The Jewish singer who played Native Americans

Ed Ames 1927–2023

Ed Ames made an unlikely Native American. He started out as the youngest member of the Ames Brothers—a smooth-singing quartet of basses and baritones, not tenors like most 1950s singing groups.The brothers were Billboard ’s vocal group of the year in 1958, but soon after that Ames ditched the nightclub circuit, saying, “I thought I’d go out of my skull if I had to sing the same song again.” A solo singing career led to acting, and Ames, with his dark complexion and chiseled cheekbones, found a niche playing Native roles. His turn as mental patient Chief Bromden in the Broadway play One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest led to the part of Mingo, the erudite half-Cherokee and son of a British earl he played on NBC’s Daniel Boone from 1964 to 1970.

Ames was born Edmund Urick, the youngest of 11 children of Jewish parents from Ukraine, said The New York Times. He and three brothers put out more than 40 albums together and grew so popular they were on the road nearly all the time, rarely seeing their young families. Ames knew he was done, though, the day he came home unexpectedly and his 3-year-old daughter said to his wife “one of the Ames Brothers” was at the door.

“Try to Remember” from The Fantasticks was Ames’ “theme song,” said The Washington Post. But he may be most famous for his part in a 1965 Tonight Show segment that “became one of the show’s most memorable.” Asked to teach Johnny Carson how to throw a tomahawk, Ames hit his target—a cutout depicting a sheriff—directly in the crotch. As the audience roared with laughter, Carson quipped, “I didn’t even know you were Jewish.”