White hosts charity event for homeless kids

$50 or $200 with VIP meet and greet

Buckhead Theatre

3110 Roswell Road, Atlanta

www.ticketmaster.com

Comic Ron White, who owns a home in Suwanee, has spent the past four months holed up in Los Angeles because his fiance Margo Rey was being treated for a recurrence of breast cancer.

But the couple has returned to Georgia to prepare for a big fundraiser, “Comedy for a Cause,” for Covenant House on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at the Buckhead Theatre.

Rey, a professional singer songwriter, will sing a few tunes, and White will do a comedy set for the charity, which helps homeless children in crisis. Some of the proceeds will also go to Rey’s favorite charity, Brides Against Breast Cancer, where brides donate their dresses to raise funds for cancer patients.

The veteran stand-up comic - rarely seen in public without a scotch, a cigar and his signature impish grin - has been a staple in big theaters (including the Fox Theatre earlier this year) thanks to the popularity of Jeff Foxworthy’s Blue Collar Comedy tours in the early 2000s.

White’s fiance is a West Coast girl so he put his Suwanee home up for sale but when a potential buyer came along, he said he couldn’t pull the trigger. He likes the place too much, even if he now spends very little time there.

“We’ve been hunkered down in California going through a really really tough summer,” White said in a recent phone interview. Rey, he said, completed chemotherapy and is almost done with radiation. “Side effects have been bad. She still has fight in her, but she’s tired. Performing will wake her up.”

The couple has a wedding planned next month in his home state of Texas. Given her cancer, he wanted to postpone, but she said so many friends had committed to the wedding it wouldn’t be fair to them. “I said, ‘I don’t care about that. Get healthy!’ But she wouldn’t have it. The wedding is going on!”

This will be White’s third marriage, Rey’s first. “I am committed to her 100 percent,” he said. “I’ve been married a few times. I’m not good at it. But she’s an engaging human being, really talented. I enjoy my time with her. I’d love to run out the clock with Margo.”

White has focused on stand-up shows while his fellow “Blue Collar Comedy” compatriots Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy have jumped into TV.

He chuckled when he heard Engvall was part of the newest season of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” debuting Monday, because he has never seen his friend dance — ever. “I was called two years ago to do it but I said no,” he said. Why? “I have dignity,” he cracked. Then again, he said Engvall is dancing with a “23-year-old hottie. It’s not as bad as it sounds.”