Lola's back! Falana's rebound from MS called a 'miracle.'

Ebony, Jan, 1990 by Renee D. Turner

LOLA'S BACK!

As she cruises the Las Vegas "Strip" in her fire-red Mercedes sports coupe, her fingers snapping and head bobbing to the tunes coming from the radio, Lola Falana looks like a woman without a care in the world. That's not far from the truth for the bubbly, vivacious singer-dancer-actress, who beat back the paralyzing effects of multiple sclerosis (MS) to return to the stage with the same vigor and charisma that earned her the title "First Lady of Las Vegas Entertainment."

Lola's back! And her recovery leads to talk of miracles. Once again, the phone that rang with calls of support during the two years she fought back from the sneak attacks of the incurable and crippling disease is ringing with offers of work in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Atlantic City and Boston. There also are invitations for appearances on TV talk shows and for speaking engagements at

colleges for the leggy performer with the indomitable spirit.

"My prayers were with you," a stranger says as Falana strides through the lobby of a casino in her hometown of Las Vegas. She smiles and thanks the woman with a firm, two-handed handshake. "I felt this whole town was rooting for me," Falana says.

Falana returned to the Las Vegas stage in July for the first engagement since being stricken with MS in the fall of 1987. The diagnosis at first seemed "a death sentence" to the vibrant performer and an almost certain end to her career. And yet, during her engagement at the Sands Hotel and Casino, there was hardly a sign of her agonizing struggle to reclaim a body that had been partially paralyzed by MS. A stool uncharacteristically stood on stage not far from her reach. But with a strong, velvety voice and scintillating moves, she offered proof that she was not about to be defeated by the disease as she performed zesty renditions of Michael Jackson hits such as "Shake Your Body Down."

"When she returned, we got calls from all over," says Henri Lewin, chairman and CEO of Aristocrat Hotels Inc., which manages the Sands. "We had never had such a response." He says there was hardly a dry eye at her opening performance before an audience of fans and friends, including her entertainment mentor Sammy Davis Jr., with whom she performed in the 1964 Broadway hit Golden Boy. More than the performance, though, it was her pluck and confidence--testaments to her faith and fortitude--that observers say brought them to tears and inspired standing ovations.

Falana's mother, Cleo Twine of Philadelphia, says Falana has always had a strong faith and courageous spirit. She beams with pride in the accomplishments of her daughter, who has had two ABC-TV specials, her own TV show and at one time commanded $2 million for a 20-week run at the Aladdin Hotel. Her earnings and showmanship had made her's the highest paid Las Vegas act and made her the "First Lady of Entertainment."

Prior to the MS setback, Falana's career had rebounded after other medical crises, including a life-threatening, 1983 bout with peritonitis, an inflamation of the abdominal lining. But Twine says she was more afraid than ever that MS, a degenerative disease that attacks the central nervous system, would be the one thing that would destroy her daughter's spirit. "I worried about how she would live with this, not having the energy to dance or to walk," she says.

Twine's fears eased when Falana, with calm confidence, assured her after the first attack that within a couple of weeks she would be "up on my heels and walking." And she was. But Falana confirms that it was a tremendous battle to get to that point and move ahead.

FALANA had returned to Vegas in the fall of 1987 after an engagement in Orlando, Fla., at which her voice mysteriously disappeared, her face started drooping, her hearing and vision began to fail, and her left side went numb. Then there was the frightening prognosis--that she should brace for a life of disability. Instead, Falana resolved to fight for her life. Since she saw the disease as a test of her faith, she immediately began to strengthen her resolve with prayer.

When doctors offered her hospitalization, a walker and medication for MS's stroke-like symptoms, Falana refused and went home, where friends, like her then secretary, Carol Webster, fed, bathed and clothed her while she was virtually helpless. She would crawl against the wall, drag herself across the floor and do whatever it took to maneuver about her apartment on her own power. "As soon as I stopped being a victim [of the disease] and a wimp to all of this," she says, "I became the ruler of my destiny. God gave me that power. The biggest thing was to go on with my life, to get up every day like I had something to do."

She kept herself busy by jotting down ideas for television shows, including one for children. And three times a week she worked with a therapist to loosen muscles that had atrophied because of the illness. "I took as much pain each day as I could to get the muscles back," she says. Eventually, she even resumed an old hobby--sewing. But she would endure five more crippling attacks for 1-1/2-years after the disease's onset.