“Another Chaplin Heading West? Watch Danny Kaye—Maybe He’s It”
Evening Independent – May 12, 1942
By: Ray Peacock (Wide World Features Writer)
This photo was included with the article. I'll be honest, when I first saw this picture I thought "Surely they've accidentally put a photo of someone else with Danny's article. That can't be him, can it?" This, obviously, has to be a very early photo. In fact, although this article is from 1942, I personally think this photo must be from the late '30s. You can see that he's much thinner than he otherwise was and that made me wonder if this photo was from his days when he was struggling to find work. His hair is also quite dark and slightly longer which is how it was until a short time after his marriage.
NEW YORK – Who is this fellow Danny Kaye that he should rate a six-
Six unemotional Broadwayites gave me six answers which add up to the same thing: Danny Kaye is the finished product, a comedian who is genuinely funny.
He is, they said, well grounded in fundamentals. Has excellent material and doesn’t overdo it. Has a good personality. Has expressive hands, reminiscent of Chaplin. Is an originator, not imitator. That’s five answers.
The sixth, from a girl: “He’s cute.”
He Can Do Everything
Add flexibility for good measure. As the central figure in “Let’s Face It,” a musical comedy embellished with Cole Porter songs, Danny is the guy everybody picks on, the outraged lover, the little boy who can’t find a listener, the Dracula who terrorizes the females.
Tall and slender, with good shoulders and attractive face despite a longish nose, Danny looks like nobody but himself. His blond hair, thick unto bushy, is wild and subdued by turns. And his hands are never still.
He Went Boom
As a comedian, he started at the bottom with a don’t-
Comparison of Danny with Chaplin is heard often. He denies he ever consciously imitated anyone, but if he has a hero, it is the old master of pantomime.
“I saw Chaplin’s ‘Gold Rush’ the other day,” Danny told me. “I never laughed once. I was too fascinated, watching a genius. You have to have a leaning for comedy. I used to be the neighborhood drugstore comic in Brooklyn, and I don’t think I’d ever want to be anything but a comedian.”
It is a matter of record that Guthrie McClintic, Gabriel Pascal and others have wanted to cast him in serious parts, and that Edward Johnson, head of the Metropolitan Opera, pointed to Danny and said, “There is the perfect Figaro.” But Danny would have none of it.
His right name is David Daniel Kominski, and he’s 29. His father was an immigrant Polish tailor who now patronizes other tailors, thanks to Danny. The two writers who have helped him to success will write and edit his film material. One is Max Liebman, the other Sylvia Fine. In private life she is Mrs. Kaye, and she too thinks that Danny is a very funny fellow.
