12/15/86 People: A New Hit on TV, Ex-Addict Clifton Davis Can Say Amen to His Past - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

catlover79 · 09-16-2011, 10:54 PM

http://www.people.com/people/article...095260,00.html

The Rev. Reuben Gregory is the role Clifton Davis was born again to play. Every Saturday night on Amen, NBC's newest hit comedy, the 41-year-old actor preaches to a prime-time flock of 32.5 million viewers as the handsome, wholesome minister of a Philadelphia church. Every Saturday morning, Davis continues his preparation to be a pastor at a real-life church, the University Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Loma Linda, Calif. Combining 20 years in show business with his childhood as the son of an itinerant Baptist preacher, Davis is a popular pastoral intern with the 5,600-member congregation. "I may not be the typical preacher—the Bible tucked under the arm and the somber look in the eye," admits Davis. "Yet there's been a large transformation in my life, and I want to share that with others—not from behind a clergy collar, but heart-to-heart."

If the Lord loves a sinner, He could not have found better raw material than Clifton Davis. A Broadway and TV performer (he starred in the 1974-75 series That's My Mama), Davis was a self-confessed user of people. "I was committed to getting over with the women, enjoying my life and doing what I pleased," he says. His romantic exploits ranged from a four-year relationship with singer Melba Moore to one-night stands with groupies. He says he also had brief liaisons with Sally Kellerman, Victoria Principal and Nancy Wilson. "I was selfish and cold," Davis admits, "and I felt no shame about it."

At the same time, Davis was becoming a cocaine addict. He started using the drug just after he won a Tony nomination for Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1972; success, he found, brought new insecurities. "You're nervous until you get the next job, and when you get it, you think, 'I got it because I am great! Then the job would end. 'I'm nothing. Nobody loves me.' Finally I got to the point where I said to myself, 'You ain't nothing. Let's get high and don't worry about it.' "

By 1979, with broken relationships all around him and the professional pressure increasing, Davis had become a habitual user. He describes this period as "invading emptiness. It was all going out, there wasn't anything going in." There is an awkward silence while Davis forms his next sentence. It doesn't appear to be an act. Nor is he becoming overwrought with evangelical zeal. Rather he seems to be simultaneously distressed and fascinated by his past life. "Cocaine gently wrings and twists your senses," he says finally, "until the most subtle paranoia slips over you. You don't even realize the personality transformation that's taking place. Suddenly you're another human being."

By 1980 Davis' addiction was destroying his career. "I was so high I couldn't audition, and I didn't show up for a few gigs," he says. "I was coked from morning to night." Although he had earned as much as $250,000 a year from his TV series and guest appearances during the '70s, Davis was now having trouble paying his drug tab. He sold his Hollywood Hills home, spending "half the profits on drugs in six months," and moved to a penthouse apartment. "I went through a quart of vodka daily. No food—just coke. I was skin and bones, about 130 pounds," says the 6', 200-pound Davis.

Not even his girlfriend, dance teacher Ann Taylor, could reach him. The couple met in 1979 while Davis was on an unsuccessful Broadway tryout in Washington, D.C. She moved into his L.A. apartment the next year, but problems arose after several months, forcing her to leave just before Christmas. "I slapped her around a couple of times," Davis admits. "Finally I realized I was in danger of hurting her, so I sent her away. Still she'd call three times a day, saying, 'Don't snort that—talk to me instead.' "

Davis' paranoia became so great that he literally locked out the world, nailing shut the door to his apartment. Just after Christmas he overdosed on cocaine. His secretary saved him. "I was there dying, and she couldn't get me to answer the phone. She used her key to the apartment and pried open the door. I was passed out with my freebase pipe in my hand. She screamed, 'Don't you die on me!' I came to and cussed her out and told her to mind her own business. I drove away my very last friend."

That night Davis received a call that "pierced through my heart like an arrow right into my soul." The call was from his stepbrother in Jacksonville, N.C., where his worried family had held an all-night prayer meeting. "It was a message from God," says Davis. "My stepbrother knew I was about to die. I knelt down and prayed, and my life began to change from that moment on."

After withdrawing from his dependency at his brother's home in Norwalk, Conn., Davis left Hollywood and began studying for the ministry. He married Ann in 1981, while enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Ala. Two years ago he received his theology degree, and next spring expects to complete a Master of Divinity degree from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich.

During those years, Davis came to realize that his troubles "had not been the [entertainment] industry's fault, but mine. I wasn't coping properly. My bitterness melted away. God had given me talent, and I realized I could be a Christian and an actor."

This spring, just as the church had assigned Davis to work near L.A., the producers of Amen were looking for a wholesome co-star to counterbalance Sherman (The Jeffersons) Hemsley's egomaniacal deacon. They knew the real thing when they saw it. "I screen-tested at the same time I was taking my finals," Davis recalls. Although he earns an estimated $35,000 per episode as the wages of his TV saintliness, Davis still wears a pair of $19 shoes from his lean student days, when he would pass the hat after singing in gospel concerts. "The offerings would always add up to almost exactly what I needed to pay the bills."

Today Davis enjoys a life that seems as heavenly as his previous years were hellish. He credits Ann, 37, with being the major influence through his bad times. "I saw the good qualities in Clifton," says Ann. "I always knew they were there." The two, each married before, live in a large, four-bedroom house in Hollywood with their two children, Noel, 6, and Holly, 2½.

At the Adventist Church, Davis has been working weekends with the pastor on church programs in parenthood and marriage counseling. Next March Davis will be named a full-fledged associate pastor. It's been a roundabout pilgrimage for the actor, yet whatever his regrets, he believes the journey was necessary. "I had to go down the path to see my calling," he says. "God turned my life around. I could have been dead. Now just being, and doing good work, is a tribute to His unseen power."

Marvo301 · 09-17-2011, 03:05 AM

Wow! I never knew that Clifton Davis was a former cocaine addict! Praise God that he didn't die and that he put his addiction behind him and turned his life around!

catlover79 · 09-17-2011, 03:49 AM

I knew that part, but never knew he'd dated Victoria Principal!!!! But then, who in Hollywood HASN'T Victoria Principal dated?

Big3sCompanyFan · 09-17-2011, 09:31 PM

32.5 million viewers?? That has to be a misprint!

Even the top rated regular TV show doesn't get that many viewers these days! I mean how viewers a week does 60 minutes get? Maybe 20 million?

I even recall the saying Dancing with the Stars gets around 20 million and the final few season ending episodes of American Idol got about 30 million so there's NO WAY Amen beat both of them!!??!!??

Just for fulll disclosure I CAN'T STAND American Idol and don't really like Dancing With the Stars either! Amen is definitely better than both!

catlover79 · 09-17-2011, 09:38 PM

Maybe it should've said 3.25 million? In any case, I agree that this show is a million times better than the reality/"talent show" crap polluting the airwaves now.

Big3sCompanyFan · 09-17-2011, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catlover79

Maybe it should've said 3.25 million? In any case, I agree that this show is a million times better than the reality/"talent show" crap polluting the airwaves now.

Yeah! 3.25 million sounds a lot more realistic. I mean it's not the Super Bowl! LOL

catlover79 · 09-17-2011, 09:53 PM

Plus, Amen was part of that juggernaut Saturday night lineup NBC had in the mid/late '80s - which also featured 227, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and Hunter. Now THAT'S must-see TV!!!!!

Big3sCompanyFan · 09-17-2011, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catlover79

Plus, Amen was part of that juggernaut Saturday night lineup NBC had in the mid/late '80s - which also featured 227, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and Hunter. Now THAT'S must-see TV!!!!!

Kind of ironic that now there's no black shows on NBC at all right? Or really there's no more black shows on any major network.

I know there are the black networks out there like WB or UPN or whatever or are they gone too?

But on the flip side I think we see more blacks on the big screen.

Mr. Television · 09-17-2011, 10:22 PM

I don't know how many viewers Amen had in the 1980's but I know network viewership was much higher back then. AI can't come close to the amount of viewership that some of the former #1 shows got .

Big3sCompanyFan · 09-17-2011, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuck In The '70's

I don't know how many viewers Amen had in the 1980's but I know network viewership was much higher back then. AI can't come close to the amount of viewership that some of the former #1 shows got .

Who cares because that Idol crap is stupid as hell!! Garbage like that basically killed off normal TV shows!

Mr. Television · 09-17-2011, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big3sCompanyFan

Who cares because that Idol crap is stupid as hell!! Garbage like that basically killed off normal TV shows!

I do agree with that. I wish it and all of that reality crap would die a slow painful death.

catlover79 · 09-17-2011, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuck In The '70's

I do agree with that. I wish it and all of that reality crap would die a slow painful death.

Big3sCompanyFan · 09-17-2011, 10:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuck In The '70's

I don't know how many viewers Amen had in the 1980's but I know network viewership was much higher back then. AI can't come close to the amount of viewership that some of the former #1 shows got .

You forgot Gary Hogeboom in your list of Cowgirl QBs. He played many games for them during the Danny White era I think.

Mr. Television · 09-17-2011, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big3sCompanyFan

You forgot Gary Hogeboom in your list of Cowgirl QBs. He played many games for them during the Danny White era I think.

I try to forget about him. He only started as QB for part of the 1984 season when thankfully Landry went back to White. lol

09-16-2011, 10:54 PM	#1
catlover79 God Bless Val Forum Addict Join Date: May 29, 2006 Location: Bewitched in Ohio Posts: 70,376	12/15/86 People: A New Hit on TV, Ex-Addict Clifton Davis Can Say Amen to His Past http://www.people.com/people/article...095260,00.html The Rev. Reuben Gregory is the role Clifton Davis was born again to play. Every Saturday night on Amen, NBC's newest hit comedy, the 41-year-old actor preaches to a prime-time flock of 32.5 million viewers as the handsome, wholesome minister of a Philadelphia church. Every Saturday morning, Davis continues his preparation to be a pastor at a real-life church, the University Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Loma Linda, Calif. Combining 20 years in show business with his childhood as the son of an itinerant Baptist preacher, Davis is a popular pastoral intern with the 5,600-member congregation. "I may not be the typical preacher—the Bible tucked under the arm and the somber look in the eye," admits Davis. "Yet there's been a large transformation in my life, and I want to share that with others—not from behind a clergy collar, but heart-to-heart." If the Lord loves a sinner, He could not have found better raw material than Clifton Davis. A Broadway and TV performer (he starred in the 1974-75 series That's My Mama), Davis was a self-confessed user of people. "I was committed to getting over with the women, enjoying my life and doing what I pleased," he says. His romantic exploits ranged from a four-year relationship with singer Melba Moore to one-night stands with groupies. He says he also had brief liaisons with Sally Kellerman, Victoria Principal and Nancy Wilson. "I was selfish and cold," Davis admits, "and I felt no shame about it." At the same time, Davis was becoming a cocaine addict. He started using the drug just after he won a Tony nomination for Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1972; success, he found, brought new insecurities. "You're nervous until you get the next job, and when you get it, you think, 'I got it because I am great! Then the job would end. 'I'm nothing. Nobody loves me.' Finally I got to the point where I said to myself, 'You ain't nothing. Let's get high and don't worry about it.' " By 1979, with broken relationships all around him and the professional pressure increasing, Davis had become a habitual user. He describes this period as "invading emptiness. It was all going out, there wasn't anything going in." There is an awkward silence while Davis forms his next sentence. It doesn't appear to be an act. Nor is he becoming overwrought with evangelical zeal. Rather he seems to be simultaneously distressed and fascinated by his past life. "Cocaine gently wrings and twists your senses," he says finally, "until the most subtle paranoia slips over you. You don't even realize the personality transformation that's taking place. Suddenly you're another human being." By 1980 Davis' addiction was destroying his career. "I was so high I couldn't audition, and I didn't show up for a few gigs," he says. "I was coked from morning to night." Although he had earned as much as $250,000 a year from his TV series and guest appearances during the '70s, Davis was now having trouble paying his drug tab. He sold his Hollywood Hills home, spending "half the profits on drugs in six months," and moved to a penthouse apartment. "I went through a quart of vodka daily. No food—just coke. I was skin and bones, about 130 pounds," says the 6', 200-pound Davis. Not even his girlfriend, dance teacher Ann Taylor, could reach him. The couple met in 1979 while Davis was on an unsuccessful Broadway tryout in Washington, D.C. She moved into his L.A. apartment the next year, but problems arose after several months, forcing her to leave just before Christmas. "I slapped her around a couple of times," Davis admits. "Finally I realized I was in danger of hurting her, so I sent her away. Still she'd call three times a day, saying, 'Don't snort that—talk to me instead.' " Davis' paranoia became so great that he literally locked out the world, nailing shut the door to his apartment. Just after Christmas he overdosed on cocaine. His secretary saved him. "I was there dying, and she couldn't get me to answer the phone. She used her key to the apartment and pried open the door. I was passed out with my freebase pipe in my hand. She screamed, 'Don't you die on me!' I came to and cussed her out and told her to mind her own business. I drove away my very last friend." That night Davis received a call that "pierced through my heart like an arrow right into my soul." The call was from his stepbrother in Jacksonville, N.C., where his worried family had held an all-night prayer meeting. "It was a message from God," says Davis. "My stepbrother knew I was about to die. I knelt down and prayed, and my life began to change from that moment on." After withdrawing from his dependency at his brother's home in Norwalk, Conn., Davis left Hollywood and began studying for the ministry. He married Ann in 1981, while enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Ala. Two years ago he received his theology degree, and next spring expects to complete a Master of Divinity degree from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich. During those years, Davis came to realize that his troubles "had not been the [entertainment] industry's fault, but mine. I wasn't coping properly. My bitterness melted away. God had given me talent, and I realized I could be a Christian and an actor." This spring, just as the church had assigned Davis to work near L.A., the producers of Amen were looking for a wholesome co-star to counterbalance Sherman (The Jeffersons) Hemsley's egomaniacal deacon. They knew the real thing when they saw it. "I screen-tested at the same time I was taking my finals," Davis recalls. Although he earns an estimated $35,000 per episode as the wages of his TV saintliness, Davis still wears a pair of $19 shoes from his lean student days, when he would pass the hat after singing in gospel concerts. "The offerings would always add up to almost exactly what I needed to pay the bills." Today Davis enjoys a life that seems as heavenly as his previous years were hellish. He credits Ann, 37, with being the major influence through his bad times. "I saw the good qualities in Clifton," says Ann. "I always knew they were there." The two, each married before, live in a large, four-bedroom house in Hollywood with their two children, Noel, 6, and Holly, 2½. At the Adventist Church, Davis has been working weekends with the pastor on church programs in parenthood and marriage counseling. Next March Davis will be named a full-fledged associate pastor. It's been a roundabout pilgrimage for the actor, yet whatever his regrets, he believes the journey was necessary. "I had to go down the path to see my calling," he says. "God turned my life around. I could have been dead. Now just being, and doing good work, is a tribute to His unseen power." Attached Images
	__________________ "Jesus loves you and He approves this message." "I'm alive. I'm feeling good. I'm trying to live every moment as much as I can." - Valerie Harper, March 2013

09-17-2011, 03:05 AM	#2
Marvo301 I'm NOT a Blockhead! Forum Celebrity Join Date: May 17, 2002 Location: The Great White North Posts: 21,450	Wow! I never knew that Clifton Davis was a former cocaine addict! Praise God that he didn't die and that he put his addiction behind him and turned his life around!
	__________________ Only a life lived for others is worth living. Albert Einstein A life isn't worth living unless it has impact on other lives. Jackie Robinson Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. Benjamin Franklin

09-17-2011, 10:22 PM	#9
Mr. Television 22 Years at Sitcoms Online Forum Icon Join Date: Jun 06, 2003 Location: Somewhere you're Not Posts: 62,125	I don't know how many viewers Amen had in the 1980's but I know network viewership was much higher back then. AI can't come close to the amount of viewership that some of the former #1 shows got .
	__________________ Sonny

09-17-2011, 03:49 AM	#3
catlover79 God Bless Val Forum Addict Join Date: May 29, 2006 Location: Bewitched in Ohio Posts: 70,376	I knew that part, but never knew he'd dated Victoria Principal!!!! But then, who in Hollywood HASN'T Victoria Principal dated?

09-17-2011, 09:31 PM	#4
Big3sCompanyFan Member Senior Member Join Date: Sep 16, 2003 Posts: 2,493	32.5 million viewers?? That has to be a misprint! Even the top rated regular TV show doesn't get that many viewers these days! I mean how viewers a week does 60 minutes get? Maybe 20 million? I even recall the saying Dancing with the Stars gets around 20 million and the final few season ending episodes of American Idol got about 30 million so there's NO WAY Amen beat both of them!!??!!?? Just for fulll disclosure I CAN'T STAND American Idol and don't really like Dancing With the Stars either! Amen is definitely better than both!

09-17-2011, 09:38 PM	#5
catlover79 God Bless Val Forum Addict Join Date: May 29, 2006 Location: Bewitched in Ohio Posts: 70,376	Maybe it should've said 3.25 million? In any case, I agree that this show is a million times better than the reality/"talent show" crap polluting the airwaves now.

09-17-2011, 09:53 PM	#7
catlover79 God Bless Val Forum Addict Join Date: May 29, 2006 Location: Bewitched in Ohio Posts: 70,376	Plus, Amen was part of that juggernaut Saturday night lineup NBC had in the mid/late '80s - which also featured 227, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and Hunter. Now THAT'S must-see TV!!!!!