A Conversation with the Mann (35 page)

“And if you haven't caught his act yet, might I humbly suggest you do so before you're the last person on the planet who hasn't,
because this young cat is a definite sensation. He is going places, and I mean that, babe. Ladies and gentlemen …”

Jesus … Holy … He was talking about—

“Mr. Jackie Mann!”

Next thing I know there's light washing out my eyes and the thunder of twelve hundred clapping hands in my ears. Clapping
hands. Some whistles. For me.

And I just sat there. All the shows I'd done, all the minutes into hours I'd put in onstage, and the best performance I could
come up with was to sit there wide-eyed and starstruck no different than some straight-from-Iowa kid?

No. Oh, no. Half my life I'd been working over one fantasy or another about a moment like this. If it never came again, I
wasn't going to let it pass me by now. So, I did a Jeff Chandler—a little stand, a little wave, sending some of it Sammy's
way, along with a look and a smile and a mock-scold wag of the finger that said: You know better than to make a big deal out
of me, Sammy.

I sat back down, thought, over the fading applause, I heard Charlton Heston say: “Yeah, Maxie's. Kid puts on a heck of a show.”

Chuck. The big phony.

Sammy got back to his act, got back to singing and dancing and impressions and instrument playing, and, and, and …

I couldn't pay attention to any of it, ruined for watching, too caught up in the brief moment when, like him, and thanks to
him, I was a star. Rifting on that, trying to hold the receding past tight in my mind, I missed the next two hours of show.
It was only Sammy's finale of “Birth of the Blues,” so knock-your-socks-off, that was able to yank me clean of visions of
my elevated self.

To a standing O and dripping with sweat from laying down a wall-to-wall performance, Sammy waved good night. The other duo
of the trio exited, sweaty from having the nerve to stand onstage while Sammy did all the heavy lifting.

The houselights came up, and with them another buzz about Sammy and wasn't Sammy sensational and how there's nobody more sensational
than Sammy.

On his way out Jeff Chandler threw me a wave, asked: “See you at King's?”

As though I had so many other things stacked up on my social calendar, I gave a thoughtful frown and a bit of nod that didn't
commit one way or the other. “Probably see you there,” I said, not knowing where or what
there
was.

I tried to flag a waiter, pay my bill.

The Mexican guy came by, said: “Everything is taken care of, Mr. Mann,” and said it animated, like the biggest disaster of
the night would be me trying to offer my own money for something.

I asked him about King's.

“Oh, yes, sir. Will you be going?”

“… What is it?”

“King's Restaurant. Open all night.” He looked over the exiting crowd. “And when you're a hardworking movie idol, you can't
possibly go to bed before the sun comes up.” That got salted with a little spite.

“Nice joint?”

“Sure, amigo. I go there all the time. Right after I finish a round of golf with Ike. I can't say die place is friendly to
my people. Don't know how they feel about yours.”

Maybe it was the hour, maybe it was a night of pinballing from table to table being a hey-boy for every famous face in town,
but the waiter was feeling himself.

He said: “You should go.”

“You just said—”

“Mr. Davis'll be there. They won't shoot you any trouble with him around. And it'll be good for us.”

I didn't get that “us.”

He explained: “Hell, they're not going to let the Mexicans in until they get used to the coloreds. If you go tonight, I figure
one day, if it's still around, my grandkids might be able to eat at the joint.”

C
RESCENT
H
EIGHTS AND
S
ANTA
M
ONICA
. King's Restaurant. I handed my car over to a valet and went for the door. I got looks but no trouble about it. Like Ciro's,
King's glowed with a stellar shine. Celebrities hanging around smiling, idle-talking. Doing nothing but being famous with
each other.

There was a crush of people to one side of the room. If you eye-balled them hard enough, you could make out, barely, Sammy
Davis in the center of the swarm. I thought of going over, trying to say hello, but figured it would take at least half an
hour to get close to him, and when I did I'd just come off as some gushing fan.

There were some open tables, but I didn't much feel like spending any more time at a table for one. There were groups that
had open seats, but no one in particular seemed eager to have me join them. No one much looked my way. They buzzed from table
to table pollinating each other with kisses to the cheek. They would flash smiles at each other, chat, but all the while their
eyes kept rolling over the room, looking for the next—the next star or producer or personality who was loftier than the star
or producer or personality they were currently smiling at. And when they found them, off they'd buzz again.

No one buzzed in my direction.

The goal was to move up the ladder, not down. A nod from Sammy or no, I was still just a club comic. A black club comic. I
stood there with all those people, those people I wanted so much to be one with, but my existence didn't add up to anything
more than, or more significant than, room dressing—a chair or table, a piece of furniture to be stepped around. The reality
of my non-stature—the cut of it coming so close after being clapped for and whistled at by the same bunch who, now, didn't
ignore me, they couldn't even see me—set loose a dull sickness in my body. A sharp sadness.

I started to go, and I wasn't slow about it. I couldn't be away from the joint quick enough.

Somebody said my name. Had to say my full name twice before it sunk in that anybody in the restaurant could be—would be—talking
to me.

“Jackie Mann?” A clean-shaven fellow, suited, was moving for me with a hand out. If he was famous, he wasn't famous to me.
He didn't act all celeb. His manner more shrewdish than starry. “Jackie Mann? Chet Rosen, William Morris. Caught your act
down at Maxie's.”

Sure you have
, I thought.
Probably shared a table with ol' Charlie Heston
. But then he went on to compliment me on a couple of my bits, quote them.

He had seen my act.

He said: “You had a hot set. Just the way Sammy said, sensational. You've got real personality onstage.”

“… Thank you.” My sickness was drying up.

“Who are you with?”

“I came by myself.”

A smile. “Your agent, I mean.”

“Sid Kindler.”

Chet gave a little shake of his head. “What agency is he with?”

“He's on his own.”

From his pocket, from a metal holder gold in color, Chet produced a business card. His name, the William Morris name, letters
raised, were the same gold color as the case they'd come from.

As he handed the card over: “When it stops working out, give me a call. Good to have met you, Jackie.”

Two pats to the shoulder, and he was done with me.

Nutty.

It was very nutty: “When it stops working out…”

Other than that, slightly reinvigorated by the encounter, I aborted my exit and stood at the bar some. At one point Janet
Leigh came 'round and introduced herself, said she hadn't caught my act yet but hoped to.

Nice lady. It was all I could do to keep my eyes from straying below her neck.

I thanked her and told her if she ever came down to Maxie's, I'd make sure she was taken care of. As if she had to worry about
that.

Miss Leigh returned to her table without offering any kind of invitation.

Eventually it got to be past three-thirty in the morning. Everyone was still having a smiling, cheek-kissing good time.

I wasn't.

I went back to the hotel.

Doary was there working late, or early, as it was very much the morning. She asked me where I'd been all night and I painted
her a picture of me getting sat stageside at Ciro's, getting applauded by Hollywood royalty, of me hanging and swinging till
just about dawn with all the stars in the sky—painted the picture with broader strokes and brighter colors than the slightly
dull palate of reality.

Doary glowed and smiled, maybe the only real one in the whole of Los Angeles, and gave me congratulations. She asked me what
it was like doing shows, being up onstage in front of all those people.

I performed my standard line: “It's nothing, doll. When you're a star, when the business of show is your life, doing bits
in front of a crowd is nothing at all.”

Telling me she would be done with her cleaning shortly, Doary said she'd love to hear more about my night.

I told her I was tired, some other time, then went up to bed.

I
SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN
L
OS
A
NGELES
, soaked up the sunlight and the starshine. Should have gone back to New York, worked some clubs, made some money. I should
have, because if I had done either of those, if I had done anything other than go to San Francisco, I would have stayed ignorant.
Ignorance has a way of making life so much simpler. You never feel stupid for the things you don't know, or hurt for lack
of an education in finding out how wrong you've always been.

I got an education.

I got one that would twice give sense to the words of two women. The first time would be there, San Fran. The second would
come years later when it all ended where it all began.

I
DIDN'T HAVE ANY DATES
lined up in San Francisco, hadn't planned to go. But people talk. Since my nod from Sammy at Ciro's, in the nightclub circles
I was what people were talking about. Maybe among the stars of Hollywood I was an anonymous face, but to bookers I was building
a name. Keith Rockwell, who owned the Purple Onion, called down. An act had fallen out and he needed someone to fill the bill
and fill it pronto.

I had some days off and I never had a problem making some extra pay. I made the trip to S.F. from L.A. Made it by train, but
I could have floated up the coast, my head having mushroomed to fit my new ego. When I did the city I was treated to more
of that “Mr. Mann”-style of service I was getting addicted to along with the related highs that came with it. The hotel—the
St. Regis—the restaurants where the club picked up the meals, were ail five-star or four-diamond. Whatever I needed—to get
driven here or there, to see sights or go buy this and that—nothing was too much of anything to ask for. I was unbecoming
Jackie Mann. I was becoming Jackie Mann, direct from Los Angeles. Jackie Mann, sensation of southern California and friend
to the famous.

The shows at the Onion were solid. The audiences in the Bay were smart, thoughtful. Like an upscale version of the Village,
more than just coming to get entertained, they came to listen.

I did the week with ease, things having gone so well in San Francisco, my ego kept me where I was, eager to suck up a few
more days of backslaps and of getting whisked around, wined and dined. Just a day or so more of getting drunk on thanks for
coming up and saving the day as only Jackie Mann could.

What I got was just about inevitable. Cocked at such an arrogant angle, I was begging to get slapped down.

The club was Anna's 440. More a coffeehouse. A showcase room. I went to watch, not work. Really, I went to get slathered over,
the uptown act going downtown to see how the other half got entertained. I had Keith phone up, get them to save us a table.
He was sure to make a big deal out of it, let them know that Jackie Mann was coming 'round. When we arrived, I got nothing
but the warm hand. “Hello, Mr. Mann” and “This way to your table, Mr. Mann.” And if all that wasn't enough to make me feel
tops, there was a comic on the bill I'd worked with a couple of times in New York. A guy who, used to be, had no time for
me. When he heard I was in the audience, he came 'round before the show with a big smile and broad hug, told me how happy
he was I was doing so well. He wasn't. He was putting on a performance in hopes, if I bought the act, I'd mention his name
to someone who could help him down the line. The idea of the envy I knew he held and the bitterness of having to swallow it
just to shine me for favors, the idea that I was even worth trying to shine in the first place, it was a cocktail that just
made me all the higher.

The show started. There were comics, a couple of singers. The guy I used to know went on pulling out all stops to impress
me.

Then Lenny Bruce went on.

When he was introduced, different from now, I didn't think one thing or the other. Never having heard of the guy, I had no
expectations. Maybe that's why he hit me so hard.

He took the stage.

He took hold of the mike.

He said things.

More than just standing there cracking jokes, he said things, things about religion and politics and society and race and
all the craziness that seemed to be erupting everywhere. Cool and relaxed, he eased across the stage, taking his time with
his act instead of running from joke to joke. But when he got where he was going, he went at his topics vicious as a shark,
uncaring that some might be offended, and just as happy if they were.