St. Jude Hospital Gala Benefit Keeps Vow Alive

Danny Thomas and St. Jude are partners in the patron business. The 1st-Century saint is patron of hopeless causes, while Thomas has been patron to the hospital bearing the saint’s name.

“I made a vow to St. Jude,” Thomas said, speaking at the Century Plaza Saturday night. “I . . . said, ‘Hey, I hear you’re the patron of the hopeless. I’m young. Help me find my way in life and I’ll build you a shrine.’ Ten days later I got a couple jobs. That led to . . . “

It led to a career in radio, nightclubs, movies and television. But most of all, it led to his founding of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., in the 1960s.

“This is the reason I was born,” Thomas said. “I know that now.”

It was to help fund the hospital’s $192,000-a-day budget that 1,400 guests filled the hotel’s Los Angeles ballroom.

“If it wasn’t for Danny and (his wife) Rose Marie, there wouldn’t be a hospital,” said comedian George Burns, 94. He said he supports St. Jude, although “I don’t believe in hospitals. I don’t believe in dying either. It’s been done and I don’t do anything that’s been done.”

To get the work done at St. Jude, $1 million was raised at the black-tie dinner by the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities, the fund-raising arm of the hospital.

“For Lebanese, Danny Thomas is an idol,” said Gilbert Chagoury, an industrialist and Man of the Year honoree. “But he’s not only famous with Lebanese. I live in Africa and France and his television show, ‘Make Room for Daddy,’ has been the most popular since I was a child.”

Besides Chagoury, other honorees were: Rosemary Willson, long a hospital supporter who received the Woman of the Year award, and lawyer Paul Ziffren, who has done gratis legal work for the hospital since its inception. He was ill; his Founders Award was accepted by his wife, Mickey.

Among those present for the dinner (underwritten by John and Donna Crean) and the Broadway musical-themed performance by Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, were Bob Hope; Milton Berle; “Golden Girls” Estelle Getty, Bea Arthur and Betty White; astronaut Buzz Aldrin and wife Lois, as well as Phyllis Diller, Ann Jillian, Carol Channing, Casey Kasem, Sheldon Leonard, Father Maurice Chase, Barbara Eden, Jack Carter, Buddy Ebsen, and Thomas’ daughter Terre and son Tony.