Danny Thomas Biography

Fast Facts

• Father changed family surname from Yakhoob to Jacobs, and Thomas was renamed Amos Jacobs
• He took the moniker of Danny Thomas on August 12, 1940, for a performance at a Chicago club
• Started working at 11 years old, selling candy and ice cream at a burlesque house; dropped out of high school after freshman year
• Began showbiz career in 1932 on a Detroit radio program, "The Happy Hour Club"; a guest appearance on Fanny Brice's radio show led to his own radio program, "The Danny Thomas Show" (1944-49)
• Made TV debut in 1950 on Four Star Revue as a rotating weekly host with Ed Wynn, Jack Carson and Jimmy Durante; did not fare well and later declared the new medium "for idiots
• " Began producing television in the late-1950s and eventually partnered with Sheldon Leonard and, later, Aaron Spelling
• Considered his greatest contribution to be the founding of the St
• Jude Children's Research Hospital, which opened in Memphis in 1962
• Received Congressional Gold Medal in 1983
• Inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame in 1991
• Penned the 1990 autobiography Make Room for Danny