Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1954)

Just Call Him "Daddy" Thomas 68 (Continued from page 62) are "sugar and spice, and everything nice" . . . that little boys are "snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails." But what's in a family? Is it "hugs and kisses for Mr. and Mrs.?" Or is it more? Don't love and sympathy, guidance for the children, humor — these and one thousand and one other things — go to make up a family? That's what Danny Thomas often has found in his eighteen years with wife Rosemary and their three children, Margaret, Teresa and Tony. As Danny says, "So what's in a family? To me, it's eighteen years of laughter and tears." One thing that Danny earnestly believes is that father should be with mother when a new baby is born into the family. It shows love for the wife, a willingness to share her burden. Though Danny was on the road constantly in his early career, he never missed being home for the birth of each of their three children. Their first, Margaret, was born nearly seventeen years ago, when Danny was appearing at the Ambassador Club in Detroit. Everybody at the club, from janitor to owner, was alerted to Danny's approaching fatherhood. In the middle of his act, the pay phone rang. The waitress answered, shouting out to Danny on the floor, "You better go homel" Danny knew that meant business. "Sorry folks," he explained, backing off the stage, "I'm going to have a baby! See you later!" The audience's laughter followed Danny as he made his exit. Second daughter, Teresa, was born at the Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, when Danny was appearing at the 5100 Club. This was the club which built Danny's following — and also the club which Danny "built" by bringing in steady patrons. He'd been up all day, by the time Teresa finally arrived. Since he worked nights and usually slept days, he was understandably too tired to go to the club for his act — after not having missed a performance in three years and two months! So Danny called the club, warning them of his absence. The boss, Harry Eager, was furious. He had received the part of the message about the "absence" but not the part about the "baby." When Danny came in the next night, he came up saying, "This is your two weeks' notice. You're fired!" Danny explained, "But, Harry! I told the cashier, I couldn't be here. My wife was having a baby!" Harry Eager had committed himself, he couldn't back down. "So does the cashier own the place?" he said. "You talk to me, not the cashier — and I say you're fired!" Danny still had two weeks to go. He and Eager didn't talk to one another for four days. Then, one night after the show, Harry came up to Danny. "Hungry . . . ?" he asked. "Sure," said Danny. "Let's get a sandwich," said Harry. After three minutes of silence, he said, "Well, how's the kid?" Teresa was all of two years old before Danny finally left the 5100 Club. Young Tony arrived in 1949, when Danny was living in Beverly Hills but playing the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. It was family policy, now, that Danny was to be present at all births. It was even written into his contract. The one with the Flamingo read: "Good from here to Labor Pains!" Danny has such a powerful feeling of love and affection for his family and children that, whenever one of them suffers a hurt, mental or physical, he suffers with sympathy pains. When Margaret was younger, she fell and broke her arm. Danny was playing Bill Miller's Riviera in New Jersey, and Rosemary was on a week's vacation from the family to be with Danny. So it was secretary Janet Roth who took Margaret and her broken arm to the hospital. But the hospital wanted permission from one of the parents to give the anaesthetic before they set Margaret's arm. So Janet called Bill Miller at the Riviera. He told her Danny was doing a performance. "He's so excitable, I don't want him calling the hospital," she explained. "Don't tell him I called. I'll call again in twenty minutes, when he's through." But Miller did tell Danny, who immediately called "his secretary. "What's wrong! What's wrong?" he shouted. Janet explained the broken arm, giving him the address of the hospital so he could telegraph the okay for the anaesthetic. But after the explanation, Danny — three thousand miles away — was suffering with sympathy pains. He was too nervous to write down the address. Janet finally had to ask him to put Wally Popp, his accompanist, on the phone. She knew that Wally was down to earth, and explained to him what Margaret's condition was: "Just a broken arm. She's not dead or dying." She gave him the address. That night, Danny called the hospital five times to check on Margaret's condition and called Janet at home all night — when he wasn't calling the hospital — to be reassured that Margaret was "all right." IVlargaret left the hospital next morning, but Danny continued throwing quarters into the phone in New Jersey. "Is she still in the hospital?" he asked. "No," said Janet, "she's home." But Danny wouldn't believe her. "You're just telling me that!" he said. Janet finally had to put Margaret on the phone to prove she was okay. With it all, Danny swore his arm hurt for the next two weeks. Like every loving father, Danny is as sensitive to his children's mental needs as he is to their physical hurts. For example, Teresa, at the age of seven, still believed in Santa Claus. She had her eyes on a toy piano in the window of Uncle Bernie's Toy Menagerie in Beverly Hills. But this was no ordinary toy piano. It was the size of a spinet, shaped like a baby grand, and painted white. Teresa was sure that Santa Claus would make this a shiny musical Christmas, because she had written him a letter telling how badly she wanted the piano. But older sister Margaret had outgrown Santa Claus. She did believe in discipline, though, and at times she was responsible for her younger sister's behavior. If the problem grew out of hand, she would pick up the nearest phone, saying, "Santa, this is Margaret. Don't bring Teresa that white piano. She's been naughty!" Little Teresa, terrified, would run to the phone, saying, "Santa, this is Teresa — Margaret is only kiddingl" Danny "Santa Claus" Thomas caueht this act one day and immediately called Margaret aside. He carried Teresa's letter in his pocket and he pulled it out for her to see. "Margaret," he said, "you should make the punishment fit the crime. Right now, Santa Claus is the most precious thing in Teresa's heart. You're going overboard when you tease her like that. Okay . . . ?" " 'Kay," said Margaret. Needless to say, Teresa got her piano. The letter? Sentimental "Santa" keeps it in the family scrapbook. Every family has the responsibility of teaching, of unfolding for its youngsters a set of spiritual and moral values for them to live by as they grow older. Danny and Rosemary do not differ from millions of other parents in this regard. They go to the Church of the Good Shepherd every Sunday, as a family unit. And they belong to their children's parent-teacher's clubs. "Clubs" in the plural, because Margaret, Teresa, and Tony attend three different schools. Rosemary belongs to three mothers' clubs. She regularly attends the third Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of every month. When Danny's in town, he goes, too. Danny tries to teach his children a set of values — or, as he calls it: "A sort of what's what in the right time and place." Though, on the surface, he sometimes is not too successful, he believes he's gettinghis ideas through to his children. Service at the dinner table is a specific case in point. Danny can remember his own early childhood and its very meager beginnings. Perhaps it's because of this, perhaps not, but — one way or the other — Danny doesn't care to be waited on. "Nobody shines my shoes," he says. "Nobody brings my car. And we serve ourselves at the table." Recently the Thomases had a family dinner to which a young cousin was invited. Older daughter Margaret, at the impressionable age of sixteen, took charge. She wanted to make an impression on the cousin and arranged to have Anderson, the butler and handyman, serve. When all were seated around the table and Danny's chop was elegantly plopped on his plate, he said, "What's this? If we have to be served when we have company, all right! But I don't like this stuff when we're alone." "Oh, Daddy!" said Margaret, "You live like a peasant!" "That's how I've always lived," said Danny. "That's how I want to live. Just to be served doesn't make a gentleman. Or a lady, either — understand?" "Yes . . . ." said Margaret, and proceeded to pass the chop plate family-style. Finally, the father in every family is a nest builder. Danny is no different. He loves to putter around the house. He turned part of the garage into a charming pine -paneled office, then into a pinepaneled workshop where he keeps his tools. He calls it "the best-dressed workshop on the block." Some of the family (no names, please) look on Danny's puttering with raised eyebrows. The other night he mixed up a batch of paint leftovers and it turned out a deep fuchsia . . . didn't matter whether it matched anything or not — Danny used it to paint all the bathroom seats! Then there was the episode of the cabinet Danny built. Well, not exactly built, because the television set was already in the cabinet. But Danny took out the television apparatus, added a door, setting up the result in Tony's room. "No reason you shouldn't use it as a cabinet," he said. "It'll hold all kinds of things." So what's a family made of? If you ask Danny he probably won't mention the fuchsia bathroom seats — or the television set turned hold-all — yet they are part of the humor in every family. There's also love, and sympathy pains . . . there's teaching a sense of values . . . guidance for the children . . . spiritual companionship ... all of these go to make a family. Or, as Danny says, "It's eighteen years of laughter and tears. That's what a family is made of."