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Sammy Davis Jr.'s Funeral

Date confirmed in “Los Angeles Times” (archived) (“Friday” May 18, 1990)

“Los Angeles Times” (May 19, 1990) (archived)

Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr., a man who lived for the sound of applause, won his final ovation Friday during an emotional memorial service attended by scores of celebrity friends and thousands of fans at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in the Hollywood Hills.

An overflow crowd of more than 2,500 mourners flocked to the Hall of Liberty, a hilltop sanctuary where the showman was eulogized by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others.

"He has answered the curtain call over and over and over again, and now we want an encore," Jesse Jackson said. "Encore, encore no more. Let him rest. Let Mr. Bojangles rest. He has earned it."

Davis' casket was then driven by hearse to a Forest Lawn grave site in Glendale, where he was reunited in a family burial plot with the other two members of the dance trio that brought him his first fame--his father, Sammy Davis, and his adopted uncle, Will Mastin.

A 300-car procession--one of the longest caravans in memory, according to police who monitored the services--forced CHP troopers to briefly close off portions of the Ventura and Golden State freeways in order to speed the mourners to the grave site.

Earlier, a long caravan of limousines had lined the hill to the 1,200-seat Hall of Liberty, where longtime Davis friends Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli took their seats in the front pews.

Sinatra, Dean Martin, Michael Jackson and Bill Cosby were among the honorary pallbearers for the gifted singer, dancer and actor, who died Wednesday of throat cancer in his Beverly Hills home.

After prayers were delivered in English and Hebrew by Rabbi Allen Freehling, the strains of one of Davis' biggest hits, "I Gotta Be Me," filled the hall.

The entertainer's widow, Altovise Davis, dressed in a white suit, was led from her seat at the front of the hall to the podium by state Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

"I thank you all for being here to share this moment as we say goodbye to Sammy," she said softly. "The outpouring of love that we've felt from you during these last few months meant so much to him and has meant so much to my family.

"How lucky we all were to have Sammy in our lives. . . . " She paused, her voice cracking with tears. " . . . And how dearly I will miss him."

As she finished, she looked out at an audience studded with her husband's legion of friends in Hollywood and the entertainment industry--Stevie Wonder, Carroll O'Connor, Ben Vereen, Billy Crystal, Tony Danza, Robert Wagner, Jill St. John, Angie Dickinson, Robert Guillaume, Ricardo Montalban, Burt Reynolds, Milton Berle.

After personal recollections by friends, who included Willie Brown and tap dancer and actor Gregory Hines, Jesse Jackson took the podium, somberly recalling Davis' victories over racism and remembering him as "not the last of a kind . . . Sammy was the only of a kind.

"He calmed the savage and mean people," Jesse Jackson said. "He made the best come out of the worst of us. He lifted a race as he climbed. By his stripes he healed a nation. . . . To love Sammy is to love black and white. To love Sammy is to love black and Jew. To love Sammy is to embrace the human family."

Outside the hall, in an open-air courtyard, hundreds of fans who had arrived too late to find seats listened to the tributes on portable speakers.

"We didn't mind," said Joe Larsson, 69, who drove from Sunland with his wife, Betty. "We've followed him his whole life. We've enjoyed him."

"In this day and age, not many stars would want a public funeral," said Don Taylor, a Forest Lawn official. "But to Sammy, the public was his life. He wanted the public here."

The nearly two-hour service ended to the bars of "Mr. Bojangles," one of Davis' signature songs. Seven members of his staff carried Davis' ornate bronze casket, blanketed with yellow orchids and white roses, to a waiting hearse for the two-mile drive to Forest Lawn's Glendale cemetery.

Scores of fans lined Los Feliz Boulevard to catch a glimpse of the hearse that bore Davis' casket. Some held signs that read: "Sammy, We Love You."

While 12 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft buzzed overhead, carrying crews of television cameramen, a select group of mourners gathered for a private 20-minute burial service behind a brick-and-stone wall in the Garden of Honor.

His family had purchased the 40-by-40-foot grassy site in the early 1960s so that Davis could be buried near his father and uncle, both vaudeville legends. The two men had shaped the young Sammy Davis Jr.'s career, stoking his talent for music and mimicry in the 1930s and '40s as they performed as the Will Mastin Trio.

At the grave site, Jesse Jackson said quietly: "Sammy lives in us. He lives in our hearts, in our dancing feet, in our song."

Jesse Jackson then broke into applause, shouting, "Let the heavens rejoice! Let the heavens rejoice!" Around him, the friends of Sammy Davis Jr. joined in the ovation.

The applause carried beyond the brick wall, infecting Davis' fans. Some wept. Some remembered.

When Rachel Arizmench, 53, of La Puente, asked a security guard if she could join the burial service, the guard replied, "It's just family."

Arizmench replied: "We're all his family."