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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 30, 1994                   TAG: 9403300083
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

PEOPLE

The 69-year-old composer recently was diagnosed with cancer and treated at two Los Angeles hospitals for blood clots, said publicist\ Linda Dozoretz.

But Monday he was in a studio working on the Broadway version of "Victor-Victoria," Dozoretz said.

Details of his illness were not released.

Hollywood is preparing a 70th birthday tribute to Mancini on April 19.

Mort Sahl, who rose to fame during the Eisenhower administration, is not nostalgic about those years.

"The '50s were rigid, uptight and sanitized for your protection," the comedian said. "All I remember was that everything good, you had to sneak in in a plain brown wrapper."

Sahl rose to fame on the nation's Cold War jitters, first appearing at the Hungry I in San Francisco. His favorite targets were President Eisenhower, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and anti-Communist hysteria.

"The first big laugh I ever got at the Hungry I . . . was in 1954, when the House Un-American Activities Committee was going after Hollywood," he said. "I said, `Every time the Russians throw someone in jail, we throw someone in, too, just to show them they can't get away with it.' "

Sahl's one-man show, "Mort Sahl's America," opens Monday.