COOL As a pickle, Sammy Davis Junior had a good time on the town in May 1963 when he felt at home at the Central Hotel in Glasgow.
The Rat Pack star joked and chatted with photographers and reporters the next day, according to the Evening Times.
“In the early hours of the morning after his appearance at the Odeon last night, Sammy Davis Jr., he sipped bourbon and cola on the rocks. much praise for his audience in Glasgow, ”said our report.
“‘Honestly, and it’s not showbiz bullshit, I’ve never seen reactions like this,” he said. “I’ve never seen such a warm audience.”
Rat Pack star Sammy Davis Junior in Glasgow May 1963. Image: Herald and Times
Sammy had almost brought the house to Glasgow with his own version of I Belong – tartan Tammy and so on – and he announced that he had actually learned the song three years ago from actor and impresario Al Burnett.
Sammy Davis Jnr
“I sing it in the US sometimes and they love it,” he told the waiting press pack.
Sammy also had a few things to say about recent events in Birmingham, Alabama, where Martin Luther King and others led anti-segregation and anti-discrimination movements campaigning for the rights of African American citizens.
“Martin Luther King is one of my dearest friends,” said Sammy.
“I’m not down there in Alabama being beaten or imprisoned, but just as his fate is, so it is my fate.”
Sammy told reporters that people with color were “on the move” and tired of “bearing a submissive demeanor,” adding that it was time for them to “receive human dignity,” adding, “And it will be won one day. We cannot exist any other way. ”
It had been a last minute rush for the star who was only in Glasgow one night. He had missed his train north of Leeds the day before and was still in his hotel room in the English city at 2 p.m. on the day of his show in Glasgow.
“He’s going to take the afternoon train that arrives in Glasgow at 7:05 p.m.,” a hotel spokesman told the Evening Times, a little chilly.
“That gives him plenty of time to go to the theater and change clothes before he gets on stage,” said the manager of the Odeon. “The first performance doesn’t take place until 6:40 p.m. and Sammy won’t take place until much later.”
In an interview in the same newspaper, Sammy had told the reporter that he was tired of touring and living out of a suitcase and expressed a desire to settle down with his actress Maj Britt and their children Tracey and Mark.
“I’m tired of being like a business traveler, I’ll have a home,” he said.
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Often referred to as “the world’s greatest living entertainer,” Sammy Davis Jr. was born in New York to a dancer and variety star.
He could dance, sing and play, play instruments and play comedy, and he became world famous through the Rat Pack with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford, among others.
Three years before his sensational appearances at the Odeon in Glasgow, together with Martin et al. Played in Ocean’s Eleven.
He died of throat cancer in 1990 at the age of 64.
