Hearts of the City / Exploring attitudes and isues behind the news. : Life’s an Open Book for New Reader : At 69, Louis Ennis has gained a passion for words and learning that has brought him to a proud chapter in his life.

As graduations go, it was a tiny affair. Only the graduate, his beaming sister and his longtime teacher were present to witness the conferring of the degree and to offer testimonials. The setting was even more modest: a corner table of a small neighborhood library along busy La Brea Avenue in the Crenshaw district.

But to 69-year-old Louis Ennis, who had just completed an adult literacy program and is able to read for the first time in his life, it was heaven. When he began his studies three years ago, he didn’t even know the alphabet.

“I feel like a young man now,” said a grinning Ennis, decked out in knife-creased slacks and a plaid wool cap. “It feels good to look down at something and be able to read it. It’s like living in a whole new world.”

Ennis’ old world was one of the most extreme examples of America’s struggle with illiteracy. Nearly 50% of all adults are “at risk” because they can perform only the simplest of reading tasks, a federal study said two years ago, warning of a widening societal “fault line” between winners and losers in the Information Age.

A native of Alexandria, La., Ennis came to Los Angeles in 1943 to help his father run a family cleaning business on Jefferson Boulevard. Never a model student, he ran the streets, dropped out of school at 16 and, at the urging of his father, became a full-time clothespresser.

Yet Ennis, the oldest of 11 children, made sure his siblings stuck to their books.

“Louis always told us, ‘Go to school, get your education,’ ” said his youngest sister, Irma Smith, now 32. “He always made sure we did our homework and did right.”

Ennis eventually made his living as a maintenance man, working his way up to “gang boss” at MGM. Though he says he was never bitten by the acting bug, working in the film trade nonetheless fired his imagination and he auditioned for a commercial. The director handed him a script and asked him to have a go at it.

He was lost.

“I froze,” Ennis recalled. “I said I had to go home and study it first. They said all right. But I didn’t come back.”

Ennis is a dead ringer for the late Sammy Davis Jr., so much so that people have stopped him on the streets of Las Vegas for autographs and offered him spots in celebrity look-alike contests. He was even asked to stand in for Davis during film shoots at MGM. But though he chatted up the likes of Frank Sinatra and Louis B. Mayer during his years at the studio, Ennis couldn’t quite bring himself to meet Davis. Somehow, he feared, the star would uncover Ennis’ carefully kept secret of illiteracy. (Ennis was unaware that Davis himself had been illiterate as an adult until an Army sergeant taught him to read.)

Three years ago, after several halfhearted attempts to attend adult schools, Ennis decided to do right and committed himself to learning how to read.

“I wanted to go all the way this time,” he said with a laugh.

He signed up for the Laubach adult literacy program, offered by the Los Angeles Adult Reading Project at the Baldwin Hills branch of the Los Angeles city library. He was matched with tutor Beverly Rhue, a 72-year-old retired USC administrator who said she felt it was time to put her latent teaching instincts to use.

The learning process was often agonizingly slow, but patience and dedication to the twice-a-week sessions, which Ennis sometimes reached by bus, paid off. Though he still has a few phonetic struggles with unfamiliar words, his reading voice is sure and clear.

“It’s beautiful, a miracle,” said Smith, shaking her head in wonder. “He didn’t even let us know he was learning how to read. I didn’t even know about this graduation until he called me last night.”

For tutor Rhue, Ennis is living proof of the adage that no one is ever too old to learn.

“I’ve taught Louis geography, measurements--not just reading,” she said. “What he’s done is a real accomplishment.”

As Ennis’ reading skills grow, so do small but infinitely sweet victories. He recently gave his brother a pleasant shock by settling into a chair and snapping open a newspaper.

“When he said, ‘What are you doing? I thought you couldn’t read!’ I told him the news,” Ennis said with a chuckle.

For a class project last year, Ennis wrote a letter to his ailing father, Fleming: “Dear Dad, All the other kids in the family got to go to school, but I didn’t. I’m 67 years old and learning how to read now.” His father died soon after.

During his studies, Ennis acquired his father’s car and had to fill out extensive paperwork at the Department of Motor Vehicles to transfer ownership. Rhue offered her help, but Ennis wanted to do it alone.

With the biggest hurdle of his life now behind him, Ennis looks forward to attending nearby Dorsey High’s adult school, where he will start earning credits toward his high school equivalency degree.

After that? Well, Ennis isn’t a man inclined to set limits, not anymore. He said he’ll continue to care for his wife, who suffered a stroke. He talks excitedly about the possibilities of college, of getting a computer and surfing the Internet, of finally being able to read the Bible and mull over its complexities himself, rather than hear someone preach.

For now, with the four-level Laubach program under his belt, his texts are everywhere--traffic signs, street signs, bills posted on telephone poles, grocery store aisles.

“This is all training for me,” he said, gesturing toward a window and the bustling traffic beyond. “All the world’s my book.”

Best of all has been the anticipation of this article. Not for the ego boost that most subjects crave, but the thrill of simply being able to read the sentences. Asked to describe the anticipated pleasure, Ennis smiled broadly and crossed his arms in a body hug. This was a conquest beyond words.

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The Beat Today’s centerpiece focuses on a Crenshaw-district man who overcame illiteracy late in his life. For information on programs that teach adults how to read and write, call the Los Angeles County Library’s Read and Writer Better program at (800) 707-READ. The Library Adult Reading Project, offered at various locations by the Los Angeles City Library system, can be reached at (213) 228-7540 or 228-7543).