Published: Wed, May. 21, 2008 12:30AM

Modified Wed, May. 21, 2008 05:03AM

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"It made me understand there was a wider world than the Outer Banks and even North Carolina," Basnight said.

Davis enjoyed the good life and big gestures. He took UNC board members to parties at his beach house. He rented trains in Europe to take friends on vacation. His attorney, Cecil Munn of Fort Worth, Texas, recalled an outing with Davis that began as a fishing trip for five couples -- to New Zealand, Tahiti and Hong Kong.

"On the plane to Tokyo he said, 'Let's take another month and go around the world,' " Munn said. The trip ended with a flight home from London on the Concorde.

Davis went to Las Vegas to gamble and to Hong Kong to buy clothes for his huge frame.

"I just cannot find tailors here who can fit this body," he said in 2001.

Outspoken at UNC

His gifts to UNC-CH included $1 million to help build the sports arena named for basketball coach Dean Smith. He gave $1.4 million for students who would teach in poor areas of northeastern North Carolina.

Davis held courtside tickets to all UNC home basketball games, and he frequently distributed them to medical students and friends.

Every spring for more than 20 years, he distributed ACC and NCAA basketball tournament tickets and political advice from his office suite in the Governors Inn at Research Triangle Park.

Davis served as a Duke University trustee and a member of the statewide UNC Board of Governors, and he endowed buildings and programs at N.C. State and Elizabeth City State universities.

Davis quit the UNC board in 1991 after charging that C.D. Spangler Jr., then the UNC president, was advancing his family fortune while neglecting the university's problems. Later, Davis was a critic of Spangler's successor, Molly Broad, and a key figure in contentious efforts to win greater autonomy for UNC-Chapel Hill.

"He was not bashful about letting his feelings be known," former UNC-CH chancellor Paul Hardin said.

'A tough guy'

In recent years Davis was weakened after a series of strokes, but he continued to receive visitors at his Chapel Hill home. A few hundred friends came from a half-dozen states for his 88th birthday party in January.

"He was a tough guy, by God, and he fought to his last breath," said Bob Eubanks of Chapel Hill, his son-in-law and former business partner. "He was always looking for ways to help people. He used to tell me he wanted to give away the last dollar he had on the day he died."