Saturday, Feb. 4, 2006 | 12:32 p.m.
I had the honor of knowing Sonny King for almost five years.
Although I knew a lot about him through conversations with the Las Vegas' Sun's late entertainment writer Joe Delaney, I didn't meet Sonny until May 2001, when I interviewed him for a story about his show "Off the Cuff."
"Off the Cuff" had premiered at the Bootlegger in March of that year.
It starred King and the late Blackie Hunt, two tireless performers who became close friends when they arrived in Las Vegas around the same time in the early '50s.
Both now are gone. Hunt passed away in December 2003, King, Thursday morning.
Several times during the years that I knew him, King commented that he would never retire until he died.
A saloon singer and comedian for almost 70 years, he "retired" at 10:15 a.m. with a smile on his face while listening to his CD "For Losers Only," according to his wife, Peggy.
"I put on the CD and then walked to the kitchen and back," she said. "When I walked out of the room he was smiling so sweet.
"I returned and sat down beside him and he was gone." He was in his 80s, but Sonny never disclosed his age.
King had been home for two days, after spending almost six months in hospitals and rehabilitation centers during radiation treatment for throat cancer and the ensuing recovery process.
"He wanted to come home," Peggy King said. "He told me he was never going to leave home again."
She said he never fully recovered from the cancer treatment and the bouts of pneumonia that followed.
"It took its toll," she said. "He just got tired."
It was the second time he had the disease. The first was in 1992.
At one point she said he told her he wanted to go home.
"I said, 'What do you mean, you are home,' and he said, 'No, home to God, to be with my pals. I love you, but I'm tired.'"
Even so, she said he was in good spirits.
"He said 'I got the last laugh,' and I said 'How do you mean?'" Peggy King said. "He said 'My pals up there thought I would be there in '92. I'm sure I'm going to get a tongue wagging when I get there for making them wait.'"
She had the difficult task of breaking the news to his friends, including Joey Bishop, who is feeble and living a reclusive life in Southern California.
Bishop is the last surviving member of the Rat Pack.
He turned 88 the day Sonny died.
Although King was never considered part of the Rat Pack, he was a close friend of its members, which included Bishop, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Sonny introduced Martin to Jerry Lewis.
Longtime friend Freddie Bell replaced King as host of the Bootlegger revue at the first of the year.
"We were very, very close," Bell said. "Sonny and I have known each other for over 52 years. I'm all shook up about this. He was a sweetheart, a very strong person and a great performer."
Bell said King - a straight man for Jimmy Durante for 28 years - was tough in his younger days.
"I used to joke with him that his greatest ad lib was a right hook," Bell said. "He mellowed over the years."
Bell said he felt funny about taking over for his friend at the Bootlegger.
"I was hoping he would get better and come back," he said.
Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, owner of the Bootlegger, had to make the difficult decision to replace King. She said she has known him most of her life.
"I probably saw him the first time when I was just a kid, running around the pool at the Sands," Hunt said. "I remember him as a sweet man to all us little kids."
She became better acquainted with him when she became a lounge performer herself.
"Sonny was a remarkable man, talent wise and personally," Hunt said. "He was such a good guy. He didn't have a mean bone in his body."
Nelson Sardelli is among the army of friends.
"When I first met Sonny years ago, I thought he and I would not get too close because we were both kind of cocky," Sardelli said. "I once told him 'Someday I want to be so famous that you say hello to me first.'"
Eventually they became very close.
"He was the last of that era of Las Vegas," Sardelli said. "He was part of the real Las Vegas scene. If there was ever a man who was the epitome of what an entertainer is all about, it was Sonny King."
Comedian Cork Proctor was a lifeguard at the Sahara in 1955 when he first meet King.
"I was 22 years old, just out of the Navy and I wanted to be in show business," he said. "I wanted to embrace all the wonderful performers in Las Vegas at the time, and Sonny was one of them."
Watching King, Louis Prima and the other legends of the era, Proctor received his education in entertainment.
"The guy was very professional," Proctor said. "I never saw him when he didn't hit the stage doing 300 miles an hour."
Comedian/musician Peter Anthony, King's friend since the early '60s, perhaps best summed up the passing of his friend.
"He's always been here," Anthony said. "And now, all of a sudden, he's gone.
"What a loss. We'll miss him."
Jerry Fink can be reached at 259-4058 or at [email protected].
archive
