Was Danny Thomas a WASP

Arabs are white now. Get with the program.

People didn't question it. Diversity was more acceptable than today.

I've know white and brown Arabs, sometimes in the same family. But Arabs are definitely "other" for many Americans since 9/ 11. Back then, maybe not so much. Danny was white but had strong Semitic features and seemed to playing a WASP. The name Williams alone. He wasn't playing Danny Nasr.

Most Arabs are indistinguishable from Jews in the middle east.

Most Hispanics that don't derive from Mexico or Central America also appear white.

So he was playing an assimilated Jew who had changed his name? And apparently the children had nose jobs at birth and dyed their hair. Makes sense.

For the last time, OP, Danny Thomas was a lesbian.

There has been lots of European and Middle eastern intermarriage in Israel within the last 60 years. However, the first wave of Jewish immigrants to America were mostly of European descent.

R8 needs to look up the meaning of the phrase non sequitur.

LEBANESE, BLANCHE

R9 Was responding to R6 idiot.

I think Marlo looks of mixed ethnicity, as pretty as she is. Danny Thomas did a lot of good.

[quote]So he was playing an assimilated Jew who had changed his name?

I don't think his character was supposed to be Jewish?

Danny Thomas was of Maronite Lebanese Christian descent and attended St. Francis de Sales Church in Toldeo. He went to Catholic schools and was was confirmed in the Catholic Church by the bishop of Toledo, Samuel Stritch...Elaine Stritch's uncle!

What are you talking about?

Danny Thomas often mentioned his Lebanese heritage on his show.

There was even the character of Uncle Tonoose his uncle from Lebanon.

Ok, fine, but why the name and the blond children. My guess is Danny decided to Lebanese it up once they got going but originally he was supposed to be WASP. More power to him for coming out.

Danny was like Ellen.

So in a metaphorical sense Danny Thomas was lesbian.

People frequently changed their names back then to sound "more American" R16

And to avoid job discrimination.

[quote]My guess is Danny decided to Lebanese it up once they got going but originally he was supposed to be WASP.

Well, your guess is wrong. Being Lebanese was part of his shtick and part of the show.

[quote]Ok, fine, but why the name and the blond children.

How stupid can you be?

His son on the show has light hair....as does the kid's mother. Duh.

And people changed there name...as they still do today.

No one thought Dean Martin was anything other than Italian. It was part of his act.

their

Uncle Tonoose at 0:58

Danny Thomas' wife was Italian.

Not all Scandinavians are blonds. Not all Jews look like Arabs. Not all Spanish look like Indians, Arabs, or Black. Not all Irish have red hair.

Television was in it's infancy, the shows had great writers and actors that could deliver the lines. Protesters weren't being paid to boycott the shows because of made up b s like today. Yes it was a different day and age.

None of that would have happened though if it wasn't for Desi Arnaz. If I Love Lucy hadn't been as successful as it was they never would have let Danny do his show.

You mean he wasn’t I talian?

[quote]But it is a form of Arab erasure.

That's a think now?

[quote]None of that would have happened though if it wasn't for Desi Arnaz. If I Love Lucy hadn't been as successful as it was they never would have let Danny do his show.

By the late 1940s Danny Thomas was a bigger star than Desi Arnaz.

R17 I doubt most on this site know have a clue about your image :)

Thomas definitely was't Anglo-Saxon and he wasn't Protestant. He was Catholic. The Middle East has numerous Catholic sects, some of which follow an Eastern orthodox rite and even allow priests to marry in some cases, but are loyal to the Vatican.

Pan-Arab politics aside, there are deep social divisions in "Arab World". Persians (Iranians) think of tehmselves as seaparte from Arabs, ethnically. Upper class Egyptians see themselves as closer to the Greeks than to the Bedouins. Palestinians who've worked in the Gulf resent the way they are treated by the Saudis and others whom they see as little removed from living in camps with camels.

The house seen as Tom Selleck's police chief character is actually the home of the Bishop of Maronite Lebanese Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Danny Thomas belonged to that faith.

Danny Thomas, born Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz, in Deerfield, Michigan, his parents were Maronite Lebanese Christian immigrants from Lebanon.

Thomas was raised in Toledo, Ohio, attending St. Francis de Sales Church (Roman Catholic), Woodward High School, and finally the University of Toledo, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.. Thomas was confirmed in the Catholic Church by the bishop of Toledo, Samuel Stritch. Stritch, a native of Tennessee, was a lifelong spiritual advisor for Thomas, and would later advise him to locate the St. Jude Hospital in Memphis.

Stritch was a cousin of DL fave Elaine Stritch.

[quote] Persians (Iranians) think of tehmselves [SIC] as seaparte [SIC]from Arabs, ethnically.

Which is fortunate, because Persians are separate from Arabs ethnically.

Among many clues is the fact that they speak Persian and not Arabic.

[quote] People didn't question it. Diversity was more acceptable than today.

You can't truly be this retarded. He changed his name to hide his ancestry. Many people in my own family did that.

There are so many idiotic posts in this thread you'd think this was a yahoo comment section.

Back in the day you were either black or white, and so were the TVs, so I don’t think anyone thought of his race.

[quote]You can't truly be this retarded. He changed his name to hide his ancestry

You are a moron and you don't know what you're talking about.

Thomas started his career as Amos Jacobs Kairouz.

"After he moved to Chicago in 1940, Thomas did not want his friends and family to know he went back into working clubs where the salary was better, so he came up with the pseudonym "Danny Thomas" (after two of his brothers)."

Furthermore: being of Lebanese descent was part of his act.

Being Lebanese, Armenian or Syrian, meant you were subject to many of the same prohibitions as Jews. Covenants for real estate sales spelled these out in detail.

Thomas was Lebanese, and he was very clear about it on his sitcom. He had a couple of ethnic-relative characters--I particularly remember Uncle Toonoose, who was played I think by Hans Conreid. I think the shtick was that his character was married to a very patrician Wasp (Marjorie Lord?).

He also recorded songs in Arabic

I’ll forever love him for St. Jude’s. And the laughs every time I see a glass-topped table.

His daughter Marlo Thomas played Rachel Green's very Jewish mother on "Friends"

Semitic stereotyping OP?

[still shocked that so many DLers had no idea that Aniston's character, a composition of every JAP stereotype ever, was supposed to be Jewish]

Danny Thomas played a Jew when he did a remake of The Jazz Singer in 1951. The film also starred Peggy Lee.

^^ a composite of

Marjorie Lord was supposed to be Irish on his show.

Danny Thomas was a Lebanese Christian. He founded St. Jude's Hospital.

He wasn’t an Arab, he was Levantine.

I remember when I was a kid I watched a show where i said the guest star, who talked with a German accent, reminded me of someone else. My mother said that’s Hans Conried, he plays Uncle Tonoose on the Danny Thomas reruns. I said no way, Uncle Tonoose has white hair and darker skin and talks different. It might have been the first time I realized the people inside the tv weren’t real.

Conreid was Jewish. Uncle Tonoose was a real person and a real character.

Looking at HansConried’s images on google I realize he was super gay.

Conried was half Jewish.

No!!!

[quote]Danny Thomas played a Jew when he did a remake of The Jazz Singer in 1951. The film also starred Peggy Lee.

He also played Jewish songwriter Gus Kahn in "I'll See You In My Dreams," opposite Doris Day.

Oh, and OP--"Make Room for Daddy" and "The Danny Thomas Show" are the same program.

There were cast changes and a network change when it became The Danny Thomas Show. Then they used Make Room for Daddy for syndicated reruns.

I think we should bring back the word Leventine. By the way weren't the Petries supposed to be highly assimilated Jews?

Well even if you believe him to be white (I do) he wasn’t Anglo-Saxton and he was Catholic so not a WASP.

It really isn’t that complicated, OP.

I meant was the character meant to be WASP. I would like to see a time line as to when the Lebanese parts start popping up. Maybe from the beginning but I am still not convinced that they decided to make him more Arab as time went on. Danny Williams, really? At least make him Danny Joseph or Danny Abraham, a name Christian Arabs actually have.

"I am determined to judge the 1950s by 2020 standards"

Jean Hagen, the immortal Lina Lamont of Singin' in the Rain, played Thomas's wife for the first few seasons of Make Room for Daddy. Then she was replaced by Marjorie Lord.

Jean Hagan quit the show at the end of the third season, Marjorie Lord was not introduced as a new character until the end of the fourth season and by the first episode of the fifth season she and “Danny Williams” were married.

I’d like to see those first three seasons, but they are not part of the syndication package and are not available on any of the platforms I have looked at.

[quote]I meant was the character meant to be WASP. I would like to see a time line as to when the Lebanese parts start popping up.

For the 100th time. His Lebanese heritage was always part of the show. Pick just about any episode.

Danny Thomas, Jean Hagen 1956

Go to 29:15

I commend Danny Thomas for being a proud out gay Arab man back in the 1950s.

I mean he was a Lesbian, right?

Sorry, that should be 24:22 of the video.

Make Room For Daddy / The Danny Thomas Show featured DL fave Angela Cartwright.

Angela Cartwright

Danny Thomas was married to Jean Hagen on the show. Hagen was the mother of his two children, played by Rusty Hamer and Sherry Jackson. Then Hagen quit the show, so they made Danny a widower. He meets Marjorie Lord, who is a widow with a daughter, played by Angela Cartwright. Soon after that, Penny, the older duaghter goes off somewhere, not to be seen again till years later, played by an entirely different actress. (It was at the audition for this part that Mary Tyler Moore came in and wowed them, but Danny said nobody with a nose like MTM's could possibly be his daughter and she wasn't cast. Soon after, the producer, Sheldon Leonard, remembered her when the were casting Dick Van Dyle and the rest was history.)

I don't get the Decades Channel in my cable offerings anymore but, when I did and they aired Thomas's show, I recall they did show the first few seasons from the start with Jean Hagen and leading up to and then through all the Marjorie Lord episodes. Unsure if it airs on that station and if they show the show's entire run still.

Oops, it's me R68 again--actually, that might've been MeTV that aired Danny's entire show reruns.

Danny Thomas was not Anglo Saxon and he certainly wasn't a Protestant.

Why would the ass OP bother?

In many interviews I've watched, Danny Thomas was one of those very devout Catholics one can't not admire, regardless of what his views on that faith are. I was often struck by his stories of lighting candles alone in churches, and sort of bargaining with G-d.

I really respect his loyalty in his pledge to help children, and what he's accomplished with St. Jude. I think he was a very introspective and deeply spiritual man, as opposed to some Catholics going through the motions of some recipe for salvation.

Did Jean Hagen quit due to illness, or was she tired of Danny Thomas, or both? I know she died just a couple years later.

I think I read that she was sick of her character, and there was no where to go with it, so she upped and left, much to Thomas’ chagrin.

So they killed the character and made him a widower, to prevent Jean Hagen from every reappearing on the shoe.

And it was a really big shoe

Fun fact: Danny Thomas was on two episodes of That Girl.

Fun fact: Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were on an episode of The Danny Thomas Show.

Fun fact: Danny Thomas and cast were on an episode of Lucy Desi comedy hour

[quote] People didn't question it. Diversity was more acceptable than today.

Yep, 100%, R2. Ironic, isn't it? And R35 is an imbecile.

Fun fact: Margo's sister and brother were on one episode of That Girl (the same episode, and Danny Thomas had a cameo at the very end of that episode).

R79, MARLO, not Margo!

Was he related to Helen Thomas?

"Make Room For Daddy" is on COZI-TV every weekday morning at 6AM.

Pre-nose job Marlo was on the first season of "The Joey Bishop Show" before they dumped all the regular characters and completely changed the entire premise. She played Joey's sister, Stella. DL fave Madge Blake was his mother. Of course Marlo was only on the show because Danny Thomas was the producer.

With a name like Danny Thomas, I don't think people thought about it. He could pass for Welsh or something - maybe with an Italian mother for the big nose. I mean, even those 'in the know', he was Christian so all was well.

And they were fine with Groucho Marx and an army of Jewish people on early tv - why not a Lebanese Christian?

My atep mother is Lebanese Christian. My mother is Swedish. Our dad is from England.

All the six kids in my family look alike regardless of who their mother is. You cant tell the difference, OP..

You are nutz..

[quote] My atep mother is Lebanese Christian.

Any relation to Amenhotep III

[quote] My atep mother is Lebanese Christian.

Any relation to Amenhotep III?

[quote] Samuel Stritch...Elaine Stritch's uncle!

[quote] Stritch was a cousin of DL fave Elaine Stritch.

Which one was it?

Why are there so many posts on this thread essentially saying the same thing? Aren't posters reading the previous posts?

Back then “ethnic” actors played characters of non-descript ethnicity all the time. We were supposed to buy that Maude was a WASP, too. And her husband. Like THAT was credible.

The most that would be done in that regard is have Jewish actors play Italian.

[quote] The most that would be done in that regard is have Jewish actors play Italian.

That gives me a story idea. Picture it - Miami, 1983...

Danny Thomas's family was Christian, not Jewish.

R92, that has been established various times in this thread.

I've never met one personally, but isn't Mr. Danny Thomas a lesbian?

Danny Thomas had a somewhat dusky skin tone, especially compared to European whites. In a time of black and white only film he appeared "white" enough that people would give him a pass. Same as southern Italians were initially not considered "white" by white Americans in part due to their darker skin coloring.

Desi Arnez as noted above got away with it also; though in color photography he clearly appears far more tan than the white image of b&w I Love Lucy days.

Besides Danny Thomas hardly was first white adjacent to play or whatever WASP in films or on television. Merle Oberon spent most of her career playing white British or even aristocratic roles (complete with RP clipped English), but was in fact of mixed race with fairly dusky skin. What couldn't be concealed by b&w film along with generous use of make-up was helped along by constant use of skin bleaching creams.

[quote] Pre-nose job Marlo was on the first season of "The Joey Bishop Show"

Actually not, she already had her FIRST (of many) nose job before that show, it was just pre-more extreme nose job that we saw on That Girl. The pic below is pre-nose job.

Lucy had to fight for Desi as execs didn't think a Cuban with an accent would be accepted.

And how did he repay her? Fucking anything with a pulse.

Oh well, she got a hot boy that was six years older. And he got a meal ticket.

Yes Rose, Amos Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz was a WASP.

* Sorry... Desi was six years YOUNGER than Lucy.

Jesus, DLers must really be going out of their minds with boredom.

He was the son of Lebanese Christians. Arabs belong to the Caucasoid DNA group regardless of being on average several shades darker than Finns, unless they are North Africans and even then you'll see a surprising variation in shades, especially amongst the Christians.

Danny Thomas founded the famous children's hospital, St. Jude's, fulfilling a promise to the saint that he made when dirt poor and trying to break into show biz.

He doesn't look much different from lots of Jewish men.

Or is OP suggesting that as a Lebanese Catholic, he had no business portraying someone he isn't?

It's called "acting".

You know, OP, that Daniel Radcliffe isn't an actual wizard, right?

Glass coffee tables apparently were the one place where he didn't think of God.

The Jean Hagen reruns were syndicated in the past--she was a better actress than Lord, but apparently a mean drunk. Lord's children became Scientologists---I wonder what that was about. She was raised Christian Science, which is weird enough.

All of this aside, the work Danny Thomas set in motion at St Jude gives him an eternal pass for anything as far as I'm concerned.

Even c*nty Marlo (keeping confused Phil prisoner and abusing the staff) gets the same thing.

St Jude is a miracle. The research alone is sooo far ahead of anything else in the field. And it's all free.

Name changing aside. "Thomas" is a common surname among Lebanese Catholics. Also "Joseph".

Also "Jacobs," which is what some in Danny's family used. Danny's nephew, Ronald Jacobs, had a behind-the-scenes role (usually producer or production manager) on many of the Thomas-Leonard shows (Andy Griffith, Make Room, I Spy, That Girl, Gomer Pyle, Van Dyke, et. al.) and others.

Jacobs is a rather popular Assyrian name as well.

[quote] Why are there so many posts on this thread essentially saying the same thing? Aren't posters reading the previous posts?

They're the same users who said it before. They're trolls trying to get a rise out of people. Claiming this guy "hid" that he was "an Arab" and claiming he was Jewish.

Same troll, different email accounts.

Same thing is true for the U.K./European/American threads. Same troll, trying to start up trouble between these 3 groups.

Can you guess why?

[quote]The pic below is pre-nose job.

Yikes, what a dog!

She's apparently as awful inside as outside, but how they crafted "That Girl" out of THAT girl is truly a modern marvel!

R107, Marlo is a wonderful person. How dare you.

Young Marlo was beautiful. She should have stopped after the first or second rhinoplasty; she quite quickly slid into Michael Jackson territory.

My mother was a crazy lunatic who always criticized people's looks. When certain celebrities came on screen she'd yell

"Look at that toupee!"

"That's a wig she's wearing in a shampoo commercial, dammit!"

She made us change the channel when That Girl came on.

"That nose! I can't stand it! Ew, she lopped off half her nose. She didn't get a nose job, she had an amputation! And then they gave her a cross eyed boyfriend! They're trying to kill us with the ugly."

I'm shocked that people get more than one or two nose jobs! Really???

Danny Thomas "This is Your Life" 1954.

Go to 25:43 to see Marlo as a child. Take a look at that profile!

Amazing that 12 years later she was cute stylish Ann Marie of "That Girl!". What a transformation.

R110 Funny, I've known the type like your mum. Sometimes quite funny at first, but then they wear you out. Did your mum live long enough to see what little is left of her nose? It's crazy she can even breathe through that thing. Her nostrils are like grey alien slits now.

Now young ladies like the Jenner Girls WANT to look swarthy Transcaucasian.

[quote] how they crafted "That Girl" out of THAT girl is truly a modern marvel!

That was funny.

[quote] Now young ladies like the Jenner Girls WANT to look swarthy Transcaucasian.

Well I never! I didn’t know Kim Kardashisn was a drag queen.

A lot of us pass!

I just saw Jean Hagen on an "Andy Griffith" episode from 1961. Her last appearance on "Daddy" was in '56. "Andy Griffith" was produced by Danny Thomas's production company. In fact, "Andy" was a spinoff from "Daddy," in a way. (More like a backdoor pilot.)

Anyway, she must have still been on good terms with Thomas et. al., if they cast her in "Andy" well after her departure from "Daddy."

Danny Thomas was on Benson once. Then he was in a season-long Susan Harris sitcom called I'm a Big Girl Now, starring Diana Canova (from Soap).

Even the worst of enemies can still work together in Hollywood if the money and the project are right

Coming to this late so may be repeating info already stated. Danny Thomas was Lebanese. His wife was white anglo saxon American. Their natural children all had nose jobs if they happened to get Danny's nose. And - many Lebanese are Catholic. I think Danny was. St Jude Hospital is named after a Catholic saint. He founded it.

Mr. Danny Thomas's only son Tony was producer of Golden Girls sitcom.

Just a bit of information, do with it what you will....

Danny Thomas liked to lie beneath glass coffee tables and have women shit on the glass standing over him. He called it Eggs Danny Thomas. Barbara Billingsly indulged his kink.

I remember when Danny Thomas produced a tv show starring himself as a doctor because he always wanted to be a doctor.

R121 (CPPD), are you related to C-3PO? If he gay or just British?

[quote]Danny Thomas was Lebanese. His wife was white anglo saxon American.

Wife Anglo Saxon? Not true. His wife was Italian.

Marlo and her siblings are half Lebanese, half Italian.

[quote]Danny Thomas was on Benson once. Then he was in a season-long Susan Harris sitcom called I'm a Big Girl Now, starring Diana Canova (from Soap).

He was also on "It's A Living," another series from his son's production company.

Between Danny, his son and Marlo...they must have pulled in a ton of money over the years.

The funny thing, or at least the unusual thing, about the Danny Thomas show, is what high-quality it was, and how funny it still is today. Just a slightly exaggerated twist on every day life, and it really worked.

I think the worst episode in the series was when the Ricardos came to visit, and Lucy and Ricky were so cartoonish and so unbelievable, it was jarring compared to the commonsense approach used on the Danny Thomas show

High quality? Shtick like Thomas' spit-take.

Very few spit takes; Used sparingly and to great comic effect.

I watched two episodes of That Girl last night on one of those nostalgia channels. That hair! Those eyelashes! Those clothes! Little girl outfits & colored tights. It was truly awful.

Then Bewitched was on with a stunt actor flying through the air in a Superman costume with cameras cutting to closeups of Paul Lynde in a Superman outfit, with fans blowing his cape. (Oh god. Picture a fan blowing Paul Lynde)

21st century American tv has zombies, ice dragons, a child being sacrificed to a red god for a battle win. 20th century American tv had magic housewives, a magic sexy lady living inside a bottle & 19th century hill people living in a mansion in Hollywood.