Hollywood’s A-List Rallies Around Singer John Gary : Pop music: Faced with a battle against cancer, the musician finds himself the attention of a gala benefit and asks ‘Why me?’

“Why me?”

John Gary, like most people stricken with cancer, asked himself that question when an inoperable tumor was discovered in his second lumbar vertebrae in January and he was told he had perhaps between six months and two years to live.

Now, though the prognosis is unchanged, he’s asking “Why me?” again, but in a completely different light.

Gary, a veteran singer with a long list of recording, theater and television credits to his name, is trying to fathom why people are going to pay $5,000 a couple to attend a gala affair Tuesday at the Bel Age Hotel’s Rooftop Atrium to honor him and help defray anticipated medical costs.

One answer: to mingle and be seen with a Hollywood A-list of guests, including Liza Minnelli, Perry Como, Whoopi Goldberg, Ann-Margret and Carol Burnett, among several dozen others who have responded. Minnelli and Como are among those scheduled to perform at the event, along with Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini, Mel Torme, Bill Conti and Milton Berle, with surprise performances expected.

Organizers hope that will be enough enticement to those in a position to plunk down $5,000 for dinner and a show. The goal is to raise as much as $100,000 for the John Gary Recovery Fund, allowing Gary to pursue expensive experimental treatments.

But that just brings up a follow-up question: Why would those stars come to Gary’s aid?

“It could be they realize how lucky they are,” Gary, 58, said by phone from his Richardson, Tex., home, where he lives with Lee, his wife of 20 years. Speaking in a steady and still-rich voice, he sounded positive and upbeat. “They realize through years of knowing me how vital I’ve been with sports and everything. And this is happening to me and not to them, so maybe they’re expressing thankfulness to the Almighty.

“It’s this business. It’s like the Marines. You don’t have to know everyone real well, but it’s like they’re your brothers. That’s what show biz is.”

And Gary knows show biz. With a repertoire of standards and show tunes and a suave presentation akin to a Robert Goulet or a John Davidson, he’s been at it since he headed to New York City from his Watertown, N.Y., home in 1962. Soon, he had a contract with RCA Records that eventually covered 24 albums. In the mid-’60s, he was a television regular with steady appearances on the talk- and variety-show circuit and with his own variety series, first a summer replacement for Danny Kaye on CBS and then a syndicated program. And then there were his countless performances in nightclubs and dinner theaters around the country.

All this is documented in one of his late-’70s souvenir concert programs that, in addition to the standard photos with fellow celebs, presents Gary as a dedicated family man and avid sportsman--in the ‘60s, he set endurance records for underwater diving.

It’s hardly the portrait of a superstar, but of a man to whom show biz really is his life. It’s that which bonds the A-list to him, to which Ann-Margret’s participation Tuesday is testimony.

“I really haven’t seen him for 25 years,” the singer-actress said in a separate phone interview. “I did one album with him for RCA and have not seen him since. But he’s such a wonderful, incredible man and the reason we all are doing this is to show our support.”

A guest list such as the one for the Gary tribute doesn’t normally come easily. This one did, much to the surprise of Michael Bass, the event’s producer.

“Michael asked me for a list of people I’d known over the years that I might want to participate and his first reaction was, ‘Yeah . . . sure ,’ ” Gary recalled. “But he called them and he didn’t get one turn-down.”

The idea for the event actually came from TV personality Wally George, who had been Gary’s best friend in high school. George was thinking in terms of a dinner and show at a club in the San Fernando Valley, but soon realized that it would grow bigger than that.

George contacted Karen Kramer, another high school friend and now the wife of filmmaker Stanley Kramer, who enlarged the vision of the event and brought in Bass, Kramer’s business partner. With their contacts, the guest list started to form, and Altovise Davis (widow of Sammy Davis Jr.) volunteered her house for the event. Soon it outgrew even that, and the Bel Age donated its services, as did more than 15 Los Angeles restaurants.

Gary admits to being a bit sheepish about the fuss and the funds being raised on his behalf.

“I feel very awkward,” said Gary, who is golfing regularly and following a strict diet and exercise regimen to stall the disease.

“I’ve tried hard not to call it a benefit. I hate charity. I’m still trying to work for a living and, God willing, we’re looking to do a fall concert tour. But there’s the costs that medical insurance doesn’t cover. When I got a CAT scan and all that, the insurance paid, but now they don’t pay for pain pills and all that. And since it’s inoperable, I have to look at experimental procedures, and they don’t cover that.”

The cancer was determined to have originated in his prostate before spreading to his back. Procedures to stem further spreading explored.

Show producer Bass says that it’s not the monetary need that is bringing out the stars Tuesday. “Most will be there in tribute,” he said. “The money is secondary. And same for John. The first reason for doing this was for him to have a spectacular evening and enjoy the life with all of them.”

Gary’s status with the stars may baffle younger music fans, to whom such entertainers are anachronistic. Gary shrugs that off.

“It may sound corny, but when Lawrence Welk went off the air and Liberace died, there were a lot of people still out there who want to see that kind of show,” he said. “It may be corny to rock ‘n’ rollers, but they’re not in the audience, and that’s the way I make my living.”