Marlo Thomas

Marlo Thomas (born November 21, 1937, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.) is an American actress, author, and philanthropist best known for her role in the sitcom That Girl (1965–71), and for creating the seminal children’s album (1972) and TV show (1974) Free to Be… You and Me.

Early life and education

Thomas was born Margaret Julia Thomas, the eldest of three children of actor and comedian Danny Thomas and Rose Marie Cassaniti, who had been a singer. Her name “Marlo” resulted from a childhood mispronunciation of “Margo,” which her parents had called her. Although Thomas was born in Detroit, she grew up in Beverly Hills, California, where her father worked in film and TV. She earned an education degree from the University of Southern California.

Early roles and That Girl

In the 1960s Thomas began to appear in several TV shows, including her father’s program, The Danny Thomas Show, in 1961. She also had a recurring part in The Joey Bishop Show during the 1961–62 season. In 1965 Thomas starred as a newlywed in the London production of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park. Her breakout came the following year when That Girl premiered on ABC. Created by a pair of former head writers of The Dick Van Dyke Show, That Girl featured Thomas as Ann Marie, an aspiring actress and model who has moved to New York City from a small town, determined to make it as an independent career-minded woman. During the show’s five-season run, Thomas was nominated for four Emmy Awards and she won the Golden Globe for Best Female TV Star in 1967.

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Free to Be…

In the early 1970s Thomas was inspired to create the children’s album Free to Be… You and Me after reading bedtime stories to her niece. In the 2010 DVD release of the TV special, she recalled being put off by the children’s books that “told girls and boys who they should be, who they ought to be, but seldom who they could be.” Thomas recruited celebrities such as actor Mel Brooks, playwright Paddy Chayefsky, and singer Harry Belafonte to put together an album of songs, poems, and stories, which was released in 1972. It was followed by a TV adaptation in 1974. Free to Be took on gender stereotypes with such songs as William’s Doll, sung by Thomas and actor Alan Alda, about a boy who wants a doll. While putting together the TV special, Thomas encountered some resistance from network executives who initially wanted to remove the song. As Thomas described at a 40th-anniversary screening, the executives said the song “would make every boy in America a sissy—and ‘sissy’ wasn’t the word they used.” The TV program Free to Be…, which ended up including William’s Doll, became a significant part of ‘70s culture. Its message of inclusivity helped shape the views of many kids from Generation X. Thomas won an Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Special for the program and a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for the recording. A TV special based off the original, Free to Be… a Family, aired in 1988, and Thomas won another Emmy.

Later acting roles

In addition to Free to Be, Thomas continued her acting career, taking on more serious roles, including an unwed mother in the 1970 movie Jenny. She also starred in the Broadway premiere of Herb Gardner’s Thieves (1974) and the film adaptation in 1977. While promoting the movie on Phil Donahue’s daytime talk show, she and the host hit it off and married in 1980. Meanwhile Thomas starred in a string of TV movies, including It Happened One Christmas (1977), The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck (1984) with Kris Kristofferson, and Consenting Adult (1985) opposite Martin Sheen.. Thomas won another Emmy for her role as woman reacclimating to society after spending 20 years in a mental institution in the TV movie Nobody’s Child (1986). That same year she starred in the Broadway play Social Security.

In the 1990s Thomas became familiar to a group of younger TV viewers in a recurring role (1996 and 2002) as Rachel’s mom on Friends. Thomas also had roles on Roseanne in 1996 and Ally McBeal in 2000 and appeared in the 1994 Broadway revival The Shadow Box. She occasionally acted in the 21st century, including in the one-act play George is Dead on Broadway in 2011.

Advocacy, honors, and books

Thomas has long worked on behalf of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which treats children’s cancer and other pediatric diseases in Memphis, Tennessee. Her father founded the hospital in 1962 with hope that “no child should die in the dawn of life.” With Gloria Steinem and others, Thomas was also a cofounder (1973) of the Ms. Foundation for Women, an organization dedicated to “securing rights, equality, and justice for women.” In 2014 Pres. Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2023 the Alliance for Women in Media awarded her its Lifetime Achievement Award. Thomas has also published several books, including Free to Be... a Family: A Book About All Kinds of Belonging (1987), her 2010 autobiography Growing Up Laughing, and What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life (2020), the latter of which she wrote with her husband.

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