About This Stamp
As the star of the popular sitcom Make Room for Daddy, Danny Thomas (1912–1991) was the consummate entertainer — but behind all the anecdotes and jokes was a serious humanitarian. In 1962, in gratitude for prayers answered, Thomas opened St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where children receive treatment for catastrophic diseases regardless of race, religion, or a family’s ability to pay. “No child,” Thomas insisted, “should die in the dawn of life.”
The Danny Thomas stamp features an oil-on-panel painting showing a smiling, tuxedo-clad Thomas in the foreground and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the background.
Make Room for Daddy, which aired from 1953 through 1964, earned Thomas an Emmy for Best Actor Starring in a Regular Series, and he later produced such television hits as The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Mod Squad — but Thomas saw St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as his ultimate legacy. Since its founding, St. Jude has helped dramatically increase childhood cancer survival rates across America and around the world.
Tim O'Brien created the artwork for the Danny Thomas stamp. Greg Breeding was the designer, and William J. Gicker served as art director.
The Danny Thomas stamp is being issued as a Forever® stamp in self-adhesive sheets of 20. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate. At the time of issuance, the Danny Thomas stamps are being sold at a price of 45 cents each, or $9.00 per sheet.
Danny Thomas’s image used under license.
Stamp Art Director
William Gicker
William Gicker served as Director of Stamp Services for the U.S. Postal Service from 2020 until his retirement in 2023. In that position he oversaw stamp development, stamp products and exhibitions, stamp manufacturing, stamp fulfillment, and the Postmaster General’s Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC).
Gicker began working for the U.S. Postal Service in 1998. Initially assistant editor of USA Philatelic, the quarterly stamp catalog produced by Stamp Services, he soon became editor where he oversaw the catalog’s award-winning program until 2013.
Named creative director of stamps in 2001, Gicker became manager and creative director of Stamp Development in 2015. Working closely with Postal Service art directors and CSAC, he managed the creative development and quality control of more than 800 stamp issuances and 1,700 individual stamp designs.
He has served as art director for some of the most popular stamps issued by the Postal Service: the five-year Art of Disney series; Star Wars; Holy Family; Harry Potter; and Hot Wheels. As both art director and designer, Gicker lists among his many stamps, Holiday Baubles; the first international rate Global stamp in 2013; and the Gifts of Friendship joint issuance with Japan. He was also art director for the first stamp to celebrate Diwali, eight more Global Forever® stamps, and several Christmas Madonna and Child issuances, the most recent in 2024.
A native of Pennsylvania, Gicker graduated from West Chester University with a bachelor of arts degree in English Literature. He and his family live in Washington, DC.
Stamp Designer
Greg Breeding
Greg Breeding is a graphic designer and principal of Journey Group, a design company he co-founded in 1992, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was creative director until 2013, at which time he began serving as president and continued in that role through 2023.
Breeding’s fascination with modernism began while studying design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His affinity with the movement continues and motivates his ongoing advanced studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland most every summer.
As an art director for postage stamp design since 2012, Breeding has designed more than 100 stamps covering a diverse array of subjects, from Star Wars droids and Batman to Harlem Renaissance writers and the transcontinental railroad.
His work has been recognized in annual design competitions held by Graphis, AIGA, PRINT magazine, and Communication Arts.
Breeding lives in North Garden, Virginia, with his wife and enjoys nothing so much as frolicking on the floor with his grandchildren.