The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show

The Burtons lent their star power to friend Sammy Davis, Jr. for the first episode of his short-lived, eponymous variety show, The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show. The appearance also marked their TV debut as a couple. Elizabeth first met Sammy when she was a child star at MGM. Later, she and Richard had socialized with him and his then wife, May Britt, while Richard was treading the boards on Broadway in Hamlet. (Elizabeth would also unsuccessfully lobby for Sammy to get the part of Cos Erickson in The Sandpiper (1965), a role that eventually went to Charles Bronson.)

Richard appeared first, acting a scene from his Tony-nominated role in Camelot that was a favourite of the late John F. Kennedy. After some staged banter between Sammy and Richard—“I did ask for a team,” Sammy says, hinting that one half of Hollywood’s most celebrated couple is missing—Elizabeth joins them. She says she wants to sing a song for Sammy and his viewers, so she and Richard regale them with “Ar Lan y Môr,” a Welsh folk song that was one of Richard’s favourites. Richard shares their plans to perform Dr. Faustus onstage in Oxford (“They have one condition,” Elizabeth says. “I have to lose twenty pounds.”), before the trio performs “What Do the Simple Folk Do?” from Camelot. The premiere episode also featured Nancy Wilson, Corbett Monica, Augie and Margo Rodriguez, and the Will Mastin Trio.

The show aired in black and white, depriving viewers with colour sets of seeing Elizabeth’s resplendent red dress (“I’m wearing red for Wales,” she says) and Cartier ruby and diamond earrings.