Danny Thomas: Miracles & Bons Mots : An appreciation: The comedian, who died Wednesday, had a bond of warmth and affection with his audience.

The classic story about Danny Thomas--who died at 79 of heart failure early Wednesday morning--the one everyone remembers when the subject of miracles comes up, places him in the late ‘30s in a Chicago night spot called the 5100 Club. His career was spluttering. He had an infant daughter, Margaret (who later took on the name Marlo). His wife, Rosemarie, was pleading with him to get out of show business, a profession he had loved so much that he quit high school to work $2 gigs in Detroit.

He was still Amos Jacobs then, the fifth of nine children born in Deerfield, Mich. His Lebanese parents had had such a rough time making do as farmers that they tried to start over again in Toledo, Ohio, where his father had opened a candy store (the name Danny Thomas was taken from two of his brothers). Amos himself had been raised by a doting aunt in Rochester, N.Y.. Once he discovered show business selling candy in a burlesque theater, he was hooked. There was nothing quite like this.

In Chicago, it looked as though his dream was about to end. The Great Depression was still on. Dreams were a luxury at the time. Then he did what most people do in a pinch. He prayed that if he could see his way clear through this crisis, he’d pay back his good fortune. The prayer was addressed to St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless causes. Amos Jacobs wasn’t a comedian for nothing.

Later he would say, “I never did say ‘Make me rich and famous.’ I said, ‘Help me find a way in life and I will build you a shrine.’ ”

Whatever he said, of course, worked. Things began to turn around. He began playing more upscale clubs. He tied in with a sagacious veteran publicist, Maury Foladare, and his career blossomed further. He came to Hollywood to do “The Baby Snooks Show” on radio. He made several movies from 1947 through 1953, which included “The Unfinished Dance,” “Big City,” “The Jazz Singer” and “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” in which he played songwriter Gus Kahn. Thomas wasn’t a conventionally handsome man, but he had a dark, vivid, friendly, appealing look. He was one up on a lot of other comedians because his appearance and demeanor made you feel good before he opened his mouth, which always seemed poised before the delivery of a bon mot.

Thomas’ great success was his TV show, “Make Room for Daddy,” which went on the air in 1953 and made him a national figure over its 11-year run (revived in 1970-71 as “Make Room for Granddaddy”). His role as Danny Williams, an oft-absent entertainer forever trying to mediate the comic Sturm und Drang of family life, is endearing not only in his frustrated attempt to keep his head while everyone around him is losing theirs, but because he was one of the last TV patriarchs who wasn’t depicted as an antiquated fool or a tyrannical boob (only Bill Cosby has kept the moral authority of fatherhood alive).

Over the course of his career he was knighted by two Popes and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He became an insider on the Hollywood social circuit.

Unlike most people however, he never reneged on the deal he made with the Primal Elder that grim night in Chicago. Over the years he worked up enough money through fund-raising appearances and gentle arm-twisting to found a children’s hospital in Memphis, St. Jude’s. The hospital took in its first patient in 1962, a child suffering from acute lymphocytic leukemia. The survival rate from the disease then was 5%. When Thomas died, the survival rate was over 50% and the hospital had become as famous as its founder and main benefactor.

Thomas had recently come out with an autobiography, “Make Room for Danny,” and a couple of years ago he went out on the road with Sid Caesar and Milton Berle in a program called “Legends of Comedy.” In truth, the evening showcased three people whose work had dated some. A lot of it was schticky, corny, and heavily freighted with the nostalgia of aging Friars clubbies on a night out.

But Thomas had always been a good soldier on the Hollywood circuit, long after he could have packed it in and basked in sunny retirement in another part of the world. And there was something singular in his appearance in “Legends” as well. He told a few jokes, he mugged onstage with Berle and Caesar. But when he was on his own, the room quieted. He let go of the brass and worked towards the thing he did best, telling a story and basing it not in yocks but on a bond of warmth and affection with his audience.

Danny Thomas gave the gift of laughter and the gift of life. He died a rich man.