St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Turns 50 at Beverly Hills Gala

This past Saturday, a gala at the  celebrated the 50th anniversary of the opening of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, as well as what would have been the 100th birthday of the man who founded it, legendary entertainer and onetime Beverly Hills resident Danny Thomas.

Hundreds of thousand of dollars was raised to help support the hospital, which treats children who are stricken with life-threatening diseases.

The black-tie event was attended by about 800 guests, including Councilman John Mirisch, former Mayor Nancy Krasne and school board President Dr. Brian Goldberg. Celebrities including Vanessa Williams, Jon Hamm, Angie Dickinson, Mila Kunis and U.S. Airways Flight 1549 pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger were also in attendance. Entertainment was provided with a hilarious stand-up routine by comedian Ray Romano. Songs performed by the legendary Tony Bennett lifted the audience to its feet three times.

Phil Donahue emceed the gala. He introduced a video from his wife and Thomas' daughter, Marlo Thomas, about the history of St. Jude. (Marlo Thomas couldn't attend the event due to her starring role on Broadway's Relatively Speaking.) 

Thomas' two other children, Terre and Tony, were on hand with a representative of the United States Postal Service, who unveiled a mock-up of a new "forever" postage stamp commemorating Thomas' 100th birthday. Designed by Greg Breeding, the stamp features a new portrait of Thomas by artist Tim O’Brien with a background picture of the hospital he founded.

The most emotional part of the evening was when Brian Boucher spoke about his daughter. As a very small child, Jordyn Boucher was diagnosed with a particularly virulent form of cancer. After several bouts of chemotherapy and bone-marrow transplants, she was given no hope of survival. But St. Jude saved her life. As the now healthy 10 year old came out on stage in a gown and tiara, her father picked her up so she could say "hello." The audience spontaneously gave her a heartfelt and quite tearful standing ovation.

For me, the event was a learning experience about what St. Jude does. I'd always known that it was a worthy charity, but I didn't know the history of the hospital. Thomas made a promise to himself that if he made it as an entertainer, he would give something back. The way he decided to do so was to build a hospital that would treat children stricken with cancer. When Thomas heard the story of a young black child in the South who was hit by a car and died because three different hospitals refused him treatment, he decided that his hospital would be in Memphis and open to children of all races, colors and creed.

Los Angeles architect Paul Williams, who worked on the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue store as well as the , drew up the plans for the hospital at no cost. Thomas was tireless in raising the more that $1 million it cost to complete his vision. His family shared warm memories about how he never stopped fundraising, sometimes even getting on the PA system on planes to ask his fellow passengers for donations.

The gala was also an eye-opener as far as exactly what the charity does: no child is turned away because of an inability to pay for his or her treatment. Families are flown in and housed, and children are treated for as long as it takes. Eighty-one cents on every dollar goes directly towards research and patient care. The results of St. Jude's findings are shared freely all over the world.

Perhaps most importantly, research at St. Jude helped to increase the survival rate for the most common type of leukemia in children from 4 percent in 1962 to more than 94 percent today. Many, many other breakthroughs have come about at St. Jude as the overall cure rate in children's cancers is now more than 80 percent.

Thomas' dream was that "No child should die in the dawn of life," and he did something about it. I encourage my fellow Patch readers to do me a favor, skip the lattes for a week and give that money to St. Jude. To "like" the hospital's Facebook page and see some photos from Saturday's gala, click here. To donate to St. Jude, click here.

"It's the small donor that built and maintains St. Jude," Thomas once said.