The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 374

thing I knew, I was sitting hunched over on the sidewalk in front of the little market down in the village, waiting for the store to open so I could get some booze. Had no idea how I got there. "Then I saw it. Saw my van parked across the road. That meant I had driven down the steep, curving, ice-covered road in a complete alcoholic blackout.

"It was then I admitted to myself what everyone else knew. I was desperatelysick." When he got back to what was left of the cabin, the phone was ringing: "It was Sharon (his second wife), calling from Anchorage. Said she had a feeling something was wrong, was checking to see if I was OK. Then, I heard myself crying out, 'Help me! I need She urged him to come to Anchorage. "I flew first class to Alaska," Butler related.

"Drank champagne from the moment we were airborne until we put down. They didn't escort me off the plane they poured me off." Sharon and several of her friends from AA met Butler at the airport and hurried him off to a hospital detoxification unit. Upon his release from the hospital several months later, Butler went to the AA program, to which he remains completely committed. Now he's back in Hollywood, singing again at clubs, luncheons, anywhere they'll let him. His voice and style are intact, according to the noted jazz saxophonist Georgie Auld, who once toured Korea with Butler and saw him perform recently.

"He was still taking vocal chances," Auld said. "He'd ease up on a note, skirt around it, flirt with it before zeroing in. When he gets going, Champ is a real vocal acrobat." Butler seems realistic about his chances for a second ride all the way to the top: "Let's face it, to most, age-wise, I'm over the hill. But, you know, I figure as long as you're living, you're young enough to try anything." ffBrien is an L.A. writer A young Champ Butler, shortly after making the transition from parking lot attendant to singing star.

Champ Butler, today at 54, lean, trim and stone-cold sober, sings for his supper at a benefit fashion show. BUTLER WANTS TO BE CHAMP AGAIN By JOAN O'BRIEN 1 had it all. All the things success brings name up in lights, fans, money, expensive clothes, cars, house with a swimming pool, kidney shaped, of He continued: "The longer the madness went on, the more I went to my ol' buddy, the bottle. At first I took a drink to calm my nerves, then a drink to give me the nerve to go on stage, then two drinks when I came off. Then it got to be several drinks to go to sleep, several to get up.

Soon it was just one long, long never-ending drink. CHARGE TICKETS TODAY FROM 12 NOON 'I know, I know," he quickly added, "to shoot down everything I had going for me was a dumb thing to do. I admit it. I never was big in the smarts de PHONE CHARGE 577-5511 TWO WEEKS ONLY! OPENS THIS WED. MAY13-17at MAY20-24at Ambassador Aud.

Pasadena Civic Aud. partment." With red hair, with just a smattering of gray, a freckled covered face and bright blue eyes, Butler is still one of the most Irish-looking Irishmen this side of Barry Fitzgerald. A mixture of tenderness and macho feisti-ness a combination guaranteed to attract the ladies-he has been twice married, twice divorced and admits to numerous "meaningful relationships." "Every girl I fell in love with I wanted to marry," he said. "However, most were too smart to accept." The show business career wasn't the only career Butler's drinking ruined. After leaving Hollywood, his friend, the late Bill Garland, took him into his construction and land development company.

He made a lot of money selling large parcels of real estate up in northern California for recreation centers, country clubs and shopping malls. "Most of it went to support my ol' buddy, John Barleycorn," he said. After the breakup of his second marriage, Butler moved up to Cle Elum, to live in a small cabin high up in the mountains. Then came the turnabout: "It was late 79. A cold winter, it was.

Heavy snow. I had been drinking steadily for I don't remember for how long. I woke up one morning, about 5, to find flames practically licking my face. The room was on fire. "Drunk as I was, I knew enough to go right through the plate glass window.

Landed in a snow drift. The next Arthur Mitchell, Karel Shook, Dirs course 'n' I blew it. Blew it all on a bottomless bottle of booze," declared Champ Butler, who, on a star-studded Tuesday in March of 1951, stepped out on the stage of the Mocambo, a filmland favorite nitery on the Sunset Strip, took aim at fame and scored a bull's-eye with his rich baritone voice and bouncy style. The next morning he was Hollywood's newest darling. His career flew high until he shot it down with a drink too many.

Today, after a 25-year love-hate relationship with whiskey, Butler, 54, lean, trim and cold sober, sings for his supper in small clubs in the Valley and in Palm Springs. That's OK with him for now. He is determined to try to get back on top one more time. "I've been on the come-back trail before and always loused it up," he pointed out in an interview (over coffee). "But, this time it's gonna be different.

I'm dry now. With God's help 'n' the help of AA, I'm gonna stay dry." He began to speak rapidly: "Success came too fast. Remember, the night before I opened, I was working in the parking lot. That's right! I was one of the guys taking the cars of the stars. I mean the big ones, the Barbara Stanwycks, Ty Powers, Greer Garsons, Vic Matures, Rosalind Russells, to name a few.

The next night, I'm on stage 'n' they're all sitting out there applauding me. My idols, applauding me! I was so scared, my guts ached." The Butler rise from parking lot to riches might well be one of the fastest in show business. It began when Tony Travis, who went to Beverly Hills High with Butler, told Fran Warren, then appearing at the Mocambo, about his friend who could sing a mean song. She told her agent, Barbara Belle. Belle in turn convinced Charlie Morrison, owner of the club, that he could get a million dollars worth of free publicity if he would take the kid from his parking lot and present him as his own discovery.

Butler was a singing giant in the '50s. He was a frequent guest on all of the big TV variety shows of the day, played only the most important night clubs and theaters and received six gold records for such multi-million sellers as "Them There Eyes," "Down Yonder," "Oh, Looka There, Ain't She Pretty," "Be Anything," "Fit as a Fiddle" and "I Apologize." His own 15-minute nightly CBS-TV show, "Musical Nightcap," was on the charts for well over two years. "Now, don't misunderstand," he insisted, "I loved being a star. Loved the fans following me, the press wanting to talk to me, playing all the clubs here, in Europe, Australia, Japan, any place where my records sold, that's where they'd send me. Even had Life Magazine photographers chasing me all over the globe.

Loved it! And, was I ever cocky. Strutted around with a 'get-a-load-of-me-aren't-I-wonderful' look spread all over my face. "Can you imagine what it was like being cocky 'n' scared at the same time? I tell you, it damn near tore me apart." MAY 13, 14, 16, 17 AMBASSADOR AUD. 300 WEST GREEN ST. PASAOENA LIMITED AVAILABILITY $12.50 MAY 20, 21,23, 24 PASADENA CIVIC AUD.

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