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Amen aired from September 1986 until July 1991 on NBC.

For more on Amen go to the mini-page right here at Sitcoms Online.

An Article From TV Guide ( Jan. 17-23, 1987 Ed.)

Clifton Davis Believes,
This Time, Hollywood and
Drugs Won't Do Him In. Amen!

Now a minister in real life-and on Amen too-the actor feels he's on the right track at last.

By Gail Buchalter

" Cocaine is God's way of saying you're making too much money"

----Robin Williams

It's been 11 years since Clifton Davis co-starred in the ABC series That's My Mama. This season he's come back in NBC's hit sitcom Amen as the Rev. Reuben Gregory, the handsome new minister of the First Community Church of Philadelphia. His character is the foil for Sherman Hemsley, who plays the irascible Deacon Ernest Frye.

Davis's last success more than spoiled him-it nearly killed him. He fled Hollywood in 1980, a victum of drugs and despair.

" I wasn't in California for more than 24 hours when I met a dealer," Davis recalls. " I did cocaine for eight years and I hated myself for not being able to turn it down.I couldn't stop , especially when I started free-basing. I did it because I felt very insecure and didn't think I was talented. My success had come to quickly. I felt comfortable on Broadway, where I had slowly built a foundation, but I was unsure in Hollywood."

Davis is convinced that this time he won't fall before temptation. His belief in God, he feels will make the difference. Thirty credits shy of receiving his Master of Divinity degree from Andrews University in Berrien Springs Mich., he has become associate pastor to a congregation of 5600 at The Lorma Linda University Church of Seventh-Day Adventists in California.Davis said he first felt the calling when he was 17 , but he fearfully ran from it. Years later, he claims , it was different.

" I was ready to die when I found salvation through the Lord, Davis , 41 says. " People didn't know I was strung out. Now, not only am I a minister, I'm on television in that role. That's more than irony; that's a miracle."

Yet Amen executive producer Ed Weinberger( a co-creator of Taxi and The Cosby Show)says he didn't even know about Davis's religious leanings until after he had auditioned. " Clifton was always my first choice," Weinberger says. " Now I can't imagine how we could have done the series without him."

A few of Davis's congregation are stunned that they can watch their pastor on a Saturday evening sitcom, while others, who have known him only as a man of God, are surprised when told of his worldly identity after a church service one day.

" I thought he looked familiar," says Carole Neumann, a member of the Loma Linda congregation. " I just wanted to talk to him about dedicating our baby, Aric, to the Lord. I'm very happy he's here."

" Yes," adds her husband, Tim who is more familiar with Davis's problematic past. " This is a pretty conservative organization. We don't drink, smoke or eat meat. I think his impact will be greater in the long run because he comes from that background."

After the services, Davis says he wants to find a good steak in Loma Linda, a town located about 60 miles east of Los Angeles. He carefully explains that while the church expouses vegetarianism, eating meat is not prohibited.

Then he walks to his almost-paid-for new car, the only porsche turbo in the church's parking lot. Soon he and a reporter are screaming down the highway with the porsce's engine wound tightly in third gear.

Although the church does not allow its ministers to hold other jobs, an exception was made in Davis's case. He has agreed, however, not to accept his pastoral salary of $21,000 as long as he's acting. In accordance with Seventh-day adventice tradition, Davis gives the church an offering of 10 percent of his Amen salary.

Three months into his pastoral internship, Davis complains that he still hasn't been permitted to preach to the main congregation. He has welcomed its members, taught their children and sung a special " song of celebration"; but as one of nine pastors and the newest, he is "at the bottom of the pecking order." He also wishes he had more to do on Amen.

"Last week ( on the show) I finally got to preach a sermon," he says between scenes one day. " I had a four page monologue after weeks of having almost nothing to do." His fellow actors, he says, " were kind of cool at first" to his getting so many lines to recite, " but after an hour of them stumbling over their feelings, they were supportive.

"Sherman has long, incredible, tour de force scenes, week after week, and that's the way it should be-he's the star," Davis says. " I'd like to see the show more religious, but I realize it isn't about converting Christans; it's entertainment."

Hemsley agrees that Amen isn't about religion. He adds: " Clifton and I get along great. We have a fantastic rapport-he listens."

" We get along but we don't hang out," Davis says. " Sherman doesn't get involved in religion on the set. In fact, when it gets too heavy for him, he leaves the room.

" I don't want to alienate people with a holier-than-thou attitude, but I am about Christianity and the belief that you have a better life through faith in God."

The next day, surounded by the very secular world of Le Dome, an ultra-fashionable Los Angeles restaurant, Davis reflects on unhappier days.

" I used to have a problem with women," he says. " I never trusted them, probably because I was completely untrustworthy. It was always easy for me to hit on women-even married ones-and while I was seeing someone else."

During his bachelor years, Davis was linked with a number of actresses, including Sally Kellerman and Melba Moore. His relationship with Moore began as her marriage was ending. Yet after several years they broke up, and Davis continued to prowl.

This time around Davis has come to California bolstered by his faith and a family. Living with his wife Ann, and their two children , Noel, 5 ,and Holly, 2, in a rented house in the Hollywood Hills-so bucolic it even has deer poking their heads through the shrubs that grow up the hill behind the swimming pool-Davis can't wait to get home at night.

"This is the Clifton I first met," says Ann Davis. " We started out as friends and after a couple of months began dating."

She was teaching dance in Washington, D.C., and he was living in Los Angeles, but they kept their relationship alive via telephone and Davis visits.

" I didn't realize it, but he was doing drugs the whole time. Finally one night when we were on the phone he admitted it," Ann recalls.

" He became so paranoid that he thought I was going to bust him. Thats when he started hitting me. But I could never hate him. When he'd come off the drugs, he'd be so sorry for what he'd done. Finally he sent me away so he wouldn't hurt me."

" I had spent all my money on cocaine and I was broke," Davis admits. " I was probaby spending more than $60,000 a year on that drug and that's a conservative estimate. I got so paranoid, I even nailed my apartment door shut."

It was a bleak Christmas Eve in 1980 when Davis wrote his will on a linen napkin. The phone rang. He never answered it when he was high, Davis says, but this time , for some reason, he did. It was his stepbrother Carlyle, then a chaplin in the navy, calling to tell Clifton the family was worried about him. Their mother had dreamed that he was dying.

" She was right," Davis says, " I was all alone and had given up. But my family reached me at the right time and helped me save my life."

Davis went to his mother's house in Jacksonville, N.C. traded in his drugs for prayers, and married Ann soon afterward. He returned to Oakwood College, in Huntsville Ala., the school he had brieftly attended nearly two decades earlier, and was graduated in 1984 as one of the top theology students in his class.

" I went back to Oakwood to start over. For the first week I thought about majoring in music. As a kid I sang in the school choir. I had written " Never Can Say Goodbye," which the Jackson 5 recorded. It sold more than 2 million copies. But after talking to several advisers, I felt God could use me in the ministry."

" When Clifton first left Hollywood, he had lots of offers to go back," Ann says. " Although the money was good and he loves acting, he knew he wasn't strong enough to refuse all the temptations that are here-we both knew it was too soon.

" I would tell him,' Clifton, finish what you start.' By the time he finished college he was so encouraged he went on to graduate school. Now I know he'll be OK. Clifton's got the wisdom of a serpent and the gentleness of a dove."

Hollywood can offer easy money, women and drugs, but Davis doesn't see himself falling for the same evils again.

" With the help of God, I feel I can accomplish anything. I know he spared my life for a purpose. Besides temptation isn't a sin; it's the giving in to it," Davis laughs.

For another article on Amen go to http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jA1PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2gIEAAAAIBAJ&dq=amen%20tv%20show&pg=5356%2C1671407

To see some clips of Amen go to http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=amen+tv+show&aq=0

For 2 great reviews on Amen go to www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/amen/amen.htm and www.televisionheaven.co.uk/amen.htm