What Happened to Marlo Thomas at 88, Try Not to CRY When You See… HT
In 1977, when millions of American viewers believed Marlo Thomas was simply the perfect independent woman of television, her father, legendary entertainer Danny Thomas, suddenly passed away, leaving behind a vast charitable empire so immense that all of her achievements were immediately placed under question.
So, who was the woman who once represented freedom, modernity, and control over her own life if the shadow of her father and the beloved character known across the nation were taken away? Marlo Thomas was more than just a star. She became a symbol of a generation of women who dared to say no to traditional marriage, who chose to live alone in an era that saw such a choice as abnormal.
Through That Girl, she made millions believe that women could write their own destinies. Yet, behind that image was a far more difficult journey. The pressure to prove herself beyond her father’s legacy, years of loneliness for going against social norms, and relationships marked by hesitation, where love always came second to independence.
She carried within her two parallel worlds, a strong, self-assured woman in the public eye, and a person constantly torn between family, fame, and the desire to be loved in the most ordinary way. Success came early, but peace arrived much later, and not without its cost. This is not just the story of Marlo Thomas.
It is the journey of a woman who spent her entire life proving that freedom does not always mean happiness. Marlo Thomas was born on November 21st, 1937, in Detroit, and grew up in Beverly Hills. Her father, Danny Thomas, was a familiar face on American television at the time. The studio, therefore, was not a distant place she needed to conquer, but a space she could enter from a very early age.
Filming sessions, costume changes, conversations taking place between takes. For a child, it was not a profession that required definition, but a part of everyday life, where the boundary between work and life almost did not exist. That closeness did not come with a pre-laid path. As the eldest child in the family, Marlo often stayed home with her siblings when her parents were away.
When the adults around her crossed certain boundaries, she was the one who spoke up, many times in specific situations, at a very young age. This role was never formally named, but it repeated often enough to become a habit, stepping in to handle things, rather than waiting for someone else to do it.
These experiences did not form a clear declaration, but they stayed with her through many stages that followed. Within that same family space, two different directions existed. From her father, she absorbed humor, warmth, and a way of existing on stage. From her mother, she witnessed a path that had been cut short.
Before marriage, her mother had a singing career, her own program, and an independent position. After that, the work did not continue. There was no clear moment of ending, only an increasing distance between what had once been done and the possibility of returning to it, while the joy of singing still remained. When she entered the University of Southern California, Marlo chose to study education.
The decision was practical, aligning with a more stable path compared to the stage. During her studies, she stood in front of classrooms, told stories, held the attention of others, things that ran parallel to what she had already observed on set. The shift did not come from a sudden decision, but from realizing she could not remain within the path she had chosen.
In the early 1960s, Marlo Thomas began appearing regularly on American television. She moved through Bonanza, The Donna Reed Show, The Joey Bishop Show, 77 Sunset Strip, programs with large audiences produced at a rapid pace, each episode requiring new faces. Filming schedules followed one after another, her name appearing consistently, enough to keep her from falling out of the system’s rotation.
But the structure of those roles hardly changed. A character appearing in a single episode, fulfilling a function, then disappearing as the story moved on the following week. In auditions, one detail always preceded her performance, the last name of Danny Thomas. Casting directors knew who she was before she even began reading her lines.
Doors opened faster, but the gaze lingered longer. The roles she was given were often enough to prove she could work within an established framework, but rarely wide enough to change how she was perceived. After each appearance, the process repeated almost identically. Finish filming, leave, start again from the beginning on another show.
For several years, that rhythm remained unchanged. The number of roles increased, but her position hardly shifted. There were times she reached the final round and stopped there, small roles that lasted only a single episode, opportunities that came quickly and closed just as soon as the work was done.
There was no role that lasted long enough to build momentum, no project large enough to keep her in the audience’s memory once the screen went dark. At a certain point, continuing in this way no longer created anything new. Marlo Thomas was still within the system, still working constantly, still understanding how it operated, but the result always returned to the same position, and it was precisely that state of repetition that began to reveal its limits.
Not a lack of opportunity, but the absence of a role significant enough to end the cycle of having to start over again after every appearance. That in-between state did not last for many more years. In 1965, another door opened in a way few could have predicted. Mike Nichols chose Marlo Thomas for Barefoot in the Park in London, a completely different environment from the fast-paced, fragmented production rhythm of American television.
For the first time, she did not appear in a single episode and then leave, but remained within a continuous theatrical structure, where each performance required precision, emotional consistency, and the ability to sustain a character from beginning to end. The stage did not allow for faintness.
There was no editing, no camera angles to conceal gaps. Every reaction, every line had to stand on its own before a live audience. In that space, what she had accumulated from smaller roles began to be tested in a different way, not to exist within a system, but to hold attention in a space without cuts.
And it was precisely in this environment that something became clearer. She could stand on stage as an independent actress without relying on anything that had come before. The difference was not in the scale of the role, but in how it was perceived. This was one of the rare moments when Marlo Thomas was evaluated based on her own performance, rather than her position within a familiar system.
The comparison to the name Danny Thomas did not disappear entirely, but it was no longer the center of the story. The role did not create an immediate breakthrough, nor did it come with measurable numbers or titles, but it changed how she was seen. From a face that appeared regularly to an actress capable of carrying a leading role within a structure that demanded more.
After that shift on stage in 1965, Marlo Thomas entered an entirely different position, not through a loud breakthrough, but by, for the first time, gaining control over how she would appear. In 1966, That Girl premiered. Marlo was no longer a face passing through episodes and disappearing.
She stood at the center, and more importantly, she was involved in creating that center. From the initial concept to how the character was written, how the story was developed, every small decision passed through a level of control she had never had before. For a television actress at that time, this was not only rare, it almost went against how the system operated.
Ann Marie appeared not as a character needing to be explained, but as a life in motion, a small apartment in New York, temporary jobs that changed week to week, auditions that ended without answers. Details that seemed too small to create drama accumulated into a very specific feeling, someone trying to sustain herself without a fixed structure supporting her.
It was there that Marlo kept the character in an open state, not rushing her toward a conclusion, not turning difficulties into stepping stones toward a familiar, complete ending. Maintaining that state across multiple seasons became a constant tension. With each passing year, the pressure increased noticeably.
The character needed to be more stable. The story needed to be clearer. Relationships needed to go somewhere. The proposals did not stop at adding situations, but began to touch the core direction, especially in how the character was positioned within love, marriage, and what was considered a proper ending.
Each small change had the potential to shift the entire axis Marlo had been holding from the beginning. And each time she had to decide what to preserve, what to yield within a system not designed to prioritize her choices. Running parallel to the internal pressure was another current, quieter, but far heavier.
Letters began to arrive, not just brief feedback, but long, detailed accounts carrying a level of desperation television rarely reached. Young girls who were pregnant and afraid to tell their families. Women living in abusive situations with nowhere to go. People standing at a point where every option had narrowed.
They were not writing about an episode. They were writing as if searching for someone who could listen. Marlo did not enter That Girl intending to become a recipient of those stories. But as they began to arrive with increasing frequency, the distance between screen and real life no longer remained the same.
What she was holding for the character was no longer just a creative choice. It began to carry consequences. Every decision in the script, every direction of Ann Marie could become a signal interpreted in different ways by viewers. From a certain point on, Marlo was no longer simply making a television show.
She stood at a place where every choice could extend beyond its original boundaries. And it was precisely this shift from a role to a position of influence that became the true pressure of this period, where every step had to be right not only for the story, but also strong enough to withstand what was coming from the other side of the screen.
By 1971, when That Girl reached its final season, everything Marlo Thomas had held on to for 5 years no longer unfolded across episodes, but converged into a single point. The ending. There, every prior choice had to answer an unavoidable question. How would this story close? And what would it say about everything that had come before? ABC and the sponsors left no room for hesitation.
A wedding, a familiar ending, an image safe enough to preserve all the expectations built over the years. For Marlo, this was no longer a reasonable option within the script, but a line. If Ann Marie married in the final episode, the entire 5-year journey would be reduced to a single conclusion, where every previous choice, failures, open directions, unresolved moments would be pulled toward one familiar destination.
That would not only change how the story ended, but also the meaning of its existence. The pressure tightened from all sides at once, not separately, but layered together. The network needed a stable ending. The sponsors needed an acceptable image. Part of the audience expected a sense of closure in the way they were used to, and the entire system moved in that direction like an almost irreversible momentum.
At the center of it all was Marlo, fully aware that a single step back at this point would cause everything she had maintained for years to disappear instantly. Not in a dramatic way, but in a completely natural one, as if it had never meant anything else. The decision was not made through a public confrontation, but by maintaining the original direction within the final episode itself.
Ann Marie does not get married. The story stops while it is still in motion, unclosed, unresolved, without offering a final answer. And that very incompletion immediately generated a stronger reaction than any neat ending could have. Disappointment, opposition, controversy, and also the recognition that what had just happened had broken an expectation once considered obvious.
Ann Marie does not get married. The story stops while it is still unfolding. The reaction came immediately. Disappointment, opposition, debate, but that space remained intact. An ending that does not close forces the audience to confront what the show had avoided for years. After the ending point in 1971, Marlo Thomas’s trajectory did not contract around a successful television image, but expanded in two parallel directions, creative work and social engagement, holding on to the same question.
What can an image do once it steps beyond the screen? In 1972, Free to Be You and Me emerged not as a single project, but as a structure built from multiple layers at once, a book, an album, a television program. The stories, songs, and situations within it did not revolve around a unified plot, but around a central idea.
Children do not need to grow up within predefined molds. Boys do not have to follow a fixed role. Girls are not required to choose a single, rigid identity. The project quickly moved beyond the scope of an entertainment product. The album reached platinum status. The television program won an Emmy.
The book became a best-seller. But those numbers reflected only part of its impact. The content of Free to Be You and Me began entering schools, classrooms, and the way teachers spoke with students. Its songs and stories became teaching tools, repeated often enough to form a lasting layer of influence.
At the same time, a counter-reaction emerged with equal intensity. Content encouraging children to move beyond gender stereotypes was not universally accepted. Some ideas were seen as too progressive, too far from the family norms of that time. There were assessments claiming the project was disrupting values that had remained stable across generations.
Marlo did not distance herself from those debates. She stepped into a space where every creative choice carried a clear social consequence. And every time she spoke was met with a corresponding level of opposition. In 1973, that movement extended beyond the scope of an artistic project and entered a structure with direct impact.
Marlo Thomas, together with Gloria Steinem and collaborators, co-founded the Ms. Foundation for Women. This was no longer about an image on screen, but about directing real resources into places that had barely existed within the system. Small, scattered women’s groups lacking funding, networks, and the ability to sustain themselves.
The grants were not large in scale, but sufficient for organizations to begin, to continue, to keep existing. The work unfolded slowly, without noise, without easily recognizable peaks, yet every decision touched a concrete reality. From this point onward, the pressure was no longer about whether an idea would be accepted, but how it would be reacted to.
What had previously been seen as a positive message began to be labeled differently, too progressive, disruptive to norms, going beyond what a television star should do. The opposition did not appear as isolated events, but repeated across each statement, each appearance, each project associated with her name.
The boundary between work and stance disappeared. Every public choice carried a political interpretation. At this stage, the cost of presence changed entirely. It was no longer about being compared to a role or a prior image, but about being placed in a position where one had to answer for what one represented.
Criticism no longer targeted skill, but direction. It did not stop at a single project, but extended across the entire trajectory of her work. Some content was considered dangerous, not because of how it was presented, but because of what it could change. Marlo did not withdraw from that space. She continued to appear in activities, continued to attach her name to decisions that could provoke controversy, while maintaining her creative work in parallel.
This did not produce a single explosive moment, but rather a sustained state of tension, where every step passed through a corresponding layer of reaction. And within that state, the boundary between an artist and someone directly engaged in social life began to blur, leaving behind a position far more difficult to maintain than any role she had played before.
After nearly a decade of expanding horizontally, where her work no longer stopped at the screen, but extended into education, social activism, and public debate, Marlo Thomas returned to a more familiar space, but in a different way. The 1980s did not begin with a major project, but with an internal decision. She entered the Actor’s Studio, where acting was no longer measured by visibility or the ability to sustain an image, but by the depth of what unfolded within the character.
There, everything slowed down, but also became more difficult. Each role could not rely on prior familiarity, but had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Each reaction, each emotional beat. This shift did not create an immediate change on the surface. Marlo continued to appear on television, continued working on Broadway, but her choice of roles began to shift clearly.
Projects with broad appeal and easy accessibility gradually gave way to characters that required more time and sustained focus. This was not an easy path to maintain in an industry driven by recognition, because the deeper one went into interiority, the less immediate impact one could generate.
Yet at that point, she accepted a trade-off. Less presence in the mainstream flow in exchange for the ability to retain something more lasting within each role. The peak of this direction appeared in 1986 with Nobody’s Child. The role did not rely on production scale or promotional campaigns, but placed its entire weight on a character existing in a state of neglect, without support, without protection.
This was no longer a role that could be sustained by a familiar image. It demanded a deeper level of immersion, where emotion was not pushed outward, but held long enough for the audience to recognize it. The Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress that came from this performance was not a separate point, but a confirmation of a direction sustained over many years, where each role was no longer a sequence of appearances, but became a space of accumulation, deep enough to stand on its own and carry its
own weight. Moving into the second half of the 1990s, Marlo Thomas returned to a more familiar space, but this time not to repeat a former position, but to appear in a different way. From 1996 to 2002, she appeared on Friends as Sandra Green, Rachel’s mother. This was not a central role, nor a character arc built across the entire series, but each appearance carried a clear layer of contrast.
A woman from an earlier generation standing before the choices her daughter had refused. The exchanges between the two characters did not stop at humor, but touched a generational gap, where what had once been considered stable began to reveal its limitations. This return did not create a comeback in the usual sense.
Marlo did not attempt to reclaim the central position, but placed herself within an already successful structure and held a role small enough not to disrupt it, yet distinct enough to leave her own mark. This revealed an important shift in how she worked. She no longer needed a project to define her, but could appear within another system while still retaining her own weight.
Alongside her return to television, another direction of Marlo Thomas gradually became clearer. Not in expanding her image, but in taking her work beyond the boundaries of pure entertainment. In 2004, she created Thanks and Giving All Year Long, a project combining a book and an album, bringing together many artists.
On the surface, it remained a family-oriented product, warm and approachable. But beneath that structure lay a far more specific goal, to generate financial support for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a place directly tied to her father’s legacy. This project did not begin from the ambition to create a commercially successful product, but from a practical need.
How to sustain and expand resources for a medical institution that depended largely on public contributions. That changed how it was built from the beginning. The stories, songs, and participation of artists were not only meant to attract attention, but had to be accessible enough to enter daily life, durable enough to be repeated, and persuasive enough to transform into action.
When the album received a Grammy Award in 2006, that recognition did not represent the peak of a musical career, because that had never been the primary goal, but rather marked the point where a structure that seemed simple had gone further than expected. Success did not stop at being heard, but continued to move beyond that in the form of real contributions flowing into St. Jude.
All profits were transferred directly, without retention or division, turning the project into a bridge between the public and a system that needed to be sustained every day. Here, the boundary between creativity and personal responsibility almost disappeared. A book, an album, an award. None of it ended at the point of recognition, but continued to exist as tangible value for people who had never appeared in the story.
And from that point on, the way Marlo Thomas worked shifted once again. Not only creating content to be seen, but creating something that could continue to function even when she was no longer within the frame. From around 2010 onward, Marlo Thomas’s trajectory nearly moved away entirely from the familiar rhythm of a television actress, shifting toward another form of presence, more dispersed, but clearly intentional.
She continued writing books, not to expand a publishing portfolio, but to focus on themes that had followed her for years. Personal choice, lived experience, and how individuals redefine themselves over time. Works such as Growing Up Laughing and It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over were not constructed as conventional memoirs, but as a way of gathering stories, turning points, and moments that had shaped how she viewed life.
Not offering definitive conclusions, but revisiting questions that had existed for a long time. Alongside this was a steady rhythm of social engagement. Her role at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital did not change in name, but expanded in scope and influence. Fundraising campaigns, particularly Thanksgiving, continued annually with the participation of many artists and major organizations.
This work did not create obvious climaxes, but accumulated over time with a clear objective, to maintain a steady flow of funding for a medical system dependent on public support. In another space, Marlo appeared as a speaker, not as isolated events, but as an extension of what she had been doing for decades.
Her talks did not focus on recounting her career, but revolved around lived experience, how women face choices, how to preserve oneself within structures that can easily erase it, and how to continue after one phase has ended. There was no single message repeated, but there was a consistent axis, questions that were never fully resolved, only revisited under different circumstances.
Marlo Thomas’s view of marriage did not form from a declaration, but from what she had seen from a very early age. In her own family, marriage was not a balanced structure. The man held the central role, carrying a career, ambition, and space to grow. The woman stepped back, gradually narrowing, and at some point, almost disappeared from the very path she had once begun.
For Marlo, this was not theoretical. It had shape, memory, and a very specific feeling. And from that, she arrived at a conclusion she held onto for many years. Marriage was a place two people entered, but only one truly lived fully. Because of that, for a long time, Marlo did not pursue marriage as a destination.
She had relationships, connections deep enough to last, but always kept a certain distance from any structure that could bind her own path. The idea of a life tied to family, to predefined roles, was not something she wanted to enter. Not because she rejected love, but because she did not believe love could exist without requiring trade-offs.
In 1977, an event that seemed almost unplanned began to shift that entire belief system. During an appearance on Phil Donahue’s show, the meeting between the two did not resemble a major beginning. There was no staged context, no story told in a dramatic way. But from that moment, a sense of familiarity emerged in a way Marlo had never experienced before.
Not a feeling of being swept in, but a feeling of having already been there. The relationship developed under circumstances that were far from simple. Donahue already had four children from a previous marriage, a television career at its peak, and a life established with its own rhythm. Marlo was also not in a position to easily alter her own trajectory.
Two already defined paths began to intersect, and from the start, tension was present. Who would adjust? Who would remain unchanged? And whether a structure could exist in which neither had to give up the most important part of themselves. In 1980, they married. That decision did not come from Marlo simply changing her perspective, but from seeing another possibility, a form of marriage that did not repeat the model she had once witnessed.
But that possibility did not function on its own. It had to be designed, negotiated, and maintained through countless small choices in daily life. Both had careers, both had ambitions, both had spaces that could not be replaced. No default roles were applied. No one stepped entirely into the background.
That balance was not always stable. The geographical distance in the early years, demanding work schedules, family responsibilities toward Donahue’s four children, all created a continuous pressure, not in bursts, but in a sustained form. The arguments did not revolve around grand issues, but around very specific details.
Who would move? Who would stay? Who would adjust their time? And each time, the old question returned. Could a relationship exist without requiring one person to shrink? Marlo didn’t have biological children. Her role within the family formed in a different way, not as a replacement, but as a parallel presence.
She became a stepmother to Donahue’s children, but didn’t impose a traditional position onto that relationship. Distance was maintained, not to separate, but to avoid repeating the very structure she had questioned from the beginning. Over time, these relationships did not develop according to familiar models, but became more enduring connections.
Less defined, but stable enough to last. Over many decades, this marriage was not built on visible high points. There were no major scandals, no public crisis. What existed was a quiet form of endurance, where two people continuously adjusted to keep the structure from tilting in one direction.
And it was precisely that lack of surface drama that concealed another reality. To maintain such balance over a long period, every choice had to be reconsidered. In 2024, Phil Donahue passed away. There was no extended sequence of events leading up to it, no clear period to prepare.
Everything stopped at an abrupt break, as if a rhythm that had run for so long suddenly disappeared without leaving a transition. For Marlo Thomas, what was lost was not just a person. It was a structure that had existed for more than 40 years, a rhythm of life repeated, a point of support never needing to be named, but always present in every decision.
When that structure stopped, that change did not occur in a single moment, but spread slowly, moving through the smallest details of everyday life. There was no longer someone on the other end of the line. The daily calls stopped without a clear final one. Familiar questions, repeated reactions, exchanges that once seemed insignificant, all no longer had a place to continue.
What had once functioned as default now became empty space with nothing to replace it. That absence did not create a visible climax. It existed in the way a day began and ended, in habits no longer repeated, in decisions that had once been shared, but now had to be held alone. What had existed for so long did not immediately become memory.
It continued to exist, but without symmetry. The part of life shaped within that relationship did not disappear, but it was no longer held by two people. It continued on in an altered state, where everything remained familiar, but no longer functioned in the same way. And from that, something became clearer than at any previous stage.
There are structures that do not end with an event, but end with the impossibility of continuing as before. After 2024, Marlo Thomas’s life has maintained a rhythm that is more stable and clearly structured. She primarily resides in New York City, a place that has been tied to her for decades, not only as a workplace, but as a familiar space in her personal life.
No major relocation has been recorded following Phil Donahue’s passing. Instead, there is a continuation of a lifestyle that had already been established. Most of her current time is connected to her role as national outreach director at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The work does not take place in the form of short-term campaigns, but as a continuous series of activities throughout the year.
Participating in fundraising events, appearing in media campaigns, and connecting with donors and the community. The Thanks and Giving program, which she herself initiated, continues to be carried out consistently each year, especially toward the end of the year, with the involvement of many artists and major partners.
This has become the central part of her current schedule, repetitive in nature, but not static. Each year expanding in scale and resources. Alongside that, Marlo maintains a selective presence in media and creative fields. She participates in interviews, talk shows, or appears in television projects when the content directly relates to the issues she pursues, particularly women’s rights, children’s education, and charitable work.
There is no sign of returning to a long-running series or a large-scale acting project. Instead, her appearances are occasional, carefully chosen, and tied to specific purposes. In terms of personal content, she continues to develop the platform marlothomas.com, a space for mature women focusing on health, psychology, lifestyle, and social issues.
The content is updated regularly, not following the fast pace of media cycles, but in a long-term accumulative direction with contributions from many writers and experts. In her family life, Marlo continues to maintain relationships with Donahue’s children. There have been no publicly noted structural changes within the family, but these connections continue to exist as a stable part of her personal life.
She has no biological children, and her role within the family remains as it was previously formed, not replacing, not redefining, but continuing. At present, Marlo Thomas is not expanding into an entirely new direction. She maintains the rhythm of what she has already built. Living in New York, sustaining her work with St.
Jude, participating selectively in media, and developing projects directly tied to her personal values. There is no withdrawal, but also no breakthrough in the conventional sense. Instead, a state of steady operation, where each activity exists within a structure shaped over many years. Marlo Thomas’s legacy does not rest on a single moment, but extends across multiple layers, each holding a part of the change she helped create.
On television, the image of Ann Marie in That Girl was not just a successful character, but a distinct deviation that opened another path, where a woman could exist independently, work, make choices, and not need to be defined by a predetermined ending. It wasn’t framed as a declaration at the time, but later became one of the earliest models that changed how women were written and seen on American television.
Beyond the screen, what Marlo built continued to expand in a more direct way. Free to Be You and Me did not stop as a successful creative project, but entered the educational system, becoming part of how children were taught about themselves and their possibilities. At the same time, co-founding the Ms.
Foundation for Women created a structure capable of long-term sustainability, where resources were directed to women’s groups that had no place in the larger system, allowing them to begin and continue existing. Another part of her Her is directly tied to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In her role as national outreach director, Marlo does not merely represent an organization, but becomes a bridge between the public and a healthcare system dependent on contributions.
The Thanksgiving campaign, launched in 2004, is not a single event, but an ongoing flow extending year after year, transforming attention into real resources sufficient to sustain and expand the hospital’s operations. Formal recognition has come from many directions. Four Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe, a Grammy, a Peabody, and notably the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.
But these awards do not stand alone as end points. They exist within a long chain of work where value is measured not only by recognition, but by the ability to continue existing after that recognition fades. Marlo Thomas’s legacy is not built in a way that creates a single image to preserve.
It exists across multiple spaces at once, on screen, in education, in social work, and within structures that continue to operate without requiring her constant presence. And precisely because it is not confined to a specific definition, it does not end at a particular moment, but continues to spread in ways that are not immediately visible, yet lasting enough to become part of what comes after.
When looking back at the entirety of Marlo Thomas’s journey, what emerges is not a straight line, but a series of turning points, choices that moved away from the path that had been prepared. From keeping a character from reaching a conventional ending to entering marriage through a different structure, then continuing her life when a significant part was no longer there, each decision took place within circumstances that did not align with one another.
Those choices did not create immediate results, but they accumulated, changing how a story could end and how a person could exist within their own space. And when everything is brought back to the starting point, what remains is not the distance traveled. When a person does not follow a path already prepared, what they retain is not an answer, but the right not to be defined from the beginning.