Lady, You Shot Me: The Life and Death of Sam Cooke

- Sam Cooke is the most successful pop star

of the late 1950s and early 60s, along with Elvis Presley.

To this day, everyone knows his classic pop songs,

such as A Change is Gonna Come, Cupid, or Wonderful World.

Yet no one knows the personal story

of this outstanding pop pioneer,

whose life ended all too soon.

- Everybody wanted to be Sam Cooke's producer.

Because you gonna have hit after hit after hit.

- He had a voice that people listened to.

And there's nothing that crosses a color line,

hatred, discrimination quicker than music.

- He and Ray Charles were probably the earliest figures

who understood that there was a business side to music

that they needed to control.

One thing, he didn't wanna be

was a slave to anybody or anything.

And he wanted to control his music, control his finances.

- He had his own publishing company,

he had his own label, he was kind of an entrepreneur.

- There were so many layers to his music,

he could sing pop, he could sing soul,

he was the future of black America through music.

- His connection with Mohammed Ali was no accident.

Martin Luther King and those two guys, they were kind of

a holy trinity of Black Culture of that time.

- To this day, Sam Cooke's entire story

has yet to be told, for the simple reason

that his story is mainly dictated

by those who control his music rights.

That's why this film will have

to do without Sam Cooke's great music.

Instead it concentrates on his business activities

and the circumstances surrounding his violent death.

- Sam, come sit, make yourself at home.

What year, we're reminiscing today

and using all time old time goodies and all that stuff.

- His last interview with Dick Clark, he told Dick Clark,

I'm gonna be on Bandstand again,

but I won't be performing, I'll be the producer.

I'm gonna be the guy behind all the hits.

I'm not just gonna be the one having the hits.

- What do you hope to do in the future,

you're doing different things now, aren't you?

Yeah, well now, Dick,

I'm working mostly with other young singers--

- Wait a minute, what would be the greatest thing

in the world, that could happen to you,

if you had the choice?

- The greatest thing to happen to me,

if all the singers I'm connected with had hits.

- I will knock on wood and hope that the whole thing goes.

Sam Cooke, ladies and gentlemen.

- But on December 11th, 1964,

the inconceivable happens;

a tragic fall from the height of stardom.

Sam Cooke, one of the most talented singers

and music producers of his generation,

is shot in a shabby motel.

- I got a call at 6:30 in the morning from Larry McCormack

who was on KGFJ, he was the news anchor, to say,

Zelda, I wanted you to know, Sam's been shot.

And I said, What hospital is he in, where is he?

He said, He's not, Zelda, he's dead.

And I lost it for a few days, I just lost it.

- 5:00 in the morning I got a call, woke me up at 5:00,

and it was a dear friend of mine, Lester Sill.

And Lester said, Al, I don't know,

I just heard on the radio, that Sam had been shot.

And I said, Oh my God, okay, I said,

I'm gonna get dressed, I said, What hospital is he in?

And he said, No Al, he's dead.

And that just broke my heart.

So, since my wife is a reporter,

she got up and drove down to the police station

and was able to view the police report,

and they told in the police report what had happened.

- The official story was that Sam met a lady that night

at a bar called Martoni's.

From there, went to another club called PJ's after that.

And then supposedly Sam took her

to a motel against her will.

- Mr. Cooke checking into the motel with the young woman,

went to the room and she goes to the bathroom,

she comes out, and then he goes into the bathroom.

While he is in the bathroom, she quickly rushes out,

grabs her clothes and inadvertently, grabs his clothes.

He comes out, he finds her missing,

he doesn't have any clothes except a coat,

he proceeds the manager's office,

and asks where the woman is that he had checked in with.

And he's told by the manager, Bertha Franklin,

that that woman is not there.

He leaves and he comes back,

and now she has the door closed,

she doesn't want to talk to him anymore,

reportedly he pushes open the door,

kind of breaks the stripping down,

comes in and begins to harass her,

and then physically assault her.

While they are struggling and tumbling she reaches over,

grabs the gun and she shoots him.

After she shoots him and he proclaims, Lady you shot me,

he still comes after her where upon she grabs some kind of

a large stick, which was a large broom handle or something

and she proceeds to beat him until he collapses.

- Certainly, White America saw the clean cut

almost collegiate singer and thought to themselves;

How could he be in a motel in L.A. and died being shot in,

the newspaper said a seedy situation?

- This was really troubling to the Black community.

Did he really make a silly mistake, wrong place,

the wrong time in a seedy motel?

Was he set up?

I don't know.

- There were more things about the way Sam died

that didn't make sense than what did make sense.

- Walter Ward, who was the lead singer of The Olympics,

he said, Yeah Joel, he said, He was murdered,

he was not, nothin' happened that night, you know.

The way they say it happened with the motel,

he said that was all made up.

- What really happened, nobody knows,

except the woman that killed him and the girl

that took his pants and was hiding in an alleyway.

- Elisa Boyer supposedly is the cause of my uncle's death.

- She actually, a month after Sam was killed,

was busted in a prostitute sting operation.

- I would like to see an interview with her saying,

Yeah, Sam tried to rape me that night.

- Sam Cooke was a star that shone very brightly,

but just for a short period in time.

Some artists are tragic figures,

Sam just had a tragic ending, he wasn't a tragic figure,

he was a very good person.

- The number one black artist in the world

has kidnapped a prostitute and is gonna try to rape her.

I wouldn't buy that story!

Come on, you know, why, why?

He was not a violent guy.

He never, I never saw him get angry,

I never saw him wanna hit anybody or do anything violent.

So, it's hard for me to believe that that's the story,

that's what happened, I don't know.

- It could have been the police, it could have been the mob,

it could have been, you know, it could have been

the last wife, everybody needs to be a suspect.

- I don't know if we'll ever get to the bottom of it

and find out what really really happened.

- Sam Cooke's tragic murder,

to this day it is regarded as

one of rock and roll's greatest mysteries.

But without a doubt, Sam Cooke's significance

reaches way beyond the pop charts.

I have a dream today.

With this faith, we will be able to work together,

to pray together, to struggle together,

to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together.

- Unfortunately, his memorable song,

A Change Is Gonna Come, can't be played in this film.

It is considered a musical heritage of the United States.

50 years after Martin Luther King's murder,

it's more relevant than ever.

- A Change Is Gonna Come is something that will be forever

connected to the Civil Rights Movement.

When Obama was running for president the first time

and the song surfaced at rallies for Obama,

and Obama quoted the lyric, A Change is Gonna Come,

that felt to me like, Wow, Sam Cooke's prophecy

had come true from the time of his life here

and the time of Obama being elected president.

And it really felt like that was the complete arch

of the story of that song.

- When I hear A Change Is Gonna Come, it's so sad

because he bares his soul in that song,

it's so painfully moving to listen to Sam Cooke sing

A Change Is Gonna Come.

- A Change Is Gonna Come, he said,

was the hardest song that he ever had to write.

And the song was never intended to be on an album by Sam,

it was intended to be on an album by other artist,

and the proceeds would go to Martin Luther King's SLC.

- But the song was not released as planned

on the album, The Stars Salute Martin Luther King Jr.

And so far, there is no information indicating

the royalties were ever donated to charity.

At that time, Sam Cooke had already relinquished

total control of his entire body of work to Tracey Limited,

a company with an unclear ownership structure,

founded by Sam Cooke's manager, Allen Klein.

- There are definitely people, who feel very strongly

that Allen Klein had something to do with Sam Cooke's death

and that it had something to do with the publishing rights

and the ownership of the music.

- He would never have agreed to have someone else

own the rights to his music.

This was very important to him to have his own company