Mr. T, the '80s icon known for sporting heavy gold chains and a Mohawk, is fighting a battle against cancer and is nearly broke. But he's not looking for pity, fool. "I try to be upbeat," Mr. T tells Entertainment Tonight in an interview scheduled to air Tuesday night. "When people watch this I want them to be uplifted." The former actor and celebrity bodyguard suffers from a form of lymphoma that requires him to seek daily radiation treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. It's not so much the radiation that T thinks will save him; to quote his fellow '80s icon Huey Lewis, it's the power of love. "Love, love, love, I can't help but get better," T says. "This is what gives me the strength to go to the hospital."

He says his financial situation isn't too rosy, a fact underscored by the absence of his trademark gold chains. "I don't wear the gold," he says. "I gave it to my family for them to sell, make money, whatever they want to do. Material stuff ... you can only take it to the grave, not past the grave."

The actor, whose real name is Laurence Tureaud, shot to fame in the early '80s after starring as boxer Clubber Lang in Rocky III, then as ace mechanic B.A. Baracus in the hit series The A-Team. The 45-year-old actor virtually disappeared from the entertainment scene around the turn of the decade.

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