
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990                   TAG: 9005130167
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Short

ENTERTAINER REPORTED NEAR DEATH

Reports describing Sammy Davis Jr. as emaciated and lying in a fetal position were denounced Saturday by the cancer-stricken entertainer's personal physician.

"Yes, he is ill with cancer. He is dying," Dr. Irving Posalski said angrily in a brief telephone interview. "But he is nowhere near the condition that's being reported."

Sources close to Davis, 64, said earlier in the week that he was near death, weighed just 60 pounds and was in the fetal position.

Davis "is not in the fetal position," Posalski said. "He is lying as you or I would be."

The doctor said Davis' weight has remained around 115 to 120 pounds since his release from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in March.

"Sammy is resting comfortably with his loved ones around him, which is as he wants it," Posalski said. - Associated Press

by CNB