It’s a creepy feeling. The feeling you get when suddenly a new person’s posts start appearing in your Facebook feed. Someone who you don’t know and you don’t care about. You can’t fathom why you should suddenly be seeing their stories, their missives to their loving spouses, and their Fathers’ Day remembrances of their gone but much-missed parent.
So for the last week, I have been a bit creeped out to open my Facebook page and find another post by Marlo Thomas. Yes, that Marlo Thomas, That Girl herself.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Marlo Thomas’s posts. She shows photos of herself with her husband Phil Donahue; she remembers her daddy Danny; she sends out a message of peace and love on Juneteenth. It is wholesome and uplifting and just what you would expect.
So why does it give me the shivers? I just can’t figure out how the Facebook algorithm decided to share Marlo and Phil’s life with me. I am quite certain that I have never said her name aloud in our kitchen where Alexa might overhear and report the info to Facebook. I have never done a Google search on Ms. Thomas, nor asked ChatGPT what it would be like to be Marlo Thomas. And a comprehensive review of my nearly eight years of blogging would not bring up her name even once. So why the new Facebook connection?
Of course, I am not unaware of the existence of Marlo Thomas. As a youngster, Make Room for Daddy was one of my favorite shows (yes I know, Angela Cartwright, not Marlo, played Danny’s daughter.) The mid-1960s brought us That Girl and although it wasn’t quite as compelling as The Mary Tyler Moore Show it was ok. It had a hat toss now and then and it introduced the world to Ted Bessell before he went on to fame and fortune in Me and the Chimp.
Marlo does have a Chicago connection, marrying Phil Donahue during the period when The Phil Donahue Show was being produced here. I even saw Marlo in a Chicago theater role here a few years later, as she starred in the Briar Street Theater production of Six Degrees of Separation. No hat tossing or Ted Bessell with that one.
In recent years, we all saw her fundraising for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. For her good works, she has been presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She is a beacon to all.
I just can’t figure out how she wound up invading my Facebook space. Who is going to be next, Agent 99?
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