When You Play with Fire...

In 1977, after 30 years in show business, George Kirby had one of the most easily recognizable faces in America. The only problem was that too few people attached a name to the face. He was, "uh, you know, the black comic who does impressions of James Cagney and Mae West. You know, the fat guy who sings and dances. Oh, what's his name?" But 1977 should have changed all that. The goddess of the big time who elevated Redd Foxx from the category of "black comic" to a prime-time institution finally flirted with Kirby. A television pilot was in the works and he'd been offered his first major film role, in Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective. Kirby would have been a dawning superstar in 1977, moving at last into the ranks of Pryor, Foxx and Cosby. But something happened.

•

George Kirby stood on the top step of the short flight that separates the casino from the main showroom of the Landmark Hotel in Las Vegas. Inside, the 15-piece band was plowing through the first song in the show, the sounds of brass and reeds muffled by the closed doors. Kirby had the wireless microphone tucked into his armpit. He shuffled a stack of keno entries and watched anxiously as the numbers winked up on the illuminated board above the casino floor. A middle-aged couple approached him timidly for an autograph. He flashed the generous row of white teeth that is his trademark and talked to them. Naturally, he was telling a joke. They laughed and walked away reluctantly. The high point of their trip to Las Vegas would be the story of their encounter with the famous black comedian.

Somewhere out on the floor, one of the double-knit tourists hit the jackpot and the crowd drifted toward the clang of success. Kirby's smile faded and for a moment the lines appeared around his mouth and across his forehead. Then, almost immediately, the mask returned and he was the confident, easygoing entertainer again. He reminded one of a cork bobbing in a storm, this big, brown-skinned man. George Kirby was treading water, hanging on by sheer will power as both the past and the future closed in on him. His show was going bankrupt. He had a Federal conviction hanging over his head for selling a pound of heroin to an undercover cop. He was about to go to trial on five state charges of trafficking narcotics. His image, his career, maybe his life had all been shattered into a million pieces.

The band went into the last eight bars of the first tune. Kirby hitched up his smile, took his microphone and slipped into the auditorium to introduce the next act. There was a murmur of laughter as he slid into a funny story--then applause for the next performer.

And Kirby back outside again, checking the keno cards against the numbers on the board. "I'll hit it yet," he said. "I'll save this show." He whooped and rushed down to the cashier's cage. The payoff on his dollar entry was $2.50. Like a lot of things in George Kirby's life lately, it was too little too late.

•

The face hasn't changed much from the days when he was a fixture on our television sets. His career as an impressionist goes back to the medium's infancy: kinescope, Garry Moore, Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan. The smooth dark skin, the close-cropped hair and the dazzling teeth take a decade off his 54 years. He's a solidly built man, but the ample stomach makes him more accessible, a sort of giant Teddy bear. People are attracted to him. At the Landmark, they came to talk, to ask for autographs, to wish him luck. He had maintained his innocence throughout his ordeal and had appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Because there was another trial ahead, he couldn't say much about his legal troubles.

"People who know me know that this is not my style," he said. "Most people I come into contact with say, 'We're sorry and we're praying for you.' What hurts, though, is the narrow minds, people who didn't care for George Kirby in the first place." If some of his acquaintances have retreated, it may be because they began to suspect they didn't really know him after all. For years, he had the reputation of being a friendly and generous man who overcame his own heroin addiction to become one of the country's finest comic impressionists.

Because of that, the old friends remain loyal and refuse to believe what they've read or heard. "My first reaction was that someone took advantage of George, that he was a victim of circumstance," said Samuel Nolan, a childhood friend who has become first deputy police superintendent of Chicago. Others who've known him over the years would agree. They can't picture Kirby involved in drugs again. But they will say he is naïve, generous to a fault and quite likely to get into a situation in which he would find it difficult to say no. "His concern," says Nolan, "has always been for the person who didn't make it up the ladder."

The picture of Kirby painted by law-enforcement officials is a very different one. In interviews and in court records, they call him a major narcotics dealer who boasted about his connections with organized crime in Chicago and New York. Any attempt to understand the strange rise and fall of George Kirby requires an effort to reconcile two opposing images of the man.

•

Police officials say Kirby's name turned up in 1976 during their investigations of narcotics traffic in Las Vegas. For nearly a year, an undercover police officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police tried to find the right introduction to Kirby. When his name appeared in the files of Federal agencies, the two groups joined forces and an informant provided the contact.

On March 1, 1977, Kirby met a man named Dave in the Omni Bar of the Hughes Executive Terminal at the Las Vegas airport. Kirby had been told that Dave was interested in buying. As the two men talked, another Las Vegas undercover man and a Federal agent watched from an adjoining booth. Kirby allegedly told Dave he had connections with "families in Chicago" and that he could get him as much cocaine as he needed. Dave wanted to know the price of an ounce. Kirby went to a telephone. An ounce would cost $1400, he said. Dave was interested. Kirby promised to meet him at the bar on the following evening. The next night, Dave and his friends were back, but Kirby failed to show up.

Six days later, Dave called Kirby. The impressionist apologized. He had been delayed and by the time he got to the Omni, Dave had left. But if Dave was still interested, he could make the necessary arrangements. At 9:50 on the night of March seventh, a silver-gray pickup truck pulled up at Kirby's house. A man and a woman went inside, stayed for 25 minutes and left. At 10:45, Kirby got into his yellow Pinto and drove to the Omni for his second meeting with Dave. He was followed by the men who'd been clocking arrivals and departures at the Kirby residence.

After some small talk, George and Dave left the bar and went into the terminal parking lot. It was too dark for Dave to weigh and test the merchandise, so Kirby invited him to his house. In a living room cluttered with memorials from past performances and certificates for Kirby's good works on behalf of charitable organizations, Dave took out a small vial of cobalt thiocyanate and tested the powder in a plastic bag that Kirby handed him. It was cocaine. Kirby said the price had gone up to $1500, but he agreed to let Dave give him the rest on the following night. "During that time," Dave would testify in court, "he asked me if I was interested in making some good money, that he had some connection for heroin. And he told me he could get large quantities if I was interested." In a curious juxtaposition of two worlds, Kirby signed some photographs of himself for Dave's friends. The names he was given were the names of the other undercover policemen involved in the case.

•

George Kirby was born on June 8, 1924, in Chicago's Cook County Hospital. There was a strong show-business tradition in his family. His father played several stringed instruments and his mother was a singer. But the most successful members of the family were his aunt and uncle, who worked in vaudeville as Black Patty and Tom Cross. Despite the family roots, Kirby wasn't interested in entertainment. "In those days, the only guys I'd see with $100 bills weren't entertainers but the guys on the corner with the big hats and the baggy suits--the gamblers. I used to say, that's where the money's at."

But the talent was obviously there. During the Depression, he and his friends (continued on page 260)Play With Fire(continued from page 130) shined shoes and collected pop bottles for spending money. If they didn't have enough for everyone to go to the movies, they made sure George got in. After the show, he'd re-create the entire film, complete with dialog, sound effects and imitations of Cagney, West and W. C. Fields. Another time, he was sent out of class for misbehaving. "I hear you do an imitation of me," said the principal. "Let's see it." The principal was impressed enough to send him back to class. There was also his talent for music. "His parents didn't have a piano," says Winni Russell, who lived in the same building. "As soon as he heard someone moving around in our apartment, George would be knocking on the door and asking to play the piano." He never took lessons, but he learned to play very well.

When Kirby was 16, he left school and got a job as a bus boy at Joe Louis' Rhum Boogie Club on the South Side. Soon he switched over to the Club DeLisa, which featured some of the top black entertainment in Chicago. "I'd come in at four P.M. and start cutting ice cubes, setting up the serving bar, and finally go behind the bar myself." Friends from that era remember a hard-working youth who wanted desperately to be in show business. "When he was supposed to be washing glasses, he'd keep trying to get onstage," recalls Russell. "They fired him at least once, but that didn't keep him from trying." Before the show, Kirby would set up a semicircle of chairs and perform for the entertainers. He did scenes from movies and played the part of the audience as well. "Get off my foot." "I can't see." But his budding career was interrupted by World War Two. He went into the Army and traveled with a work battalion.

After the war, he went back to Chicago and started working again, this time on the stage. "I remember when he got his first gig at the Regal Theater," says Winni Russell. "His mother was so proud. She was a matron at another theater, but she'd go down between shows and take him fresh shirts and something to eat." Kirby did imitations of Fibber McGee and Molly, Jimmy Durante, Jerry Colonna and other popular artists of the time. His act was a novelty: a black impressionist doing white artists. He did them well. "I was determined," he says, "to be the first black to work without bugging my eyes out, wearing baggy pants or Tomming." In 1948, he went to New York and continued his steady rise toward the top. He worked with Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton and Count Basie.

Sophie Tucker boosted his career by taking him on tour to London, and dubbed him "The Man with 1000 Voices." He stepped up into the lucrative overseas circuit with Sarah Vaughan, Nat "King" Cole and Stan Kenton. During that time, he met Charlie Carpenter, one of the few blacks associated with a major booking agency. [Carpenter died a few weeks after being interviewed for this article.--Ed.] Carpenter liked the ebullient, talented impressionist who always seemed to be "on." Kirby's usual greeting was, "I've got a funny one for you." He'd tell a joke to anybody. Once, while working with Ella Fitzgerald, he was given a dressing room next to hers. He staged a loud argument in six different voices, poured catsup all over himself and staggered into her room. Ella screamed and fainted. When she recovered, she laughingly went after him with an ax.

Kirby kept asking Carpenter to manage his career. But the agent, who had represented Earl "Fatha" Hines and Lester Young, wasn't anxious to take on the young comic. George seemed to be having some personal problems. It was still the day of the benevolent booking agency and Carpenter had been given special instructions for handling Kirby. The agency ordered him to pay George only $30 a day out of his $750 weekly salary. Invariably, Kirby would send his wife, Sarah, who traveled with him, to ask Charlie for an advance. She assured him George would pay it back in a day or two, but in a few days, she would ask for another advance. When the agent resisted, she said they would be unable to pay their bills and continue to tour.

Kirby's act was beginning to suffer from the ravages of what turned out to be a dope habit. "I tried to talk to him about it," said Carpenter. "I even put him in a hospital once. He told me I was just throwing money down the drain." Finally, Carpenter felt he had no other choice. "I told his mother there was nothing I could do but drop him. Maybe then he'd do something about it."

In 1958, Kirby announced he was a heroin addict and turned himself in to the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, for the cure. He has never discussed with his friends the causes of his addiction or the two years in Lexington.

•

The Landmark Hotel had problems. The service was indifferent and staff morale poor. In the evenings, the semicircular blue-felt blackjack tables were empty and the dealers sat around with hands stuck into the pockets of their aprons.

Kirby's name topped the giant marquee outside. Show times were listed as ten P.M. and 2:30 A.M., but shows were being staged at eight and midnight in an effort to attract more business. It would have cost $300 to change the marquee. Kirby didn't have the money and the hotel wouldn't do it. Occasionally, the maïtre de had to apologize to a customer who turned up at the wrong time. Worse yet, there were people who turned up with tickets they had bought in Los Angeles for a play in the main showroom that had closed six weeks before.

Tribulation makes strange bedfellows. The owners of the foundering Landmark approached Kirby about doing the show and he grabbed at the opportunity to put his legal troubles on the back burner. For the hotel owners, there was the desperately needed publicity about their generosity and benevolence. It didn't cost them anything. They paid the staff, while Kirby was responsible for paying the performers. He had always wanted to do an all-black show and he pulled that one together with a peculiar now-or-never energy. The members of the cast were all having their own career problems: The Imperials (formerly with Little Anthony) hadn't scored a hit since Goin' Out of My Head; singer Lu Elliott, who started out on some classic 1949 Duke Ellington recordings, was making one last try at the big time; and The Third Generation Steps, a trio trained in the jazz-dance tradition, had just begun their careers.

One night after the show, the musicians and performers gathered in the lackluster three-room suite the hotel had provided for Kirby's use. Away from their instruments, the musicians became small businessmen--worried and rumpled men in well-worn tuxedos. Kirby told them he couldn't pay them for the previous week's work but that he'd definitely have the money in a day or two. They glanced anxiously at one another and at the walls and floor. It embarrasses musicians to talk about money. Kirby said he wanted to move the show to a hotel that had more guests.

"It's a good show," said one musician. The others nodded. The suggestions began to flow. The Strip was the first priority, but at that point, any other hotel would be better. Kirby said he'd try to "four-wall" it--he would be responsible for all expenses and pay his musicians out of the gate.

"Are you sure we're going to get our money this time, George?"

"Absolutely; you have my word."

"My car note is due," said one. More nods. The bills had to be paid, but there was a higher code in operation. As trite as it may sound in this era of changing values, the show had to go on.

"We might as well finish the week," suggested another musician.

"You will get paid. I promise."

He charmed them, shared their burdens and soothed their fears. They shuffled out slowly in twos and threes. They would sit at the bar, munch hamburgers in the coffee shop and carefully feed their nickels into the slot machines until time for the midnight show. It's difficult not to like a man who has so many problems.

•

Winni Russell again: "George was a strong man. You have to wonder why he got into drugs. I always felt he must have been somewhat insecure." He had been close to Russell and they'd even talked about getting married. When Kirby left Lexington in 1960, he had parted company with Sarah. But his relationship with Winni had changed. "Maybe I lost faith in him a little after the drug bust," she says sadly.

Rosemary Calabrese Kirby is a red-haired woman whose classic Italian features have begun to go sharp with middle age. She spent a lot of time around the night clubs of the South Side and met George at the Roberts Motel, where he was working shortly after his release from Lexington. "I hadn't seen him around in a long time," she remembers. "Later, I found out why. Six months later, we got married. George has a personality that captures you." The black man from the South Side and the Sicilian from the West Side had much in common. Both of them loved the bright lights and glamor of show business. They had their wedding in a Baptist church in Las Vegas. "We got married on New Year's Day, because he said he didn't want to forget his anniversary."

The couple went into business together. She took care of the details. He performed. The first few years were difficult professionally. The two years in Lexington had set him back. But there were always people who wanted to help Kirby. Art Braggs, the owner of the Idlewild (Michigan) Revue, sent a telegram to Lexington just before his release, booking him at $750 a week. "We struggled," says Rosemary. "No matter how poor we were, we traveled together. I took care of his clothes. I set up interviews. We had a good life, because I was with him constantly."

The times were changing. Blacks were fighting for the political rights that had been denied them by law and tradition. The struggle reached a fever pitch in early 1965, when Alabama state troopers attacked civil rights marchers before a national television audience. The national outrage led to an even bigger march from Selma to Montgomery and a star-studded show that featured some of the biggest names in entertainment. A truckload of stage equipment had been hijacked, but organizers made a stage out of casket cases. The only performer to get an encore was Kirby. He was clearly on his way to better times.

Charlie Carpenter managed Kirby and groomed him for the white audiences that meant more money and more television exposure. Over the next decade, Kirby grossed an average of half a million dollars a year. His comeback was complete, but to his friends, he was the same old George. He gave generously to charitable causes, to campaigns against sickle-cell anemia and to programs against cancer, the disease that had claimed his only brother. He did benefits for community organizations and police departments and lectured high school students about the evils of drug abuse.

"He'd do his act with Billie Holiday playing in the background," says Holmes "Daddy-o" Daylie, a Chicago disc jockey who knew him from his days at the Club DeLisa. "His theme was 'King Heroin' and it was frightening. I'm certain that George steered many kids away from drug addiction." Many performers were casual about their use of drugs, but no one ever saw George do anything but take an occasional drink.

If he had a weakness, it was that irrepressible urge to help the underdog. "Guys down on their luck--all they had to see in the paper was that George was in town," says Daylie. "He was the biggest touch." Rosemary discovered his generous streak shortly after they were married. They were broke and she was in the hospital. A musician friend who had just been released from Lexington turned up. "His friend needed money for a trombone so he could work," she recalls. "George gave it to him. He's just a big sucker."

•

The court testimony says that Kirby called Dave at 3:45 P.M. on March 8, 1977, to tell him he had a sample for him. When Dave arrived at the Kirby house, the comedian allegedly produced a small glass vial containing a brown powdery substance, transferred it to tin foil and gave it to the undercover policeman. He quoted a price of $45,000 a kilo. The next day, Dave complained that the heroin was of good street quality but not good enough for a large purchase, which would have to be cut with lactose or a similar substance. Kirby assured him that he could get better stuff for a large sale. At the same time, he offered to sell him two ounces of heroin for $2600. That evening, Dave went to Kirby's house and paid for two bags of heroin. Kirby had to go out of town, but he promised to have more information when he returned.

On April 11, Kirby gave Dave another sample. That time, Dave was satisfied with the quality. They set Friday, April 15, for the deal, but Kirby suddenly backed down. He could get a pound of coke, he said, but not heroin. Dave said he was not interested in cocaine. Kirby had another trip scheduled, but he promised to try to put together a kilo.

•

Over the years, Kirby invested in a number of money-making schemes. There was a series of boutiques and a new type of umbrella. The Kirbys had two apartments in a South Side building: a home and an office. He lost a lot of money. "He went through it like Gang Busters," says Carpenter. "He's a soft touch who in his heart feels he's as big as Sammy Davis--which he isn't. George was always a sitting duck." When a Federal judge in Las Vegas set his bond at $100,000, Kirby spent 45 days in jail until another old friend, Herman Roberts, owner of a string of motels, put up a piece of property as collateral.

But Carpenter says Kirby was having one of his best years in 1977. There were the television pilot, produced by Redd Foxx, and the offer of the role in The Cheap Detective. "And he was," says Carpenter, "the top act in the club-date business."

But even if 1977 was a good year for Kirby in the clubs, it wasn't all that good. None of the three years he has lived in Las Vegas has been.

When Kirby moved to Vegas in 1975, he had not worked there in years. Even bigger names had trouble drawing crowds. During the recession of the early Seventies, many of the hotels closed the lounges that had been the main source of work for black entertainers and replaced them with keno parlors. He had to depend on the one-nighters and resorts for his bread and butter. But when Kirby moved, Rosemary stayed in Chicago. "He always wanted to live in Las Vegas and I just never liked to be there," she says. "He loved to play golf. He figures when he's not working in the wintertime, he can play golf." The Kirbys say they have not separated; they are just maintaining two homes.

The Las Vegas house is in a new development on the eastern edge of the city. The shrubs and trees have just begun to grow and haven't yet obliterated the desert. His house is larger than most on the street but not immodestly so. Plaster casts of famous comedians adorn the garage. A pink toilet serves as a planter in the small front lawn. The house is a memorial to his career, a self-conscious affirmation of his membership in the show-business establishment. One wall is covered with autographed pictures of Jim Nabors, Karl Malden, Ozzie and Harriet and others. His membership in the Las Vegas Country Club is also on the wall. On the stair well is a Kirby family crest, the kind you order out of catalogs. In a corner is a pile of antique Lionel trains he wants to set up in his back yard. His collection of guns, spears and knives adorns the stairs. There are fine African sculptures throughout the house. Upstairs, his golf trophies line the halls. The den is crowded with film projectors, video-tape players and several television sets. Sometimes he would stay up all night to watch television or to study the mannerisms of a personality he wanted to mimic.

It's clear that Las Vegas involved a major change in his life. He no longer lived with Rosemary. He had some disagreements with his outspoken manager. When Redd Foxx offered to do a pilot for him, Kirby wanted to handle it himself. Carpenter says he had to intervene to get it done. The manager also remembers seeing people around Kirby whom he didn't know or like. "I'd say, 'George, who is that guy?' 'That's my friend from Chicago.' 'That's my friend from New York.' I didn't care how well dressed they were," Carpenter says, "they were still bums."

Kirby's wife remembers only one period when he seemed troubled. He had an operation to remove some nodes from his larynx and he couldn't talk for six weeks. "Most of the time, I'm the worrier. George always says everything will be all right."

•

In the Landmark's main showroom, Kirby was strolling from table to table. He had time to talk with nearly everyone. Most of the customers were white middle-aged couples. There was a handful of blacks. "Did you read the paper this morning? About the heart transplant? They put the heart of a white man in a black man. He ran around trying to cosign for everybody. They put the heart of a black man in a white man. Danced himself to death." The whites laughed. The blacks chuckled self-consciously. For them, Kirby's joke was too close to the well-worn stereotypes.

Next he showed off his talents by singing a blues in the voices of Cagney, Bette Davis, Boris Karloff and Laurel and Hardy. His musical talents shone through in his remarkable imitations of Pearl Bailey, Joe Williams and trombonist J. J. Johnson. While everything else in his act was repeated without modification every night, the trombone solo was a genuine improvisation and the musicians nodded their appreciation of his most inventive passages. After a surprisingly fine rendition of I Write the Songs, Kirby brought the entire cast back for bows. It was a good show and the audience left satisfied, but a peculiar dated quality lingered. How many people, I wondered, would pay money to see imitations of Bette Davis and Boris Karloff? How many are old enough to care?

"George Kirby has more talent in his left hand than a dozen other guys put together," says Daddy-o Daylie. "He was really very good, but he never worked at it. He just never had the drive to become a real superstar." Carpenter tried to get Kirby to update his act. He introduced him to talented young comedy writers and encouraged his client to develop the skits and sketches that most modern comics favor. "Time marches on," Carpenter says. "George stayed with the ethnic jokes. Things came too easily. The ethnic jokes were fine for the club-date crowd, but when you work mass audiences, it's different."

•

The court records say that on April 26, 1977, Kirby called California and asked to speak with Mary. After his telephone conversation, he told Dave that a kilo of heroin would cost $52,000. Dave said he had to have a sample first. Two nights later, Kirby called him and said, "Dave, this is George Kirby. Your suits are in. Call me as soon as you can." Law-enforcement agencies had "pen registers" on Kirby's telephone, taps that recorded only the number dialed. They also placed them on the two Las Vegas telephones of "Mary," a black woman known as Mary Clay or Mary Christmas, who operated a store known as Decors Extraordinary. Surveillance teams followed Mary's silver-gray pickup to Kirby's home on the night of April 28. She stayed 30 minutes and left. Kirby called Dave and asked him to come by. Once again, they went through the ritual of testing the sample. Kirby said the heroin could be stepped down at least ten times, but he would sell only a pound at a time as a safety precaution. He wanted to make the sale before 9:30 the next morning, because he was scheduled to play in a golf tournament at the Sands at ten. Dave said he couldn't get the money until the bank opened at ten. Reluctantly, Kirby agreed to wait until 11.

At 8:30 on the morning of Friday, April 29, Mary Clay left a house at 5061 Stampa carrying a green garbage bag, drove to 1836 Kenneth Street, stayed five minutes and went directly to Kirby's house. At 10:45, one of the undercover policemen noted that Kirby was standing on the roof of his garage and looking around.

At one minute past 11, Dave arrived. He tested the heroin and weighed it. It came to slightly more than a pound. He said he had to go to his car for the money. A few minutes later, he brought in a briefcase and handed it to Kirby. The briefcase was a signal to other members of the team that the heroin was in the house. Kirby opened the briefcase and a trick snake popped up. The two men laughed at the joke. Dave said he would now get the money. He opened the front door and half a dozen law-enforcement officials barged in with their guns drawn. "Put your hands up!" they shouted. "You're under arrest." Kirby jumped up and ran backward toward the kitchen. Two officers pinned him against the wall and snapped on the handcuffs. Mary Clay was seized in the bathroom upstairs. She was handcuffed and brought down to the living room. An officer read them their rights.

•

The trial of George Kirby and Mary Clay in Federal court lasted a little less than two weeks. The chief witness was "Dave," who is really Ralph Orduno, a Las Vegas undercover narcotics officer with nearly 18 years of experience. He had carefully logged every meeting he had with Kirby, tested every sample of cocaine or heroin, taped every telephone conversation. Judge Roger Foley rejected 16 motions to dismiss the charges or suppress the evidence. During a conference at the bench, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Wright told the judge that organized-crime figures had issued contracts on Kirby's life to prevent him from cooperating. Kirby's attorney, Robert Reid, said it was a ploy to pressure his client into asking for protection and to gain publicity for law-enforcement officials. On Tuesday, December 20, 1977, the bury found Kirby guilty of selling two ounces of heroin to Orduno and of trying to distribute another half kilo. Mary Clay was found guilty of one count of possession with intent to distribute. In a final plea before sentencing, Kirby's lawyer argued that Kirby was just a conduit who hadn't profited financially from the transaction. The presentence report on Kirby wasn't helpful. The references to organized crime gave the judge little cause to be lenient. On February 28, 1978, Foley imposed two concurrent ten-year sentences on Kirby. The maximum sentence for each count could have been 15 years and a $25,000 fine. The judge also set bail at $100,000. A reporter for a local paper noted the surprise of courtroom observers at the stiff sentence.

There are plenty of people who stick by George Kirby. When his lawyer died shortly after the sentencing, Redd Foxx organized a benefit show on Kirby's behalf to help raise funds for an appeal. Herman Roberts put up the collateral for bail.

His new attorney, an aggressive, politically connected black man named Robert Archie, filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, on procedural grounds. "I just wondered," says Archie, "if the punishment George was receiving was proper punishment." On Archie's advice, Kirby decided to plead guilty on two of the five counts the state of Nevada had brought against him. It was an attempt at plea bargaining. Conviction for the sale of heroin in Nevada carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

•

A week passed at the Landmark Hotel and it was clear to the performers that the show was about to close. They didn't get paid on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. There was no more talk of moving to another hotel. But backstage, before the second show, the ritual of the profession kept things going. The smiles, the back pats and encouragements were part of the old traditions--the show goes on. In the audience, Kirby wandered through the room and shook hands. "Did you read the newspaper today? About the heart transplant...."

Once the other acts went on, he returned to the landing. He had a stack of keno cards and watched for his lucky number.

"All of my life I've tried to live a good Christian life," he said. "Clean act. No bad publicity about me with women, as a drinker, doing things in public. The minute this came out about me in Las Vegas, it was everywhere, nationally, all over the world.... You cannot lie to God. That's the one you have to answer to. He knows you can't fool everybody. I don't have hatred toward anyone. I've always been an open person. I like giving people satisfaction. I have faith. I believe everything will turn out all right in the end.

"What's that TV show," he said with a wry smile, "You Are There? Well, this is it. I'll finish out the weekend. I don't care if they all quit. I'll go on by myself if I have to.

"I've done it before."

•

On November 28, 1978, District Judge Carl Christensen sentenced Kirby to 20 years in a Nevada state prison for trafficking in heroin and cocaine. He will serve the Federal and the state time concurrently and will be eligible for parole on the Federal charges in three and a half years and on the state charges in five and a half. His lawyer dropped plans to appeal the Federal sentence.

The courtroom wasn't packed, any more than all those shows at the Landmark had been. Excluding attorneys, newspaper reporters and other prisoners in the dock awaiting sentencing, there were no more than 20 people in the room, half Kirby's friends and half the inevitable curious onlookers.

This time, the star told no jokes and the trademark smile was gone. "It could be he has more intelligence and talent," said Judge Christensen of the man sitting before him, "than anyone in this courtroom." Before being sentenced, Kirby stood up behind the defense table to say a few words. He wore a tailored black suit, a white pinstripe shirt and the thick glasses he always wears when he isn't performing. He removed the glasses and wiped his forehead.

"A friend got me into it," Kirby said quietly to this final audience. "It was an opportunity to get some money to catch up on my bills. I am no trafficker in drugs."

"He never discussed with his friends the causes of his addiction or the two years in Lexington."