of hit records Yet as he admits in their old act—only now he was the headliner With in his new autobiography Why Me? he also was filled vaudeville dying it took Davis several long years to He had become a man of immense conwith finally break into the nightclub circuit and television In 1954 after a smash run at Manhattan's Copacatradictions—arrogant yet servile and obsequious to other stars in public And through the 1960s into the bana he was signed by Decca Records That same It accident in automobile an left his he lost early '70s this marvelously talented man was living an eye year i : a do 10 '' 1 Ct o Dotson Rader ko : ss 0 f - 7 show-busine- e 93 By he entertainer and his—wife of 19 years Altovise Gore 'T 1 UU continued PAGE 5 Mj |