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| Plot Summary of Make Room for Danny |
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"Make Room for Danny
Danny Thomas with Bill Davidson
G.K. Hall, 1991, 296 pp.
ISBN: 0816152500
The title of this book, "Make Room for Danny" is taken from the title of Danny Thomas's long running TV show "Make Room for Daddy". As related in the book, the TV show title was the result of Danny wanting to do a TV series so that he could spend more time at home with his family rather than constantly traveling to do night club acts. When he would come home from these trips his children would joke about having to "make room for Daddy" in the house.
Born Muzyad Yahkoob, in 1912 to working class Lebanese parents in Michigan, he rose to become a famous comedian and TV personality under the name of Danny Thomas. His youth and teen years were a struggle financially and his entertainment career got off to the usual rough start. In 1936 he married Rose Marie Cassaniti who remained his wife and companion for life.
In addition to his career as an entertainer, Thomas is also known for his founding of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. With his wife pregnant with their first child and little money on hand Thomas questioned whether he should continue with his dream of an entertainment career or find something else. Praying alone in a church one evening before a statute of St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless causes, Danny asked the saint for guidance and promised to build a shrine to St. Jude if he was given guidance. A short time later he received a contract to perform in a well known club in Chicago and his career took off. While he was a religious man all his life, the press of career and family took precedence over the promise to St. Jude and it wasn't until later in life that, at the urging of a Jewish colleague, he set out to keep his promise. But, when he found out that a national shrine to St. Jude already existed in Chicago, he had to find some other way to keep the promise and the far bigger and more ambitious St. Jude Children's Research Hospital was the end result.
The book is very readable and contains good descriptions of the entertainment industry and Danny's well known contemporaries in that industry from the forties onward. For those who enjoyed watching Danny Williams, the traveling night club comic of the "Make Room for Daddy" TV series and its numerous re-runs this book will be of special interest.
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Chuck Nugent, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Make Room for Danny |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
job/profession:
- actor/actress
Job/profession/poverty story
Yes
Story of entertainer?
- TV Comedy Actor
Period of greatest activity?
- 1950+
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- actor/actress/producer
Age:
- long lived adults
Ethnicity
- Arab
How sensitive is this person?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other people
Setting
United States
Yes
The US:
- Midwest
- California
Century:
- 1960's-1970's
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Book makes you feel?
- very happy
Is book humorous?
Yes
If humorous, kind of humor
- gentle
Writer's slant towards subject:
- very favorable
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of nearly entire life
If this is a kid's book:
- Age 16-Adult
Autobiography?
Yes
Pictures/Illustrations?
- A few 1-5 B&W
How much dialogue in bio?
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life?
- 51%-75% of book
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Danny Thomas Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 Chuck Nugent
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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