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Blogs by Robert A. Mills
NEW YORK, NEW YORK PART VI (concluded) 11/13/2009 3:07:08 PM
Hard now to admit, I was not WVET-TV’s first choice to do the Sammy Davis, Jr. interview, but when their other “star” bowed out (griping all the way because they wouldn’t put him in a suite at the St. Regis,) I got the nod. Also, as I agreed to go by train and stay at the YMCA, charge no overtime or special fees, credit my absence against accrued vacation time and keep daily food and miscellaneous tariffs under twenty dollars, the bookkeeping office did a buck-and-wing, offered high-fives all around and shouted, “By cracky, he’s our man!”
Mr. Davis, Jr. was signed by NBC to do a hour “special” each week in selected markets (Northern,) and eight local personalities from selected NBC affiliates were assigned to go to New York and film an interview with him to be shown as a promotion a week or so before the program was aired. Each interview was to be shot on 16mm sound film and run no more than fifteen minutes. The venue was an NBC studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
Leaving my American Tourister Pullman Two-Suiter in the diligent company of the YMCA clerk-in-charge, I checked out and took a taxi ($2.50 + $.25 tip) to the corner of 50th Street and Avenue of the Americas. In the elevator from the mind-boggling Art Deco lobby, I wondered if the car went all the way up to David Sarnoff’s office, or better still, if any of the gentlemen in the car were actually the chairman of NBC? I had no idea what Sarnoff looked like, nor did I know he had his own private elevator to the 58th floor.
The interviews were to begin at noon, and all eight of us were ushered into a sort of makeshift “green room” where a young page named Harold Filagret (according to the plastic tag affixed to his uniform) plied us with coffee and bagels and gave us our final instructions.
“When Mr. Davis arrives,” Harold told us, “your name will be called, and I’ll take you into the main studio where you’ll meet Mr. Davis and be given five minutes to outline to him what you want to talk about—of course, emphasizing his show on your station—the day, time and so forth. Your interview must be kept light and informative and last no more than fifteen minutes. I suggest you let him do most of the talking.
“By the way, you’ll get your turn alphabetically, by last name. And you’ll wait in here until called.”
With “Mills” being in the middle of the alphabet, I figured there were at least three ahead of me— Taylor Butterfield from Kansas City, Joanna Gertner from Cleveland and Freddie Lehmann from Des Moines—I wouldn’t get on until about two-fifteen or so. It hardly mattered. Sammy Davis, Jr. did not arrive until almost two, and I was not called in to confront “Mr. Wonderful” until nearly five.
Even then, my destiny as a travel expert was in evidence; I had enough common sense to commandeer a telephone and call New York Central to change my ticket to the next departure: 10:43PM (getting me to Rochester at 5:22AM.) No sleeper was available, but the cheery clerk assured me I’d be most comfortable in coach. “How late is the club car open?” I asked. “I’m sorry, sir, it closes at eleven.” Shoot.
The bulk of my interview with Sammy Davis, Jr. was, of course, about me. He made the mistake of asking me precisely what I did at WVET-TV, and I told him I was a master at pantomime. “One show I do twice a day is ostensibly a ‘weather show.’ But as I did on another show called ‘Club 10’ I pantomime singing and playing a variety of instruments—people actually think my talent has no bounds. Lately, I’ve been tap dancing to a record featuring solos by you! And people think I’m as good as Sammy Davis. Jr.! Wanna see?”
Curiously mesmerized, Davis got up with me and he, an eager instructor, began an improvised tap step. I joined him, and side-by-side, I imitated his routine, matching the clicks and snaps as if I were the dancer—especially when the camera zoomed in on my flying (if untrained) feet and gave the impression the rhythmic sounds emanated from my moccasins rather than Davis’ patent leather brogues. This went on for what seemed like ten minutes, and when we finished with a flourish, we collapsed into our chairs—Davis laughing wildly, me totally out of breath and the callous studio crew applauding appreciatively.
“That is without a doubt,” he affirmed, “the most remarkable thing I have ever seen! If I ever get up to Minnesota, we gotta do this on your show!”
“I’m from the other—”
“We gotta show this to Frankie and Dino! You comin’ to the soiree tonight, aren’t you?”
I had planned on another taxi expensed to WVET-TV, but NBC provided limos for all of us that evening to the high-rise at 28 Central Park South; it was an elegant, expensively eclectic apartment, and the view from the floor-to-ceiling window at the far end of the living room, looking north the length of Central Park, must have been magnificent during daytime. Even now, at twilight, the vast oasis glittered like a Christmas tree decorated in an asylum by inmates who had thrown randomly a million colored lights, with most clinging to its outer limbs. It was breathtaking. I was fixated by the view.
The place was cluttered with the most beautiful, glamorous and well-dressed people on earth, and I was required to consume innumerable Scotches and canapés served by radiant hostesses and debonair hosts. Unfortunately, not once in the four hours I rubbed elbows and swapped lies with the crème de la crème of New York show business, Hollywood and NBC elite, did I again see Sammy Davis, Jr., nor his usual entourage. I did catch of glimpse of a tuxedoed Peter Lawford off in the distance, but he was surrounded by a phalanx of sycophants who would not let me intrude far enough to ask if he, being a Brit, knew my Aunt Dora.
There were no limos waiting for me in front of the South Central Park apartment building, but I managed to hail a passing taxi (just like in the movies!) We stopped at the YMCA to pick up my suitcase (“Wait here!” I sneered, like I was Marlon Brando,) and I made it to the Grand Central Terminal with time to spare. The clock over the Information Booth said 9:37.
One more Scotch and soda, which I hardly needed, and I boarded the late express to Rochester, New York. Goodbye, Gotham! Goodbye, Empire City! Goodbye, Big Apple! Goodbye, City That Never Sleeps! Goodbye, Dora and Peggy, Perry and Yul, Jim and Paul and Rachel, Harold and Sammy! Goodbye, Fame and Fortune! I was going home—home, sweet home—at last—to the Flour City on the Erie Canal.
