Aladdin Abdullah Achmed Anthony Pallante (September 12, 1912–June 9, 1970), an actor and musician born and raised in New York, better known to fans as "Aladdin" on The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1967. (He also appeared in a few Hollywood movies, including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; and he played violin in the bands of Xavier Cougat and Rudy Vallee.)
Known informally among Lawrence Welk's band members as Tony Pallante, he took the stage name Aladdin. Okay, maybe he was just an Italian-American from New York City; but why would he adopt that blatantly Islamic name? Pure whimsy? I don't know; that seems a stretch. There's something a bit too world-wise and world-weary about him, as I've noticed from watching a few of his various performances; some cosmopolitan je-ne-sais-quoi that knows a bit too much of that other world most Westerners have forgotten -- the Orient (meaning the Near and Middle East, of course). If he was not Muslim, his family had provenance in the Muslim world -- and now we're verging onto "Danny Thomas" territory, where we can rarely trust the Middle Eastern Christian dhimmis who Americanized themselves.
But anyway, he liked song-and-dance and he was a musician; so therefore, there is no metastasizing problem of Islamic terrorism, right...? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
At any rate, here he is doing one of his dramatic recitals, "I Am the United States". Either richly ironic, poignantly schizophrenic, or simply unobjectionably "American". You be the judge. But don't endanger my life with your glib sentimentality please.
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