Friday, July 16, 2004 | 4:08 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
July 17 - 18, 2004
Doctors in 1934 gave Pat Morita little chance to survive a childhood illness, spinal tuberculosis.
If he survived, they doubted if he would walk.
And if he walked, where would he go?
His chance of succeeding was about as slim as his chance of surviving the ailment he contracted at age 2. The Japanese-American was born into poverty at a time when minorities were considered second-class citizens.
But Morita survived, walked and became a successful comedian and actor, noted for such films as "The Karate Kid" (parts I, II and III) and his appearance in numerous TV series (including "Happy Days" and "Sanford and Son").
Now 72 and a Las Vegas resident for 10 years, Morita recently talked to the Las Vegas Sun about his remarkable life, which was saved by the Shriners.
Las Vegas Sun: What were you and your family doing when you became ill?
Pat Morita: When I contracted spinal TB my family were migrant fruit pickers, living in a one-room cabin at an orchard near Sacramento. We had dirt floors and one light bulb.
Sun: How did you survive the almost-always-fatal disease?
PM: Fortunately, I went into a TB sanatorium, 40 miles north of Sacramento. I lay there in a cast from my shoulders to my knees for the next seven years.
Then I was found by the Shriners Hospital in San Francisco. I was one of the first recipients of a new operation -- spinal fusion, and there was a new medicine out, called penicillin. It was the first antibiotic.
Sun: What happened after the operation?
PM: Two years later I'm in a brace, walking. Meanwhile, the war had started. So what do I walk into? I'm escorted out of the hospital by these FBI guys. I'm 11 years old. I like to tell people I went from being an invalid to public enemy No. 1.
Las Vegas Sun: Where did they take you?
PM: I get escorted 1,000 miles inland to join my parents in an internment camp. I cried for four days, I was so homesick for my ward buddies. That's all I had known. My parents could only visit me one or two times a year. By the time I caught up with them, I couldn't speak Japanese.
Sun: Where was the camp?
PM: Gila, Ariz., 50 miles south of Phoenix. Then they moved us way up north to Tulelake in Northern California (south of the Oregon state line).
Sun: Did the camp upset you?
PM: I hurt because I would see everybody else suffering. All around me there were cries of anguish, people committing suicide. The human psyche could only take so much. But I'm still a happy kid -- I'm a walking kid for the first time. I discovered marbles and slingshots and snapping girls' bras.
Sun: What about the racism?
PM: None of that made sense to me until I became an adult and became aware of the problems of bigotry and prejudice and those things -- the realization of what my parents had to go through, what our people had to go through.
Sun: What happened after the war?
PM: My father was killed in a hit-and-run incident. The police called it an accident. It was a drunk driver, he ran over my father twice. He took my dad, whom I idolized all of my life. My older brother had his own family, raising three kids. So I was the man of the family.
Sun: How did you survive?
PM: We had a Chinese restaurant in Sacramento. I was 22, had a wife and a new baby and I realized that I wasn't going to have a life.
Sun: How did you get out of your situation?
PM: I went to work for an aerospace company in Sacramento that suddenly was hiring up to 25,000 people, doing experimental work with rocket fuels and warheads. Eventually, I became a computer operator.
Sun: How did that lead to your career in entertainment?
PM: They transferred me to San Ramon, near Walnut Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area. I had great job security, health and retirement benefits, a nice home, a good income. But I was miserable. I'm 28 now and I ballooned up to 190 pounds. I started to become very introspective. The reality I faced was I couldn't do what I was doing till I was 65. I was going to die before I was 40. I was not happy. I was a misfit. I've been a misfit my entire life.
Sun: So you decided to become a comedian?
PM: In 1962 I began to phase out my computer career to become a standup comic.
Sun: Where did you perform?
PM: I wasn't good enough for places like the Purple Onion and the Hungry Eye ... I would work in these jazz joints for free, doing 15 or 20 minutes when the band took a break.
Then I found a little joint, the Ginza West. The owners said. "Pat, wait a minute. You're a computer guy. Why do you want to be a comedian?" I said, "Because it's my calling."
Sun: When did you begin performing in Vegas?
PM: In 1966. I had a club act. They sandwiched me between Tommy Leonetti, a hot singer at the time, and Helen O'Connell, singing with Bob Crosby & The Bobcats. My first gig was at the Tropicana for four weeks, $800 a week.
Sun: How did you end up moving to Vegas?
PM: I was living in L.A. during the riots over Rodney King. It was like a war zone. I said, "That's it." After 30 years in L.A., I could afford to live anywhere. I made two phone calls, one to my secretary. I told her to call Bekins. I was going to Hawaii. My second call was to Sally Marr, Lenny Bruce's mother. She was my first mentor and friend when I moved to Hollywood. But she wasn't there. She had split for Florida. Evi (actress Evelyn Guerrero) answered the phone -- she was housesitting.
Sun: So, what did you do?
PM: That was the beginning of me and Evi. We talked for about 20 minutes and I invited her to come over and we could catch up with each other's lives. I had known her for several years.
Anyway, she comes over and ends up spending the day and then the evening and then she helped me get resettled in Hawaii and we've been together ever since.
I started getting busy again, and getting back to the mainland was like an international flight. Evi's mother and brother were living here in Vegas, also some aunts and uncles. So we came here for a visit and I woke up one morning and said, "Why don't we go window shopping for a house? We won't buy, we'll just look."
Sun: You help the Shriners a lot. They just gave you the Helping Hand Award.
PM: The Shriners will always be an immense part of my life. They don't ask of me that much, just every now and then. They love to call me the world's oldest poster boy.
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