Sammy Davis Jr with his guns Video!

We forget that many of those actors were greatly respected and also greatly loved by their friends. The members of the Rat Pack, which included Sammy Davis, Jr., were actually real friends with one another. Some were also singers but mostly we remember them all by their fictional screen appearances but they also lived real lives with all the experiences ordinary people usually lead (except where money was concerned). Although they were celebrities, they had no power in any sense, no more than Paris Hilton. Did you know Paris Hilton is a direct descendent of George Mason?

Did you also know that Dean Martin's son was killed on active duty in the Air Force. It pretty much devastated him. John Ritter did an excellent TV special about the old singing cowboys, his father Tex Ritter being one of them, but it was about as cheerful as a visit to a graveyard.
 
If you believe what you find using google:

A quote from Sammy's Bio:

"According to the "Fastest Gun Who Ever Lived," Bob Munden, Davis was the second-fastest draw in Hollywood, trailing only Jerry Lewis. Davis presented Munden with a customized Colt Peacemaker in recognition of Munden's skill after they appeared together on "The Mike Douglas Show" (1961)."
 
Friends, gun nuts... Hey, for $3700 I could have had the Colt Cobra Sammy Davis, Jr. gave to Jack Lord.

www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/55/lot/18376

And the holster.

lot71206.jpg
 
Hollywood has precious few gun enthusiasts any more. Tom Selleck, Clint Eastwood, Gerald McRainey that I know of. Anyone else?
 
The summer I graduated from high school (1960) we went to see Sammy Davis, Jr. at a nightclub in Buffalo, NY. After singing, dancing, singing and dancing together, playing the trumpet and then the drums, he came on stage with his fast-draw rig on, and proceeded to handle the SAA like in the link from "Gunsmoke. Throughout his impeccable timing and graceful movements were a real treat to watch.

Famous people who were also shooters includes Roy Rogers (of course) who was a champion trap shooter with a Model 12 Winchester just like the ones my Dad and I used; John Phillip Sousa, the "march king" who wrote "Stars and Stripes Forever" and lots of other marching band music was also a Model 12 shooter and trap champion. There was an actor named Mason Alan Dinehart who played minor roles in TV dramas in the 1950s who was lightning fast, before the days of video tricks. His grandfather who was a B-list movie star in the 1930 and '40s was as well.

I tried to learn the "drop the dollar" trick when I was a kid: Hold your gun hand forearm level with the ground, elbow at your waist with a silver dollar on top of your fingers, palm down. Without any upward movement of your gun hand draw the gun, and if you're fast enough you can hit the falling coin with the barrel of the gun on its way up to level. I got so I could do that pretty regularly, but the gun had to be very loose in the holster and the holster hung pretty low so couldn't be carried that way. I was using a Hahn CO2 powered BB gun that was real close to what a SSA looked like and felt like:

http://gunfightergulch.com/Gulch/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23

Much later (like 50 years later) I tried it again using a Ruger Super Blackhawk and leather I bought from one of the mail order catalogs I get all the time. The Ruger is a lot heavier than I remember the BB gun being and my reaction time has suffered so I couldn't do it like I used to. So I guess my gunfighter days are over now. The .44 wasn't loaded of course, I still need my right leg.
 
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