Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

99 Winding through the love story of Rosemarie and Danny Thomas there's another story, wonderful and strange — the story of a modern miracle IN Detroit, in 1933, the Happy Hour on WMBC was the biggest thing in radio. And Rosemarie Mantell was the biggest thing on the Happy Hour. She was sixteen, a soprano, the show's brightest star, a distinction which was hers because she got oceans more fan mail than any of the dozen or so other youngsters who were regular performers on the program. Of those dozen "regulars," I was the newest,, the most insignificant and the most scared. That Rosemarie would one day be Mrs. Amos Jacobs was unthinkable. (Just as it was unthinkable that Amos Jacobs, the Syrian kid from the wrong side of the By DANNY THOMAS tracks, should become Danny Thomas, a radio star.) . But to my family, who weren't afraid to wish for anything — Rosemarie was tabbed for my girl from the start. (And they were just as confident that their Amos would become a big-timer.) The family started listening to the Happy Hour every afternoon because I was on it, but after a few days you would have thought to hear them go on that no one was on it but Rosemarie Mantell. Leave it to the Syrians to appreciate a sweet song and a sweet Home-style movies with extra added attraction: Chita and Mar go Thomas get their comedian dad's commentary. 46 voice. And Rosemarie's voice was sweet. My fame at home was not for my own songs and my own jokes any more but for my nodding acquaintance with the sweet singer. "Why don't you bring her home to dinner, Amos," my Aunt Cecelia suggested matter-of-factly one day. "Oh, I couldn't," I replied, choking at the thought. Why to Rosemarie, who had been a radio trouper since she was twelve, I was just a kid — an amateur. "Why not," my next to oldest brother prodded me, "you make as much money as she does, don't you?" That was a big family joke. Everyone on the Happy Hour got exactly the same salary: nothing. We were all amateurs in the exact sense — the biggest radio sensation in the city, maybe, but there was no money in it. My family — Syrians laugh easily — thought that was funny. I couldn't see the humor in it myself. Here I was sixteen years old, going on seventeen, and not suppbrting myself. It was humiliating. "Go on, ask her," Aunt Cecelia said again, just when I thought they'd changed the subject. Syrians are persistent, too. "Gwan, gwan," echoed all my brothers and sisters, all ten of them. "Dare ya. Dare ya." So I asked her. Naturally. A dare is a dare. But you could have blown me down with a sneeze when she accepted. She had a good time, too. My mother cooked her a big Syrian dinner, and after we fed her we sang songs for her and danced. And I told some jokes. She laughed and after awhile she sang us some songs, and we all wept a little and had a very fine time. It was as though she had known us all her life. The fact that Rosemarie was the most famous young lady in Detroit and I was just a punk didn't seem important after that evening. And it wasn't really, when we had so much in common. We lived in the same section of the city — the polyglot section of Poles and Armenians and Italians and Hungarians and Greeks. And Jews and Catholics and Protestants. America — like in the song. Rosemarie was one of a big, Catholic Italian family, poor but singing folk. I was one of a big, Catholic Syrian family— even poorer, but full of tunes. We couldn't help (Continued on page 59)