TLDR: Ed Ames built a real singing career and a serious Broadway resume before Hollywood decided his sharp features made him look Native American enough to cast, again and again, as exactly that. One live-television mishap turned his whole double life into the most famous four-minute laugh in Tonight Show history.
Edmund Dantes Urick was born July 9, 1927, in Malden, Massachusetts, to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants.
He started performing professionally with his brothers as The Ames Brothers in the late 1940s, building a genuine recording career on labels including Decca, Coral, and RCA Victor well before he ever set foot on a Western set.
Broadway, Not a Western, Is What Actually Got Him Noticed
Ames’s dark complexion and sharp facial features led casting directors to repeatedly place him in Native American roles throughout his career, but his real breakthrough came somewhere else entirely.
He played Chief Bromden opposite Kirk Douglas in the original Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a serious dramatic role that had nothing to do with Westerns at all.
That performance is exactly what caught the attention of talent scouts from 20th Century Fox, who invited him to play Mingo, a Cherokee companion to Fess Parker’s Daniel Boone, on NBC’s new series in 1964.
In the show’s own invented mythology, Mingo was written as the disinherited son of a British earl played by Walter Pidgeon, choosing to remain part of the Cherokee Nation rather than claim a European title, a backstory with no grounding in anything historically real.
A Tomahawk Throw Became the Most Famous Laugh in Late-Night History
In 1965, while promoting Daniel Boone, Ames appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson to demonstrate precision tomahawk throwing.
In rehearsal, he’d nailed the outline of a wooden cowboy target dead center every single time; on the actual broadcast, the tomahawk struck the target squarely in the groin instead.
Carson’s ad-lib landed immediately: “I didn’t even know you were Jewish!” followed by a second line, “welcome to Frontier Bris,” that sent the studio audience into a laughing fit later documented as one of the longest in television history, running a full four minutes before the show could continue.
The joke worked specifically because it was true, a real Jewish performer had spent years playing a role built entirely around a fictional Native American identity, and the accident briefly made that contradiction the funniest thing on television.
Ames himself leaned into the moment rather than away from it for the rest of his career, recalling the story fondly in interviews decades later. That single clip likely did more for the show’s visibility in the moment than any planned publicity ever could have.
He Kept a Real Singing Career Running the Whole Time
Ames left Daniel Boone after four seasons but never really stepped away from music, scoring a genuine Adult Contemporary chart hit as a solo artist alongside his ongoing acting work.
He continued performing and recording for decades afterward, keeping the same easy-listening and pop sensibility that had defined his work with his brothers years earlier.
Ed Ames died on May 21, 2023, in Beverly Hills, California, at age 95, survived by his wife Jeanne, his children Ronald and Sonya, seven grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and a stepson.
You can read more about the rest of the Daniel Boone cast in our full guide to the show.
Ed Ames, Frequently Asked Questions
Was Ed Ames really Jewish?
Yes, he was born Edmund Dantes Urick to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants in Malden, Massachusetts, despite spending much of his career cast in Native American roles.
What happened during Ed Ames’s famous Tonight Show appearance?
During a 1965 tomahawk-throwing demonstration promoting Daniel Boone, his throw struck a wooden target in the groin instead of the chest. Johnny Carson’s ad-lib, “I didn’t even know you were Jewish,” followed by “welcome to Frontier Bris,” triggered one of the longest audience laughing fits in television history.
What was Ed Ames’s career before Daniel Boone?
He performed with his brothers as The Ames Brothers starting in the late 1940s and later played Chief Bromden opposite Kirk Douglas in the original Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the performance that led to his Daniel Boone casting.
How did Ed Ames die?
He died on May 21, 2023, in Beverly Hills, California, at age 95.
