“Danny Kaye Plugs Children, UNICEF”

The Milwaukee Sentinel – Jul. 13, 1961

By: Ed Edstrom

Hearst Headline Service

Special to the Sentinel

WASHINGTON, July 11—Comedian Danny Kaye, United Nations ambassador to kids everywhere, discoursed Wednesday on how to communicate with children in any language, TV violence and why do people, especially women, wear shoes that pinch.

Kaye said he primarily was in Washington “to make a living” (he opens next week at Carter Barron Amphitheater.) His press conference was sponsored by Sen. Javits (R-NY), who is pushing a bill to make tax-exempt contributions to the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund.

UNICEF SOLDIER

Describing himself as a “soldier” who has gone wherever UNICEF has sent him in the last eight years, Kaye said that his recent return trip to the Orient he was pleased to learn that of 13 million children suffering the “yaws” most had been cured by penicillin.

Kaye said he wasn’t sure himself why he made his world travels to help children.

“I could make up a story about being an underprivileged child in Brooklyn who resolved someday to make things better for children, but that would be nonsense,” Kaye said. “All I know is I get more satisfaction out of this than anything I have ever done.”

CHILDREN UNDERSTAND

Kaye, whose UNICEF documentary “Assignment: Children” won awards, said language barriers are no problem in getting along with children.

“You make faces and act like a lunatic and they understand you,” Kaye said.

He did an imitation of an adult leaning over a baby’s crib to illustrate his point and brought down the house in the Senate conference room.

Children are the same the world over, he said. Kaye said he believed the “kids have a consciousness that many peoples everywhere are banded together in UNICEF to help them and that this is bound to influence them.”

Asked about violence on TV affecting children, Kaye said, “When I was a kid and some books were forbidden, but we sneaked them up to the attic and read them. Then the movies picked it up, later radio and now TV. There is violence in the world. It is a measure of the child and the parents how he adjusts.”

Kaye was wearing ankle-high moccasins punched with ventilating holes. He said they were made to order from plaster casts of his feet, that they were comfortable and kept his whole body from becoming tired.

REMOVES SHOES

He had a congressional secretary remove her pointed shoe and place her stockinged foot beside it.

“See?” Kaye said. “It’s like Chinese foot-binding.”

Laughing, the secretary protested, “You just don’t understand women.”

Throwing wide his arms, Kaye said, “I have never understood women. I will never understand women. Maybe, if I live to be 130 years old, I will get an inkling.”

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