“Mrs. Danny Kaye Proves a Genius”

The Milwaukee Sentinel – May 8, 1959

By: Phyllis Battelle

NEW YORK—Nineteen years ago, a wealthy, cultured dentist’s daughter married a hungry-looking, talented immigrant’s son named Danny Kaye.

They had only two things in common. Both originated in Brooklyn. And both were in love.

“Now,” Sylvia said today, “we’re similar in many ways. I don’t know who rubbed off what on whom. The only thing is I wish I had Danny’s genius. I don’t.”

There are those who would dispute Sylvia Fine’s flat, unqualified statement that she is the lesser of the talents in the Kaye family. She began life as a child piano prodigy, progressed through college to song-writing (“The Moon Is Blue,” “Man With the Golden Arm”) became a producer, advisor, composer and arranger for her now-famous husband.

WOMAN BEHIND MAN

When the “woman behind the man” theme comes up in show business conversations, Sylvia’s is the first name mentioned.

She tosses off such accolades. Prefers to talk about Danny.

“He has more facets than any man I’ve ever known. He is, in my opinion, a great man,” she says. “He is both extremely intelligent and extremely intuitive—a combination you rarely see in one person. That is why he’s successful in everything he does. With people. With himself.

“He is passionately interested in medicine and in classical music. You know he’s conducted several symphonies. At Carnegie Hall, when he conducted the New York Philharmonic, Dmitri Mitropolous said he could be one of the great conductors of our time. And he could.”

Sylvia, when not talking about her husband, has the face of a good business. Pretty but canny. Now, it is the face of an awed teenager asking Danny Kaye for an autograph:

“His family didn’t have any money. He always wanted to be a doctor. We have more friends who are doctors than we have in show business. You know, when I try to phone him when’s he out of town, and he’s not in his hotel room, I know where he is; he’s in a hospital, talking to a surgeon, or standing beside a surgeon watching an operation.”

“He would have been a great surgeon. He has the deft hands. And the intuition and the understanding and the curiosity and the energy.” She smiled softly, shook her head. “The damn fact of it is Danny Kaye could be anything he wanted to be—he’s that good.”

WORKED IN REVIEW

Sylvia Fine met her husband when he was a comic and she a pianist in an off-Broadway review. “About as far off-Broadway as you can get without swimming.” When they were married, she had $43 and Danny can’t remember whether he had $30, or owed $30.

Since then, she has written almost all his special material. She has also edited all his scripts, helped select his spots, divided her time between their 12-year-old daughter, Dena,, and Danny’s home and career.

For his latest film, “The Five Pennies,” to open in June, Sylvia wrote five songs, as well as co-produced. In the last 19 years, her role has been obscured by the fact that she often refuses screen and TV credits because she didn’t want to appear to be using Danny’s name to her own advantage—but in good old show biz many assume that Sylvia is Danny’s manager. Her reaction:

“Lord no. I am, thank goodness, his wife!”

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