Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

SAMMY : No, we don't much go for that routine. I know a lot of families who’ve raised their children along that line . . . letting them do whatever they want in order not to repress them and give them anxieties . . . you know . . . like making little fires in the living room . . . or turning over furniture ... or sawing the dog in half . . . but you know as well as I do that so many of these kids turn out to be spoiled brats. May doesn’t hesitate to give them a whack if they deserve it ... I think that’s a lot better than this so called modern, progressive bit. FRED: The old saying, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” SAMMY : That’s right. But she really is quite a mother. And it’s such a full time job — taking care of two kids, as any mother knows. There’s no sleeping late, either. Comes seven in the morning, and Tracy is up and I mean up . . . rocking her crib back and forth until her Mommy wakes up . . . and from then on until bedtime it’s a continuous performance . . . by then she’s really had it . . . but she loves every minute. FRED: Sammy, what does it do to you inwardly to realize that you’re a daddy? Can you express maybe your feelings a little bit about being a father? SAMMY : No. I don’t think that can be expressed. I think that is something that happens and I think the one word that you are suddenly very aware of is responsibility, of course. You can’t really become very articulate about it, because it’s something that each father must feel in his own right. As for me, I know that I have always loved children and I certainly idolize my own. I know what kind of life I want for them. I want them to lead a nice, healthy, good, normal life, to know the value of money, to make sure that they regard their position as human beings more than they regard the position of their father being a star or a performer. This is the most important thing. And they are going to go to a public school and all the other stuff, you know. This is what I want. But every father wants this for his children, and I think in that area we certainly do not differ. Sure, there are going to be a couple of things that I will be able to give my kids that the average guy on the street won’t be able to give his, but by the same token, I worked awfully hard to attain these things and I want to hold on to them to give them when they grow up, but they will work for them. So proportionately everything works out. FRED: How can children of parents who can afford to give them everything — how can they be made to realize the value of money? SAMMY : They work during the summer. I know as soon as Mark — if he wants a bike or something, he’s going to have to go out and work for part of it. He’ll do some chores. He'll contribute a little bit and we’ll naturally give him the rest — to let him know the value of money. There will be no fancy car buying when he’s fifteen and all that jazz. I don’t think there will be any trouble with the girl because girls are kind of frilly and nice, but the only thing that I really want to splurge on is education, because I think education is the most important thing. I would love for my children to go to school here, and I would love to send my daughter to Switzerland for a couple of years. You know, so they get a broadening, let them know a little bit about what goes on in the world that we live in — the trouble that we have in America. I don’t want my kids to grow up speaking only one language. I want them to speak three or four languages. That is the one thing that I really would want to insist upon, because I have been around the world many times now, and I know what happens. Everybody speaks two languages, or three languages. Minimum. Except Americans, and it’s embarrassing. You feel that you can’t communicate with anybody. FRED: What does money mean to you, Sammy, at this point? Security? SAMMY: Well, money has a different point of view than it used to have. In the old days I threw it away by the bucketful. To me today it means a great deal, because it does mean all the niceties of life that one is wont to have. I don't mean by that to go out and have big diamond rings and twenty-four cars, as that used to be my sort of credo of years ago. But to have a security for kids who come into the world |0, who don’t ask to be brought in. I know the word security has come up §i several times now, but it is the most per jj meating word that I can find. You’ve got to be able to look at your children and say. jj. “If something happens to me tomorrow pr they will be taken care of; there will be some sort of life for them.” ;rr I never had insurance on myself. I go) j(l almost two million dollars’ worth of insurance on me now. But due to the fact that suddenly you look at these children and you say, “Boy, I got to insure.” FRED: Sammy, when you’re not work . ing, which isn’t very often, what do you do at home? ,j SAMMY: Very, very little. I usually have a recording session or so, or I sit j around with the kids and spend as much time as I can. My wife and I go out maybe i, once in a week to a restaurant to eat some Italian food or something. Martoni’s is the place we hang out in, in Hollywood. Or we visit mutual friends and maybe have dinner once a week, but most of the " time we stay at home. FRED: Who are your best friends in ’ California? SAMMY : Well, needless to say, Frank 1 and Dean, Peter Lawford, Hugh Benson (who’s an executive over at Warner Bros.) ,j Diane Benson, his wife, was one of the 1 bridesmaids at the wedding. The Milton Berles, Tony Young, Madeline Rhue, Peter Brown. And then we go to a number of ! performers’ houses, and we have a couple of friends who are lawyers that we sit around and talk with, and then of course 1 there are people like Bob and Nancy Culp who we are very close to; Louis Quinn I and his wife. They live in the valley now, i and they’ve got a whole thing going with the horses, so the kids go out and ride their ponies all the time. FRED: Sammy, do you help May shop 1 for the kids’ clothes? SAMMY : No, I don’t help her shop for them. I buy what I want for the kids and I have an unfailing taste when it comes to children’s clothes. And I buy most of my wife’s clothes, too. FRED: You buy May’s clothing? I don’t think that's too well known. SAMMY: Well, I go into a shop. I figure, being around as I do and going out on the town I see something, a particular dress that I think she’d like, I buy it and take it home. FRED: Are the kids’ rooms decorated any certain way? SAMMY : No. Very simple. Nothing at all. We had a nurse for a while, and we just have a mother’s helper now. May for the last two weeks has been taking care of the kids all by herself because of the fact that she had to give the woman who has been there time to catch up on days off. FRED: How big a family do you think you’d like, Sammy? SAMMY : About six, seven kids. FRED: Really, that’s something to say, what a different guy you are. Can you notice it yourself? SAMMY : Well. I think age has something to do with it, too. When we first met each other, the world was my oyster, and it was wild, having had the long and hungry years behind me, and it looked then like a bright horizon — a single guy and you could do all the things you want to