A lot of people have questions about Sammy:

I will try to answer these questions as long as you realize I'm just giving my views from knowing them in the casino all during the years they were at the Sands. I did get to know them both well and from talks with them both, I feel I have some understanding of these guys.

Did he feel hurt by the things Frank said about him on stage?
The short answer is no. I have never seen him hurt by anything Frank said on stage about him. I’ll try and explain it. All the jokes and ribbing was designed to handle the casino showroom audiences. You see, having Sammy on stage for the Rat Pack shows (I'm even using that name now) was a gamble at the time. In Dec 1960 they was a lot of racial tension. The NAACP was having meeting with the hotels about blacks not being able to get jobs in the casinos. Now in those years there was a lot of racial bigotry, let not kid ourselves.

The cowboys from Nevada had never dealt with them. Many had never seen a colored person up real close. The casino gamblers didn’t want them around. The outfit guys didn’t want them “changing the luck” in the casino.

So during the Rat Pack shows you will see Frank kidding Sammy. I talked to Frank about it, quite a few times. He knew what he was doing. His explanation to me, and I feel it to be true, was that he had to deal with the casino players who come to the shows. He has said to me many times. “I kid Sammy, I rib him, but it all says, “he is with me, he is one of us, he is alright.” Frank would explain. “Eddie, I ain’t dumb, I know what some are thinking, so I’m not ducking it but the message is clear. 'I like him and he is one of us.' They will get the message.”

When you look at it, it was a very clever thing to do. Very smart.

Did he resent not being able to go in the casino in the early days. Or not being able to stay in the hotel?
Sammy was always very aware of the position he was in and how far he had come. In the 60s, he was a super star in Vegas. In the 70s he get even bigger. But I can remember times he would say things. You must remember that I have talked to Sammy when he was sober, drunk, high and very low. From things he has said he was beaten up pretty badly in the service. As a boy entertainer with the Will Masten Trio he was put in rooms or a closet to keep him away from the adults that were talking. On stage he was Sammy Davis Jr. but could walk down a street in some city and be beaten. He told of standing on a street corner in Chicago and waiting for the light to change and a car came by close to the curb. Sammy thought it was going to turn the corner but as it passed one of the guys in the back seat put out his arm and knocked Sammy into the street. “But I did my show that night, probably two or three of them. I always did the shows.” He was a little guy who could never win a fight with other guys. I believe he has been on the losing end of fights all the years he was growing up.

Sammy in tears told me of the often told story about the meeting with Sinatra in the 40’s or early 50’s, I think he said it was at the Capitol theater. You on these Lists would know more about the correct dates and times, than me. Sammy told me of a meeting with Frank and talking to him. He said Frank offered to help him. Sammy was very touched by this. He said, Sinatra was with some people and started to walk away and come back to Sammy and said something like “If anyone hits you, let me know.”

Sammy as he tells me this, breaks down in tears and is crying, “How did he know, how did he know.?”

”I do love the man.”

Did Sinatra get the Sands to allow Sammy to stay in the hotel?
As I remember it, blacks were not allowed to stay in the hotel they were appearing in. This was true all over Las Vegas. Now many great black entertainers played here. All the best nightclub acts from New York. That was the genius of Jack Entratter. He handled the booking for the Copa in NY and brought all the best out to the Sands. Lena Horne and others played here but all stayed, after 1955, at the Moulin Rouge on the west side.

About 57 or 58, I can’t remember which, but around that time something came up about Sammy and his “roaming around the hotel” It became a big argument between the guys that felt that these blacks were to be kept in their place and those that looked at Sammy as a entertainer first. I belive it was Jack that first stood up for Sammy. This caused a riff amongst the locals that didn’t want the blacks in the casino at all.

Sammy was playing the Sands and he did not get involved with it at all. Entratter wanted to have Sammy stay at the hotel but got no support from other owners. How Frank got involved I’m not sure but the word was Sinatra was fed up and said Sammy was to stay in the hotel. I hear he flew in to express his view and that was just what Entratter needed and they got it on. It was Jack and Frank saying that they would handle the entertainers and let the owners worry about the casino.

Sammy stayed in the hotel, actually in one of the back buildings, Belmont, I believe. Each of the back building was named after a famous racetrack.

What was the real relationship between Frank and Sammy?
I believe they were very close friends. It started when Sinatra first saw Sammy perform and was drawn to such a great talent. As they got to know each other, I feel Frank became interested in helping Sammy with his career. From what Frank has said to me it started in LA and Sammy being a hit at the clubs there. Frank brought a lot of the Hollywood crowd to see Sammy. Of course Sammy ate it up. He was meeting the people he saw in the movies. Sammy seemed to know a lot about movies. From what things Sammy has said, meeting these great people made a big impression on him. Before he only entertained the big shots and now with Frank’s help, he was getting to know them.

Sammy always talked to me in a way that admitted he was a student around Frank. A student of seeing what the big and powerful were like.

Sinatra was the one who let Sammy grow as a person in the world. Hanging around Frank and listening to him, he realized that he could be more than just an entertainer.

Frank showed him how to be an involved citizen. For Sammy. this was a big change in his view of himself. Sinatra did concerts and movies and nightclubs as a profession but he spent his own time on things that change the world.

Sammy, I believe spent the rest of his life trying to be someone that Frank would be proud of.

What did Sinatra rally think of Sammy and about him doing drugs and stuff? Why didn’t Sinatra stop it?
Sammy did go through a period when he was doing drugs and almost all the time. In was a breakthrough for him. He seemed to be doing it as a “now I’m going to do anything I want” thing. He was now a heavyweight in Las Vegas and after Sinatra left the Sands in 67, Sammy seemed to just do what he wanted when he was in Vegas. He went through , I believe, a terrible time. He tried and did everything there was to do in Vegas. And him being the star he was and so well liked by everyone, he could get anything he wanted.

But lets put this in perspective. Lots of Vegas entertainers came here and did things they would never do back home. Vegas was the place to do these things. So we in the casino business just put up with it. Hell, if Sinatra or us tried to put a stop to these things, we have very few entertainers to put in the main room.

Sinatra did not like what Sammy was doing. He would hear about it and talk to Sammy about it. I know of times when they would meet at some gathering in LA and these two would get into it. Sometimes it lead to them not talking for a while.

In the final days of Sammy’s life it was written that they weren’t getting along. Is that true?
No, that is not true. From what I know, which is from people around Sinatra and Sammy’s family is that toward the end of Sammy life, Sinatra was very depressed in how Sammy looked. A Vegas guy who worked as a bodyguard for Frank at times, told me that if someone asked about how Sammy was doing, in those final days, that Frank would sometimes just walk away. You have to understand Frank to know that he had a hard time facing the death of someone close to him. I was with Frank here in Vegas when Joe Louis died and Sinatra could hardly function. I stopped by that week, to see him in his dressing room. I wanted to show him a picture of Louis and me on the golf course. He ordered me out of the room. I had failed to pick up that he still didn’t want to talk about any of that.

I believe because he acted like that, it made some think that he wasn’t talking to Sammy. But everyone around them knew that Altrovise and Frank talked all the time.

By the way, my personal opinion is that those two, Altrovise and Frank were easily the best friends Sammy ever had. From my own experience, I can say that without Altrovise, he would not have made it to the age he did.

In some ways he was self destructive. She was there and went through it all with him. These phenomenal talented people do some crazy things. In their later year it so important that they have someone close to them that really does love and understand them.

We in Vegas who know these two, were so happy that Frank had a Barbara and Sammy had his Altrovise.

They both were in good hands.