Sugar Pie DeSanto cancels S.F. shows because of illness
Waiting near the front of the line to pick up pain medication at an Oakland drugstore last month, Sugar Pie DeSanto suddenly broke into a few dance steps to a song emanating from overhead speakers.
Five days after visiting the pharmacy, DeSanto was admitted to Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley with bleeding ulcers, caused, she was told, by the variety of pills she’d been taking for pain in her jaw and neck.
Born Umpelia Marsema Balinton in Brooklyn and raised in San Francisco’s Fillmore district, she has been attracting attention on and off stage ever since she began winning talent shows as a teenager at the city’s Ellis Theater.