The One and Only Sammy

The astonishing, confounding career of Sammy Davis Jr.

- By Questlove

When I was a kid, I was Sammy Davis Jr. before I was anyone else. I started my entertainment career as a tap dancer. That was what led to my first appearance on television, in Philadelphia on KYW-TV. I was 5 years old. Later that day, the parents of other dancers and talent-show participants complained that my afro had covered up their kids onscreen.

In some sense, Sammy and I were knit together from that moment on. I grew up in the 1970s, the end of the golden age of the variety show, which you could also call the second (or third) golden age of Sammy Davis Jr. If you turned on the TV, he would be there, singing “The Candy Man,” singing “Mr. Bojangles.” I have specific memories of him performing with Carol Burnett and Flip Wilson. He was an actor as well, who would pop up, almost always playing himself, on sitcoms such as All in the Family (where he famously kissed Archie Bunker) and Chico and the Man (he covered José Feliciano’s theme song), and in dramas including Charlie’s Angels. He was also on soap operas such as One Life to Live and, slightly later, General Hospital, though not as himself: He played the con artist Chip Warren on the first and a recovering alcoholic father named Eddie Phillips on the second. Sammy was a presence everywhere. Even “The Candy Man,” sung by a children’s choir and used to sell M&M’s, pointed back to Sammy.

Sammy gave me one of my first serious lessons in life, which was about death. He was on some show doing “Mr. Bojangles,” and I got the hang of it and sang along. After his performance, I had a little talk with my mother. There’s a lyric where he says that “his dog up and died,” and I was unclear on the concept. I had lost my grandparents at that point, but what did that mean, really? Where were they? She talked it through with me, and I understood, as best as I could at age 2 or whatever (which maybe is better than I understand it now, even).