Nice Fellow

On the nightclub floor stands a lithe, confident little man with a pugnaciously protruding lower lip, a broken nose and a patch over his left eye. But blasting out of the loudspeakers at the delighted audiences come the vocal inflections of Frank Sinatra (applause), Billy Eckstine (applause), Tony Bennett (laughter), Arthur Godfrey (laughter), Bing Crosby (cheers). After the impersonations, the entertainer sings some straight songs--in a voice not so good as some of those he mimicked, but clear and sure. Then he may play the drums with the abandon of a voodoo priest.

Next comes a monologue about two hepcats doing the sights of Rome ("What's that?" "That was Knee-row's pad, boy"). Then a fast boogie-woogie chorus on the piano, and in between bits, some spoofing of the audience (to a noisy customer: "How would you like to come out to my swimming pool so I can give you drowning lessons?").

The one-man show is Sammy Davis Jr., 29, who in the past four months has become one of the hottest acts in the nation's gaudier nightclubs--Las Vegas' Last Frontier, Hollywood's Giro's, Miami Beach's Copa City. Last week Davis was packing them in at Manhattan's Copacabana, and columnists were hurling exclamation points. Variety's verdict: "In the main, socko." Yet Davis has been doing much the same act since before the war, sometimes without making enough money to buy a new pair of pants.

A New Start. The big turning point for Sammy Davis Jr. came after an accident six months ago that could have floored him for good: an automobile crackup in which he lost his left eye. When he turned up at Giro's soon afterwards, undaunted, and joking about his eye patch ("Gotta go now, gotta do a Hathaway shirt ad"). Sammy's comfortable popularity suddenly changed into a major fad. He was hailed by every Hollywood star from Ava to Zsa Zsa. The great ones came to weep and cheer. Less enthusiastic customers got at least one impression that was almost enough to account for his appeal: Sammy Davis Jr. was a nice fellow.

Sammy thinks he used to be a pretty brash fellow. "You know," he says. "I'd fluff [i.e., insult] somebody, even a good friend, and then think. 'Well, I'll make it up to him some day.' Then I had the accident, and I found I had friends."

An Old Pro. Harlem-born Sammy was smitten with show business about as soon as he could take a few dance steps. At three, Sammy hit the Orpheum Circuit in a flashy family act, has stuck with his father and uncle ever since--they still open his act with some nostalgic tap routines. During a burlesque stint, when he should have been in school, Sammy was pinched in an A.S.P.C.C. raid. Then came the skinny years of the Depression, a wartime stint in Special Services, the postwar years when the act kept getting stranded between guest engagements. Today, signed up to star in MGM's St. Louis Woman and leafing through Broadway offers, Sammy still insists on spots for Pop (55) and Uncle (60-odd) before he will accept.

In a time when entertainers are often shoved onstage as a result of a hit record, without any other experience, Sammy Davis Jr. is a seasoned pro. His dancing is a study of fine rhythm and agility, his timing precise, his ad libs are deft. But he says: "I never studied anything I do. I just wake up in the morning thinking it would be good to do Bing Crosby, and I can do him."

Still, a lot of people can do imitations of Bing; nobody has yet found the way of doing Sammy Davis Jr.

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