Danny Thomas*

Danny Thomas, was born in 1912 in Deerfield, Michigan, the fifth of 10 children born of Lebanese immigrants. At age 10, he sold newspapers on the street and candy in a burlesque theater. His theater experience inspired him to become an entertainer and comedian, and at 16, he quit school to go into show business.

In 1932, Thomas began performing on radio in Detroit at WMBC on The Happy Hour Club. He first performed under his Anglicized birth name, Amos Jacobs Kairouz, but after moving to Chicago in 1940, he adopted the name Danny Thomas.

Thomas first reached mass audiences on network radio in the 1940s. Along with roles on other radio shows, Thomas had his own radio program, The Danny Thomas Show, a 30-minute weekly variety show that aired from 1942 to 1943 on ABC and from 1947 to 1948 on CBS.

After moving to California, Thomas made five films, including the 1952 remake of The Jazz Singer and I'll See You in My Dreams in 1951.

His Emmy Award-winning show, Make Room for Daddy, aired from 1953 to 1963. In partnership with Sheldon Leonard, Thomas formed T&L Productions, which produced television comedies such as The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show. In 1966, he formed Thomas-Spelling Productions.

When Thomas began his career, he vowed that if he became successful, he would open a shrine dedicated to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of desperate causes. To fulfill this promise, Thomas and his wife began raising funds in the early 1950s to build St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and continued to raise $12 million annually to keep it operating. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan presented Thomas with a Congressional Gold Medal honoring him for his work with St. Jude.