Why isn’t Sammy Davis Jr. more popular today?

He was cheesy as fuck.

A lot of black people thought he was too white washed.

white worshipping*

He's dead, for Chrissake.

Dead celebs have short sell-by dates.

R4 Michael Jackson, who was greatly influenced by Sammy, is more popular than ever.

R1 is kinda right but I love me some Sammy anyway!

There have been several biopics about him in the works. Maybe they’ll reignite his popularity.

Sammy loves Tricky

R8 He later said he regretted supporting Nixon. I wouldn’t be surprised if he switched teams because JFK banned him from performing at his inauguration due to his interracial marriage.

Sammy also loved Archie.

Malcolm Gladwell did a terrific podcast episode on Sammy a while back. Davis had a much more difficult life than most people realize, including bullying and abuse because of his race.

He was an enormous talent who, regrettably, compromised his art for popular passing tastes and the illusion of mass love and acceptance. A much finer singer, dancer, and musician than some give him credit for. Sammy loved show biz but it didn't love him back.

R11 It was sad to see how broke he was at the end of his life.

His guest episode on Charlie’s Angels was the worst episode of the whole series

He's dead. His career was 50+ years ago OP.

Jeeze.

R14 Frank Sinatra is dead too but his cultural impact hasn’t completely faded like Sammy’s has.

Sinatra had massive hit after massive hit which have retained longevity R15.

Sinatra is in a different league than Davis Jr.

It's like the tired old Madonna and Janet Jackson thing. One is not the same as the other. One is in a different league of stardom.

Had a glass eye and a penchant for blonde, white ladies. Oh, and he was a sex pig.

Somewhere, in all my crap is a 50/60's Christmas card stamp signed, Sammy Davis Jr.. It is a large, fold out, manger scene with a ton of red and gold relief.

Bump

R8, I was there!

Did someone quit paying the bills at LSA?

Well, I agree with OP that he should be a LOT bigger now than he is. An absolutely incredible talent and an amazing voice.

I had a Rat Pack CD when I was a kid. It had a photo of Sinatra, Martin & Davis on the front. I knew which one Sinatra was, but on the basis of their voices, I assumed Dean Martin was the black guy and Sammy Davis was the other white guy.

Was DL always so boomer?

This is parents of Boomer.

In Linda Lovelace's first book, she tells the story of going to the Playboy mansion with her abusive, homophobic husband Chuck Traynor. Sammy is there as he is fascinated by "Deep Throat."

They're watching the movie and all of a sudden Sammy goes down on Chuck to see if he can deep throat. Linda said Chuck was appalled but had to sit there and get blown because it was superstar Sammy Davis Jr.

I don't believe a lot of Linda's book but that detail is so weirdly specific I believe it.

R21 Sammy was more popular with white people moron.

R17 His last wife was black.

He was in the worst episode of Charlie’s Angels

He was very talented- but his taste and style were strictly Vegas where he cow towed to the Sinatra rat pack. He never created an original niche in music or film. Not really an icon. The example of a black singer who really was a first rate artist and icon in times past is Nat King Cole.

R29, We heard you at R13 already.

He supposedly became involved with Anton Lavey's Satanic Church at one time. He also rented out a theater to show 'Deep Throat' to Lucy and Gary.

Peggy Lipton was an easy lay, a sex addict. Davis thought he'd score if he could get her alone on a boat. Didn't work, she jumped ship. She was skeeved out.

It’s because people are Anti Semitic.

Sammy Davis Jr. had enough going on to overcome being 5'4" and losing one eye.

Sock it to me, Daddy O.

R31 he was guest star in the worst episode of Charlie’s Angels

This is a childhood memory.

Sammy was dying of cancer when they did this tribute for him. He still had the energy to tap dance with Gregory Hines, and outshine him.

He was ubiquitous on tv in the 60s-70s . Wasnt he on the Labor Day telethon every year ? I remember always seeing him as a kid but not thinking much of him either way.

His work and persona are very dated, very "Vegas" like Wayne Newton.

Cut off my WHAT?

Peggy Lipton jumped off the boat?

Where does popularity today come from for a dead celebrity? Iconic roles, or even images from those roles (Marilyn Monroe in her white dress, etc)...as much as I know about "old" Hollywood I can't say SDJ had a role that comes to mind like that.

When I was 11 my parents took me to see Sammy Davis, Jr. live. He was amazing. I can still feel the way he carried his audience with his amazing talent. I have seen a great singers live from Aretha Franklin to U2 to Emmylou Harris- none compared to Sammy. That is probably one of the reasons his music isn’t as well remembered. He was better live. Also he had a very dramatic way of singing that is rather out of fashion now. But he will be remembered as long as people are interested in Sinatra.

No question he had enormous talent, but his performances were very much of their time. Performers whose fame transcends their era are actually very rare.

Bing Crosby is another one who was a huge star in his time but is pretty much forgotten today, except for White Christmas

In one of Steve Zeeland's books, there is a story of Sammy getting someone to bring a bunch of marines from 29 Palms or Camp Pendleton to swim naked in his pool in Palm Springs. He would watch them from the guest house and have someone invite individual marines to get paid to let Sammy blow them.

He was just plain creepy

The great podcast "You Must Remember This" had a nine episode season on Sammy and Dean Martin.

Sammy's life was much sadder and depressing than I thought.

Sammy Davis Jr. and his talent were without equal.

He was the very best, imo.

He is extremely popular

Candy Ass

I don't know, OP, but Linda Lovelace said that she taught Sammy how to give a blow job and watched him give one to her husband at the time, Chuck.

Sorry, R26 -- didn't see your post.

[Quote] Michael Jackson, who was greatly influenced by Sammy, is more popular than ever.

Outside of DL and even on DL that's highly unlikely. I heard 'Thriller' a few times around Halloween but . . .I haven't heard anyone talk about him or his music very much in years.

Davis HATED "Candy Man", but it was the biggest song hit of his career.

CANDY ASS CAN CANDY ASS CAN

I'm not familiar with him apart from some gossip I heard on a French chat show.

An old timer who worked in Hollywood said that the head of Columbia studios sent the mafia to Sammy's dressing room in Vegas and told him to stop seeing Kim Novak or else.

He was forced to marry his wife who was a dancer in his show the following week.

Though we'll probably never see a Sammy Davis Jr. renaissance, I think his life story is tragic enough for a biopic or miniseries. Imagine being one of the most talented people in show business yet you are treated like shit because of your race. This frustration consumed Sammy and motivated many of his questionable actions through the years. He frantically tried to do anything he could think of to be seen as equal to his white peers. I think he at least became resigned to it in his later years, but who knows if he ever truly accepted it.

He died broke. Busted.

Yes he appears cheesy and glib and sleazy and ingratiating. But man, he was an extremely gifted vocalist. His voice was gorgeous and he knew how to fucking sing.

Did he ever guest star on CHARLIE'S ANGELS? Was he any good?

R24 Who do you think started DL?

I'm not a boomer. But I appreciate the great voices of popular music. Sammy Davis Jr. started out as a great talent. At 0 years old. Took a lot of bad breaks and heartbreak, insincere friends and closed doors to turn him into a less than class act.

R39 Thank you for that video of Sammy and G Hines. Sammy was the best!

The Porgy and Bess medley starts at about 5:00.

Wasn't Ben Vereen's character in All That Jazz based on Davis?

In one of Robin William's earlier comedy recordings he had a bit on Hollywood Day Care with a character called Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. who was presented as a full of shit showbiz character.

Meanwhile, there was a white British actress in the 80s named Sammi Davis. I always thought it was funny to see her name in the credits.

He was great as a guest on The Carol Burnett Show. "Candy Man" is still a heavy rotation favorite among the oldies that I enjoy. He was a real character and beloved, like Lena Horne, among people my parents' age. Some people held the marriage to a white woman against him, and he participated in stupid things like the church of satan, but, overall, he managed to surf the, often uncomfortable, waves of the black power movement successfully.

Sammy is mentioned in Spinal Tap. Bruno Kirby, limo driver, tries to chat up the band by mentioning Sammy's book, "Yes, I Can." Bruno says the book should have been called "Yes, I Can, If Frank Says I Can." That's when Nigel rudely rolls up the partition glass between the front and back of the limo. Rob Reiner's character tries to console Bruno's character.

There is a scene in Rosemary's Baby where Mia is reading "Yes, I Can".

The televised tribute they gave for Sammy when everyone knew he was dying may be the greatest line up of musical and showbiz talent evern assembled to perform for just one man? Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Dean, Frank, a very frail Ella Fitzgerald, Gregory Hines, Anita Baker, Patti Labelle, Bob Hope, Eddie Murphy, etc......and a very sweet and emotional Shirley Maclaine.

Go to the 7:20 mark in this video.

R71 Thank you! That tribute was beautiful.

R44: His signature/iconic performance is "Mr. Bojangles."

Beatiful Whitney gives her very best to Sammy. It's less powerful than her Grammy performance of this song - but her vocal tone is fucking magic.

Lola Falana, Dionne Warwick, Debbie Allen, Diahann Carrol and Nell Carter all performed on this show too. Anita Baker sang a gorgeous version of Summertime.

Sammy Davis was LOVED.

Bump

R56, until he sang it the third time and Tony Todd tore him a new asshole.

I vaguely recall him doing something with John Forsythe, but I can't picture it.

He was unique in his cheesy way. Singing What I did For Love, You're Gonna Love Me and songs from Phantom of The Opera in his very last years. Maybe he was desperate to stay in the game - but these are kind of chick songs. He was a bum wiggler for sure - as we say back home. He's fussy as Liza says.....

When was Liza ever this pretty?

r78 -AWF troll

His rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" is all-time camp. It would have fit in on SCTV.

He's a bum wiggler. You live for camp, R80.

Liza and her mother were even worse. Campy performers. Cringy.

[quote] Outside of DL and even on DL that's highly unlikely. I heard 'Thriller' a few times around Halloween but . . .I haven't heard anyone talk about him or his music very much in years.

The 40th Anniversary deluxe edition of "Thriller" was released last week. Children who werent even alive when he died know and love Michael Jackson. Odd as fuck but it's true.

Most people have terrible taste in music

He’s dead, OP.

No one curr.

I remember him from Charlie's Angels

He's dead? That could be the main reason. Jeez.

I had an older friend that was a cater waiter in the 70s. He loved Sammy- everyone got a $100 dollar tip, with the bill wrapped around one of those little vials filled with coke.

I like him now for that reason alone^^^

His talk show in the 70s was so infamously and awesomely horrible and fake that SCTV had no less than TWO different parodistic versions of him based on it: Joe Flaherty as Sammy Maudlin, and Martin Short as Jackie Rogers, Jr.

He was one of the greatest nightclub entertainers of the late 20th century because he could use his talent alone to command a stage. He had more difficulty onscreen, especially because of his glass eye and tiny stature.

Sammy belonged to Anton LeVay's Church of Satan. He also asked Linda Lovelace to teach him how to give good blowjobs. Sammy was one strange 'straight' man.

[quote] He also asked Linda Lovelace to teach him how to give good blowjobs.

Why would he waste time with an amateur when he was friends with Nancy Reagan?

He was a bum wiggler. A swinger, baby. Sammy never attended ONE day of school in his life. And he was quite ashamed of this later in life. He couldn't write as well as a second grader. The church of Satan stuff is overblown and who cares? That's not how devil worship works. Most drug addicts deal toy with darkness. Sammy was Jewish..

In the American Masters Doc on Sammy - it was pretty clear that his last wife loved cocaine and to spend money!!! That's pretty much what they had in common. For over 20 years. Davis was always millions in debt. He was extremely generous and liked a lot of gaudy excess. Flashy clothes and jewelry. Rolls Royce. Good drugs. If some friend said "I like your ring" - he most likely would give it to them. This is not so much a sign of generosity as what?

Sammy gave a lot of pretty revealing inteviews in his life. On TV. About his early happiness and his setbacks - wanting to succeed for himself and his race, his fear of fucking up. His failure as a father and his drive to be the BEST. His interrracial relationships, some about his drug and booze use - his indulgences. He gave his father and his uncle each a third of every penny he made until he was 45 years old. The "Trio."

Unlike most fakers and liars and drug addicts with sex secrets - his talent and professionalism pulled him through. He's a bit of a sad figure, but not at all delusional. He played the game only when forced to. Like when Sammy was in love with Kim Novak and Harry Cohen had enough of his number one investment risking her career fucking with a black man. Cohen put a hit out on him. Sammy was given 48 hours to marry a black woman or be killed. (The other version of this story was he would lose his other eye and have his legs broken) Sammy paid a friend of his 10 grand and married her within 48 hours.

His life was amazingly hard and ruff, and the Rat Pack years were no different. They were his brothers but he still couldn't have dinner with him in Vegas. The hotel drained the swimming pool after Sammy swam in it once.

He was unusually honest about himself. He felt he was not accepted in the black or the white world.

Sammy's 1970 Motown album cover is one of my faves..

A M A Z I N G

....

Someone upthread recommended the You Must Remember This podcast series on Dino and Sammy. I listened to the series. Very interesting. According to Linda Lovelace (Deep Throat), she and her husband & Sammy and his wife had lots of group sex. LL said that Sammy did ask her to teach him how to deep throat and Sammy did perform fellatio / deep throat on LL's husband.

I never thought that much about Sammy being Jewish, but in retrospect, I'm not sure why he did that (converted to Judaism).

Sammy’s monthly listeners on Spotify are abysmal compared to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

Sammy was obsessed with Sinatra. He wanted whatever Frank had. He put up with a lot of "good natured" racist bullshit as a member of The Rat Pack.

r97 :

[quote] I never thought that much about Sammy being Jewish, but in retrospect, I'm not sure why he did that (converted to Judaism).

"In 1954, he almost died in a car accident where he lost his left eye. While in the hospital, his friend Eddie Cantor enlightened him on the similarities between the Jewish and black cultures. Davis converted to Judaism after reading Paul Johnson’s A History of the Jews in the hospital. One paragraph about the ultimate endurance of the Jewish people intrigued him in particular: 'The Jews would not die. Three centuries of prophetic teaching had given them an unwavering spirit of resignation and had created in them a will to live which no disaster could crush.' "--from link.

I love him. My parents had many of his albums and I used to sing along to That Old Black Magic and The Lady is a Tramp. Here he is on I Dream of Jeannie.

It's shame that someone works for 60 years in the business, and dies broke. I realize some of it is his fault, but still.

The last adopted son owns all of Sammy's licensing and likeness. I wonder if he's got any decent advisors, because there is a lot to be mined even if it's in the so bad it's good category.

Sammy Davis is not popular because he was a phony, needy, suck-up asshole. His personality - the one he presented in public, and it was ALL OVER the place - is why he's not popular. He was too pathetic.

[quote] It's shame that someone works for 60 years in the business, and dies broke. I realize some of it is his fault, but still.

He was bad with money.

He was in a contract with his father and another guy (who were also performers - they performed as a trio starting from when Sammy was a child). At some point, seems like he could have paid off his father and the other guy to get out of the contract, but he didn't.

At some point, he was given the choice of an up-front, lump sum for his songs or more back-end stuff (sounded like royalties) that would have kept paying him throughout the years. Of course, he chose the up-front money.

His final wife was a spender, as well.

He should have used Sinatra's CPA. Although evidently Sammy did leave $6 million in life insurance- so hopefully the wife and kids got something.

What has Sinatra's CPA got to do with Sammy Davis out of control begging for acceptance and flashy extravagant lifestyle? Sammy Davis worked his whole life and made lots of money. He spent many times more - every year of his life. He liked to impress people but not in an asshole kind of way. He was just insecure. And enjoyed the good life. He wasn't the wreck that Judy Garland made of herself. She was a loser who wanted to lose. She succeeded. Sammy outlived his ENORMOUS debts to the IRS and everyone else. He tipped and paid very well and gave the tiny jacket off his back if you admired it.

You should familiarize yourself with Altovese Davis before you start feeling sorry for her, R105. She had a good long ride with Sammy and fought paying THEIR bills, long after he died. She wanted others to contribute to stop her from losing the house - when Sammy was too DEAD to work anymore. Altovese was the bobby brown in that marriage.

Sammy was beaten viciously by racists while he served in WWII. It’s hard to fault him for begging for white acceptance considering the time period he grew up in. At least towards the end of life he married a black woman and seemed more involved in the black community.

r106 is yet another post from the AWF troll. Please disregard everything he says.

You're a disgusting piece of rotted flesh R108. Do fuck off and find jesus.

My post @ R106 is a welcome and illustrative contribution to this discussion. Stop harrassing posters.

r109 you are the vile AWF troll, your language gives you away every time. A sad, lonely late middle-aged white man in Canada. How pathetic.

May Jesus visit healing to your troubled mind and rotting body, R110. Stop worshipping SATAN!

How's the weather up in Ontario?

The Sammy Davis Jr. Show

Unlike Sinatra, who never advanced being a thug in a tuxedo - Sammy had some real elegance and dignity. The Rat Pack lived a pretty disgusting life, especially in the way women were used and treated - no doubt Sammy was part of that. But he always remembered himself and didn't have a Sinatra size chip on his shoulder. He carried shame but was NOT ashamed of where he came from or who he was. He was evolved in the way he talked about his life and struggles. Evolved black men and women see him for his great drive and triumphs. Even his minstrel moments were stylish.

part two

Here come da judge!

R106, I am familiar with Altovise, as well as Frank's CPA- who my father used as well. Towards the end of his life, Frank only worked enough to cover his yearly expenses and not touch his capital.

Good advisors are what Sammy needed. Altovise ended up a penniless drunk- are you happy?

The still amazing Nicholas Brothers and other old timers pay tribute to Sammy. They would never allow 5 1/2 minutes of this on network TV today. Sammy is delighted of course.

I know the sound is dated, but I genuinely think he's only one good documentary or biopic away from having a revival... even the likes of Chet Baker and James Baldwin have really emerged as cult heroes with the hipster crowd in recent years. There is so much footage to be used, and of course the racial element to explore. And yes, he was outrageously talented. This song is pure Vegas but it's my favourite of his. He just delivers it with such gusto and verve.

He's overdue for a revival. It's not an exaggeration to say he was a child prodigy to boot.

[quote] Outside of DL and even on DL that's highly unlikely. I heard 'Thriller' a few times around Halloween but . . .I haven't heard anyone talk about him or his music very much in years.

Jackson has over 36 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Madonna (very much alive) has 20 million. Elvis Presley has 19 million. Drake has 69 million.

You live in a small bubble. You cannot accurately judge the rest of the world based upon your small bubble and certainly not by Datalounge.

A Hulu series about Sammy is in the works.

Sammy was very uncomfortable with the rise of Black Power in the 1960s and '70s.

Ugly

This may or may not have been mentioned, but Sammy was reputed to be a Satanist. He was known to be good friends with Anton LaVey.

Anton Levy was a sexy interesting guy. Weird. Sammy was curious. Experimental. It wasn't a Jim Jones situation. Pagan. Anyone who knows about the Rat Pack knows that Davis didn't need to meet LaVey or Linda Lovelace to learn about KinK or debauchery.

Sammy was interesting. It didn't all work. He was improvisational. In music, sex, women, drugs and life.