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S, ( Frank Sinatra was the most awe-inspiring, Davis says, "because he was just a killer for his charisma. He was the most charismatic per- former I've ever seen. When I direct- ed Frank Sinatra and Friends in 1979, or 1980, he was simply the best." Lily Tomlin may have been the kindest of all performers with which Davis worked. After he won yet another Emmy for comedy for directing the Lily Tomlin Special, she sent Davis "a gold charm" in the shape of a tiny Emmy statue. He shared other interesting expe- riences with actors who could be intimidating. In a resurrection of the show Omnibus, Davis was directing Princess Grace of Monaco as she read a stanza from an American piece of poetry written in the 1800s. The poem contained a racial slur that was not acceptable, but was in the U.S. at the time of the writing. Davis walked out on to the set and told her the line would have to pulled. It was. "Her entourage told me I had to address her as 'Her Highness' but I remembered that she was an actress. She was an actress so she understood that she needed direction and that word could not be read on American television," Davis says. "She said: I've never liked that line.'" His last show before retirement was in the mid-1990s in Vancouver where he directed the late Shari Lewis in a children's show called Charlie Horse Music Pizza. With work behind him and time now available to visit home in the summers, Davis says he was excited to learn of the $12.8 million Quinte Cultural Centre project. Davis has offered the centre.the chance to exhibit, on loan, his 40 years of television collectibles such as his many Emmys, other television festival awards from around the world, as well as other memorabilia from his many shows over the years. In a day when variety shows have all but disappeared from television sets, Davis says he hopes the dis- play and his intrinsic BCIVS connec- tion as a graduate will be welcomed by his hometown. "I've always been grounded, I think, because of my hometown. 'Ybu can take the boy out of Belleville,' ...well, you know7. I've always felt that I was the luckiest guy 'in the world and had opportunities to do all these t h i n g s . M y dreams came tnie for me and I owe much of it to BCI," said DaviS. "I think this Cultural Centre is a wonderful pro- ject and I wantsto lend support to it if I can to say, thank you. I think '10 years after the new centre is opened, people will realize what a true trea- sure this will be." ( / a ut