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    Deconstructing Sammy: Music, Money, and Madness
    Deconstructing Sammy: Music, Money, and Madness
    Deconstructing Sammy: Music, Money, and Madness
    Ebook425 pages4 hours

    Deconstructing Sammy: Music, Money, and Madness

    By Matt Birkbeck

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    Sammy Davis Jr. lived a storied life. Adored by millions over a six-decade-long career, he was considered an entertainment icon and a national treasure. But despite lifetime earnings that topped $50 million, Sammy died in 1990 near bankruptcy. His estate was declared insolvent, and there was no possibility of itever using Sammy's name or likeness again. It was as if Sammy had never existed.

    Years later his wife, Altovise, a once-vivacious woman and heir to one of the greatest entertainment legacies of the twentieth century, was living in poverty, and with nowhere else to go, she turned to a former federal prosecutor, Albert "Sonny" Murray, to make one last attempt to resolve Sammy's debts, restore his estate, and revive his legacy. For seven years Sonny probed Sammy's life to understand how someone of great notoriety and wealth could have lost everything, and in the process he came to understand Sammy as a man whose complexity makes for a riveting work of celebrity biography as cultural history.

    Matt Birkbeck's serious work of investigative journalism unveils the extraordinary story of an international celebrity at the center of a confluence of entertainment, politics, and organized crime, and shows how even Sammy's outsized talent couldn't save him from himself.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateSep 3, 2008
    ISBN9780061982415
    Deconstructing Sammy: Music, Money, and Madness
    Author

    Matt Birkbeck

    Matt Birkbeck is the author of A Beautiful Child: A True Story of Hope, Horror, and an Enduring Human Spirit and A Deadly Secret: The Strange Disappearance of Kathie Durst. A reporter for The Morning Call, he served for nearly a decade as a correspondent covering crime and human interest stories for People magazine, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, Reader's Digest, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other periodicals. He lives in Pennsylvania.

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    Reviews for Deconstructing Sammy

    3/5

    15 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Whoa. Talk about finding out more than you wanted to know via a biography...at least more than you could possibly imagine. Unlike many celebrity bios, this well-researched book doesn't sell sensationalism. That's because it doesn't need to, as Sammy Davis Jr.'s life wasn't something that could even be expanded any further. After reading this book, I promptly found a yellow pages (thought they were obsolete) and started scouring for tax attorneys, even though I don't have any tax issues. If nothing else, this biography taught me to never ever mess with the IRS.

      The story uses a different approach to the typical life story, and that is by focusing the book on someone who isn't Sammy. Instead, we learn the story of Sonny Murray, an attorney who ends up picking up the pieces of Sammy's final days. We also have the second main character, Altovise Davis, Sammy's widow. She is quite the character. That's where the "whoa" comes in at the beginning of my review. And finally, there's Davis himself, really the third character.

      If you're a fan of Sammy Davis Jr., you'll still get a good view of his background in music, his Rat Pack friendships, and his wacked-out world. You may not like it, but it's there, including a separate section listing all of the court documents involved in the telling of this book. I think the author has done a very good job of getting the reader involved and not trying to create different personas for the cover subject.

      Sinatra does NOT come off well here, but Dino does. In fact, Dean Martin and his longtime manager, Mort Viner, are the only ones who seem to have lived in reality. Yeah, it's that kind of book. Whoa.

      Book Season = Winter (prepare your taxes)
    • 3/5
      Deconstructing Sammy: Music, Money, and Madness is not an actual biography in the traditional sense. Author Matt Birkbeck shares the stories and memories of those that were closest to the iconic entertainer as well as the findings of Sonny Murray, whose investigation into Sammy’s debts encompasses the bulk of the book. This is not a glamorous portrait of a man who was, and still is, a loved entertainer. This is a look at a man who wanted fame and fortune at almost all costs. He spent without reserve, dabbled heavily in drugs and alcohol, married for convenience, neglected his wife and children, had numerous affairs, made deals with the mob, and surrounded himself with an entourage of mostly self-serving individuals. Those around him could see his decline but few, very few, attempted to put a stop to the disaster that was inevitable – they were being paid to say yes.This was a truly fascinating book. There are so many stories and recollections of other household names. Frank Sinatra “discovering” Sammy and supposedly introducing him to the ways of the mob. Dean Martin was actually a quiet homebody who did not partake in the over-the-top partying of the Rat Pack crew. Sammy ran with a powerful crowd, in the entertainment industry as well as politically. There is even a hint that Sammy knew the true story who shot JFK. What really struck me was how massive the fall from fame and fortune. From buying Chinese carry-out for an entire commercial airliner that was stranded on the runway all the way to his “friends” sneaking into his home and stealing his belongings (furniture, clothes, heirlooms from his friends in the entertainment industry, jewelry) while Sammy Davis laid in bed stricken with cancer. There is also the story of Sonny Murray’s attempts to deal with the largest individual IRS debt on record in 1994 and revitalize Sammy’s name and reputation. The obstacles in dealing with the wife (Altovise), Sammy’s children, the IRS, and Sammy’s former accountants and financial advisors makes for an interesting read.Reading this book was like peeling back layers with a new revelation in each chapter. Entertaining read!
    • 2/5
      What a sad book this is. I almost didn't want to finish it, but couldn't put it down. The book is about Sammy, but it is also about the people in his life and what a life it was. I was shocked by what I was reading and saddened that this was the life of one of the most talented men in the entertainment business. There are so many details my head was spinning and my jaw was dropped. It was like a traffic accident. You don't want to look but you can't help yourself. I'm still a fan of Sammy Davis Jr. but will never think of him in the same way as I did before I read the book.

    Book preview

    Deconstructing Sammy - Matt Birkbeck

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