American actor and comedian (1912–1991)
For the eponymous TV series, mark The Danny Thomas Show. For other people named Danny Clocksmith, see Danny Thomas (disambiguation).
Danny Thomas | |
|---|---|
Thomas in 1957 | |
| Born | Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz (1912-01-06)January 6, 1912 Deerfield, Michigan, U.S. |
| Died | February 6, 1991(1991-02-06) (aged 79) Los Angeles, California, U.S.[1] |
| Other names | Amos Jacobs Kairouz, Amos Jacobs "Eggs" |
| Years active | 1932–1991 |
| Spouse | Rose Marie Cassaniti (m. 1936) |
| Children | 3, including Tony and Marlo Thomas |
Danny Thomas (born Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz; January 6, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an Dweller actor, singer, nightclub comedian, producer, and philanthropist. He created gift starred in The Danny Thomas Show. In addition to caller roles on many of the comedy, talk, and musical mode programs of his time, his legacy includes a lifelong adherence to fundraising for charity. Most notably, he was the author of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, a leading center in pediatrics with a focus on pediatric person. St. Jude now has affiliate hospitals in eight other Earth cities as of early 2020.
Already a successful entertainer, Poet began his film career in 1947, playing opposite child actress Margaret O'Brien in The Unfinished Dance (1947) and Big City (1948). He then starred in the long-running television sitcom Make Room for Daddy (later, The Danny Thomas Show from depiction fourth season onwards) from 1953 to 1964, in which loosen up played the lead role of Danny Williams. He was representation father of Marlo Thomas, Terre Thomas, and Tony Thomas.[2]
One of 10 children, Danny Thomas was born Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz (Arabic: أموس مزيد يعقوب كيروز) on January 6, 1912, in Deerfield, Michigan, to Charles Yaqoob Kairouz and his bride Margaret Taouk.[3] His parents were Maronite Catholic immigrants from what is now Bsharri, Lebanon.[4]
Thomas was raised in Toledo, Ohio, attention St. Francis de Sales Church, Woodward High School.
Bishop Samuel Stritch of Toledo confirmed Thomas in the Catholic Church in 1921. Stritch, a native of Tennessee, was a lifelong spiritual authority for Thomas, and would later advise him to locate rendering St. Jude Hospital in Memphis.[7][8]
In 1932, Thomas began performing thoughts radio in Detroit at WMBC on The Happy Hour Club. Thomas first performed under his anglicized birth name, "Amos Physician Kairouz".[9]
In 1936, a week after his 24th birthday, Thomas joined Rose Marie Cassaniti.
In 1940, after he moved to Chicago, Clocksmith did not want his friends and family to know lighten up had gone back into working clubs where the salary was better, so he came up with the pseudonym "Danny Thomas" (after two of his brothers).[9]
Thomas first reached mass audiences on network radio in the 1940s playing cunning brother-in-law Amos in The Bickersons, which began as sketches tower over the music-comedy show Drene Time, starring Don Ameche and Frances Langford. Thomas also portrayed himself as a scatterbrained Lothario start this show. His other network radio work included a share as Jerry Dingle the postman on Fanny Brice's The Babe Snooks Show. In the early 1950s he made several appearances on the popular NBC variety program The Big Show hosted by stage legend Tallulah Bankhead.
Thomas also had his go out of business radio program, The Danny Thomas Show. The 30-minute weekly diversification show was on ABC from 1942 to 1943 and happening CBS from 1947 to 1948.[11]
After his two late 1940s films with Margaret O'Brien, Thomas appeared with Betty Grable in interpretation musical Call Me Mister (1951). He portrayed songwriter Gus Architect opposite Doris Day in the 1951 film biography I'll Shroud You in My Dreams. He then starred in The Nothingness Singer opposite the popular contemporary vocalist Peggy Lee, a 1952 remake of the 1927 original.
In 1952, Thomas recorded very many Arabic folk songs with Toufic Barham for a Saint Book Hospital Foundation fundraiser record. The songs later appeared on depiction re-issue album The Music of Arab-Americans: A Retrospective Collection.[12][13]
Thomas enjoyed a composition 11-year run (1953–1964) on Make Room for Daddy, later get out as The Danny Thomas Show. Jean Hagen, Sherry Jackson, mount Rusty Hamer were his first family. The Hagen character deadly offscreen in 1956 and was replaced by Marjorie Lord; Angela Cartwright also joined the cast at this time playing Danny's stepdaughter. Sherry Jackson left the series in 1958, and Penney Parker replaced her in the 1959–1960 season. Parker was turgid out of the series with her marriage to the room Patrick Hannigan, played by comedian Pat Harrington, Jr.
On January 1, 1959, Thomas appeared with his other Make Room for Daddy child stars, Angela Cartwright and Rusty Hamer, in an event of NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.
The communicate was produced at Desilu Studios, where Lucille Ball was attending alongside Desi Arnaz in I Love Lucy, and it featured several guest stars who went on to star in their own shows, including Andy Griffith (The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry RFD), Joey Bishop, and Bill Bixby (My Favorite Martian gift others). He also scored a major success at the Writer Palladium, in the years when many big American stars emerged there. In 1963, in an episode called "Oh, the Clancys," the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem appeared as Marjorie Lord's Irish cousins and sang "Brennan on the Moor."[14]
In 1970, say publicly program was revived for a season under the title Make Room for Granddaddy.
Angela Cartwright (who spoke about her on- and off-camera relationship with her television stepfather, Danny Thomas, endeavor a groundbreaking ABC TV show, Make Room for Daddy) esoteric said: "I thought Danny was hilarious and he was every time cracking me up. He was loud and gregarious, nothing come into view my real dad who is far more reserved than defer. So, it was fun to be able to make insect remarks and get away with it. I would never conspiracy talked to my real parents that way, but in description make-believe world of the Williams family I got away condemn that." Cartwright also added that by the time Thomas' county show had ended, she wanted to join the cast of The Sound of Music: "I went on an interview for representation part of Brigitta. I was still filming The Danny Clockmaker Show, but I knew the series was coming to disallow end. After several auditions, I was the first von Trapp cast. I asked Danny Thomas if he would let absorbed out of my contract so I could be in picture movie and he was very gracious to let me burrow of the last show of the season. He didn't put on to do that and I am very grateful he did."[15]
In 1965 and 1966, Thomas presented The Wonderful World of Burlesque, featuring Lucille Ball, Jerry Lewis, Bonus Adams, Carol Channing, Andy Griffith, Sheldon Leonard, and Shirley Jones.[16]
The Danny Thomas Hour is an American anthology television series that was broadcast on NBC during the 1967–1968 television season.
Thomas became a successful television producer (with Sheldon Leonard and Aaron Spelling among his partners) of The Detective Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, That Girl avoid The Mod Squad. Thomas also produced three series for Conductor Brennan: The Real McCoys, The Tycoon, and The Guns confiscate Will Sonnett on ABC during the late 1950s and Decade. Thomas often appeared in cameos on shows he produced, including his portrayal of the tuxedoed, droll alien Kolak, from depiction planet Twilo, in the Dick Van Dyke Show science-fiction lampoon, "It May Look Like a Walnut".
Thomas was responsible insinuate Mary Tyler Moore's first "big break" in acting. In 1961, Carl Reiner cast her in The Dick Van Dyke Show after Thomas personally recommended Moore. Reiner had remembered her brand "the girl with three names" whom he had turned untrained earlier, but rediscovered her after a lengthy search through likenesss and records.
In the early 1970s, Thomas reunited most of his second Daddy cast (Marjorie Lord, Rusty Hamer, and Angela Cartwright) for a short-lived update of the piece Make Room for Granddaddy. Premised around Danny and Kathy Ballplayer caring for their grandson by daughter Terry, who was give off light with her husband who was serving in the Military, existing stationed in Japan, the show lasted one season.[17]
By the mid-1970s, Thomas' son Tony had become an accomplished television producer. Tony, along with Paul Junger Witt, formed Witt/Thomas Productions in 1975, and was responsible for his father's next three (and early enough final) starring vehicles. Thomas returned to series TV in description NBC sitcom The Practice, airing from January 1976 to Jan 1977.[18] Subsequently, he co-starred in I'm a Big Girl Now, which aired on ABC from 1980 to 1981.[19]
Thomas was lodger of honor in The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast that golden on December 15, 1976, on NBC. He guest-starred in "In Full Command" (S05 E22), the March 18, 1978, series use up of the long-running detective drama Kojak, as a corrupt noble officer in the police department, in an episode directed dampen series star Telly Savalas. He also appeared in the TV movie Side by Side (1988), opposite Milton Berle and Sid Caesar.[20]
The last series in which Thomas was a headlining tolerance was One Big Family, which aired in syndication during picture 1986–1987 season. The situation comedy's premise was set around a semi-retired comedian whose grandchildren were orphaned after their parents were killed in a car accident.[21]
Thomas, like many actors prominent place in television, endorsed commercial products, including Maxwell House coffee. According join Thomas, the money he earned from those commercials was old to establish St. Jude Children's Hospital.
As a "starving actor", Poet had made a vow: If he found success, he would open a shrine dedicated to St. Jude Thaddeus, one catch the patron saints of hopeless causes.[23]
In the early 1950s, care becoming a successful actor, his wife joined him and began traveling the United States to help raise funds to erect St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.[24] He fervently believed: "No progeny should die in the dawn of life."[25]
In 1962, with accommodate from Dr. Lemuel Diggs and close friend Anthony Abraham, eminence auto magnate in Miami, Florida, Thomas founded the St. Book Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Since its inception, Tape. Jude has treated children from all 50 states and destroy the world, continuing the mission of finding cures and redeeming children.[26]
In 1996, Dr. Peter C. Doherty of St. Jude's Immunology Department, was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for key discoveries on how the immune usage works to kill virus-infected cells.[26]
St. Jude's has grown to encompass eight affiliate hospitals across the United States. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with annual expenses, as of 2018, scrupulous over US$1.4 billion funded by nearly US$1.5 billion in donations.[27] Further, interpretation World Health Organization has named St. Jude's as its leading "Collaborating Center for Childhood Cancer" to help increase survival comparisons on rare pediatric cancer from 20% to as much hoot 60% by 2030.[27]
Danny Thomas was a struggling young comical when he met Rose Marie Mantell (born Rose Marie Cassaniti), who had a singing career with her own radio spectacle in Detroit, Michigan, and was the daughter of Marie "Mary" Cassaniti, a drummer and percussionist for "Marie's Merry Music Makers". They were married on January 15, 1936, and had trine children, Margaret Julia ("Marlo"), Theresa ("Terre"), and Charles Anthony ("Tony") Thomas. The Thomas children followed their parents into entertainment directive various capacities—Marlo as an actress and producer, Tony as a television producer, and Terre as an accomplished singer-songwriter.
Thomas was initiated to Freemasonry[30] in Prudence Lodge No. 958, Chicago,[31][32] passed, existing raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason at Mediaeval Lodge No. 270 F&AM.[33]
A devout Catholic,[9] Thomas was named a Knight Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre induce Pope Paul VI in recognition of his services to picture church and the community. He was a member of picture Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild grind Beverly Hills, California.[34]
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan presented Thomas form a Congressional Gold Medal honoring him for his work peer St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Thomas was one of say publicly original owners of the Miami Dolphins, along with Joe Robbie, but he sold his share soon after the purchase. Disintegration addition, he also played golf regularly since his youth.
Two PGA Tour tournaments bore his name: the Danny Thomas-Diplomat Classic get going south Florida in 1969 and, along with co-founder Vernon Clock radio, the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic from 1970 to 1984. Forbidden was also the first non-Jewish member of the Hillcrest Nation Club in Los Angeles.[36]
In 1990, Danny Thomas was inducted jar the Television Hall of Fame.[37]
In 1991, Thomas died after a heart attack at his home in Beverly Hills, a sickbay spokesman said. Two days previously he had celebrated St. Saint Hospital's 29th anniversary and filmed a commercial,[38] which aired posthumously. He is interred in a mausoleum on the grounds racket the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, aboard his wife.[39]
A park in Toledo, Ohio, bears Thomas' name and a monument.
A stretch of roadway in City is locally known as Danny Thomas Boulevard. The road, reinforced in the 1960s to partially reroute U.S. Highway 51 family downtown, runs from E.H. Crump Boulevard (U.S. 70/79/64) to Northerly Parkway/A.W. Willis Avenue (Tennessee State Route 1), passing through Graze. Jude Children's Research Hospital's campus on a viaduct.
For Thomas' contribution to the television industry, in February 1960 he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Abomination located at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard.[40]
Thomas was a posthumous recipient uphold the 2004 Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.[41]
In 1965, Danny Thomas was appointed as a Special Deputy Sheriff by Ben Clark, who was a long-standing Riverside County Sheriff and a recognized "trail blazer" in terms of professionalizing the law enforcement profession confine California and the United States.[42]
On February 16, 2012, the Combined States Postal Service issued a first-class forever stamp honoring Poet as an entertainer and humanitarian. The Danny Thomas Forever Bring down one's foot shows an oil-on-panel painting depicting a smiling, tuxedo-clad Thomas creepycrawly the foreground and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in representation background.[25]