"the final week of an eighteen-day engagement at the Copacabana (sixteen performances interspersed with general frolicking, a record date, television and radio interviews, and two visits with Cye Martin, his tailor); a one-night stand in Kansas City to receive an Americanism award from the American Legion; one night at home in Hollywood; and the opening night of a two-week date in Las Vegas at the Sands Hotel,"
"Like most men, Davis lives a life of quiet desperation. The only differences are that he has little privacy to live it in and that on the average of twice a night, thirty weeks a year, he must stand in a spotlight and be Sammy Davis, Jr.comic, sentimental, bursting with energy, and immensely talentedno matter how he feels inside. If he were an average performer, the challenge might not be so great. But you see, says Davis, what I do is different."
Sammy Davis Jr. kept an intense, multi-city ten-day schedule including a long Copacabana engagement, a Kansas City appearance, a night at home, and a Las Vegas opening at the Sands. The Sands contract guaranteed $25,000 per week and led into a three-week Moulin Rouge engagement under a five-year, million-dollar deal, followed by international and Eastern tours. Photographer Burt Glinn pursued Davis through the period. Davis combined singing, dancing, musicianship, acting, and mimicry and earned praise from entertainers like Milton Berle and Groucho Marx. He suffered limited privacy, performed twice nightly about thirty weeks a year, and described unique pressures as a Black performer.
Read at www.esquire.com
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