Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco, but that was only metaphorical. Sammy Davis Jr. left his eye in San Bernardino, and that was all too real.
Departing Las Vegas for a Hollywood recording session, Davis was driving through the Cajon Pass on Route 66 when he came upon a strange sight. A car had stopped in front of him, apparently in preparation for turning around at Kendall Drive.
Davis, who was new to driving and not very good at it, plowed his new lime green Cadillac convertible into the car. His face bounced off the cone in the middle of the steering wheel.
It was just after 7 a.m. on Nov. 19, 1954, 65 years ago.
“I had no control,” Davis said later. “I was just there, totally consumed by it, unable to believe I was really in an automobile crash.”
This was a life-changing moment in the life of the 28-year-old nightclub entertainer, one that also turned San Bernardino upside down not once, but twice.
To piece together what happened, I read relevant portions of Wil Haygood’s “In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr.” as well as coverage in The Sun retrieved for me by colleague Joe Blackstock.
The two women in the other car were injured but survived. Davis and his valet, Charlie Head, were transported to County Hospital, which was for the indigent. Emergency personnel merely saw two black men.
County Hospital was full. Davis lay on a gurney as word began to spread as to who the bloody patient was. A Sun reporter went to the hospital — “Sammy Davis Jr. Suffers Eye Injury in S.B. Mishap,” the next-day headline read — and wire services reported the accident.
By 10:30 a.m., Davis had been transported to Community Hospital, at Fourth Street and Arrowhead Avenue, and the city’s ear and eye surgeon, Fred Hull, had been called. Community was full too, but the head duty nurse cannily made room for the celebrity by discharging a couple of nobodies.
Davis pal Jeff Chandler, an actor, rushed to San Bernardino to ensure his friend got the best care even out in the sticks. So did Jerry Lewis, a decade before “The Disorderly Orderly,” and Janet Leigh. Heady stuff.
Hull examined his patient and decided Davis’ left eye was so badly damaged it would have to be removed. Davis was more concerned about his injured leg, because as a dancer, he needed both legs more than he needed both eyes. Hull assured him his leg would be fine.
At 6 p.m., Davis was taken to surgery — in the aging hospital, this meant wheeling him outdoors to get to the surgery area — which was over in 45 minutes.
By now the hospital switchboard was jammed with calls from friends like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Eartha Kitt. Flowers arrived. Visitors included Tony Curtis, Ava Gardner, Jack Benny and Eddie Cantor. Cantor is said to have slipped a Star of David around the neck of Davis, who not long after converted to Judaism.
On the other end of the social rung, the hospital’s few black employees, many in the kitchen, regarded Davis with awe and concern.
A nightclub owner friend flew from Philadelphia, said he would pay all the hospital expenses and told the staff not to skimp.
“Extra Jell-O for Mr. Davis, stat!” Just kidding.
The accident, needless to say, was terrible, and Davis spent much of his hospital stay in darkness, head swaddled in bandages, listening to the radiator hiss and wondering if he had a future in show business. At his request, a hi-fi stereo was installed at his bedside, courtesy of music retailer Jean Lier.
Frank Sinatra swept in, grilled Hull condescendingly on his credentials and told Davis he would be staying at the singer’s Palm Springs house when he was discharged.
That took place on or about Nov. 27. Davis left Community Hospital wearing an eyepatch and with sacks of fan mail. He promised to return sometime to help raise money for the facility.
“He said he would do it, but when he left, we said, ‘He’ll forget,’” hospital administrator Virginia Henderson told Haygood.
But four years later, he kept his promise.
A new Community Hospital had been built, on 17th Street and Western Avenue, but new equipment was needed. The National Orange Show’s Swing Auditorium was the benefit’s venue. Davis had performed there in 1953, the year before his accident, as part of the Will Mastin Trio.
Davis had returned to the stage within weeks of his accident, wearing a prosthetic eye or an eye patch, and was now a bigger star than ever.
It was Nov. 15, 1958, and 7,500 tickets were sold at $2, $3 and, for the big spenders, $5. Many women wore fur. Hull was there in a tux. Henderson introduced Davis, who had brought three buses from Hollywood with an eclectic array of performers.
They included James Garner, Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll, Shirley MacLaine, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Danny Thomas and, for some vaudeville flavor, an acrobatic act named Nita and Pepe.
And Judy Garland.
Introduced by Davis as “the world’s greatest entertainer,” Garland wore a woman’s tuxedo, sat on a stool and, egged on by Davis, performed eight songs, including “Swanee,” “The Bells are Ringing” and “Over the Rainbow.”
Henderson recalled to Haygood that Garland wouldn’t go onstage without vodka, so the hospital administrator got a security officer to go to a liquor store. Garland had a flask handy. “She gave a performance like you wouldn’t believe. She sang one song after the other,” Henderson said. “But she was higher than a tick.”
Davis accepted a gift onstage from the hospital: a scroll that illustrated highlights of his career, which nearly moved him to tears. He tap danced, did impressions, engaged in a mock quick-draw contest with Garner and belted the anthem-like “Let Me Sing.”
The event raised $20,000. Davis and his family maintained a relationship with the hospital even past his 1990 death.
As Haygood summed up the night: “All this just because in the wee hours of a quiet morning, on a desolate roadway, a rising-fast singer crashed his lime green Cadillac and lost his eye and lived to tell about it.”
David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, hospitably. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.
