“All England In Love With Danny Kaye”
St. Petersburg Times – Aug. 5, 1951
London – (AP) – London reviewers, tired of telling their public how good they think Danny Kaye is, currently are trying to figure out why the zany Hollywood comedian is such a British favorite.
His appeal on this side of the water is universal—as great with royalty and politicos as with Cockney barrow boys. His run at the London Palladium, 14 times a week for eight weeks, was sold out even before he arrived and his lure was enough to draw Prime Minister Celement Attlee to the first variety show of his life.
Princess Margaret always has been a Kaye fan. The King’s illness kept him from filling a date to see Danny’s show, but Margaret and Princess Elizabeth went and had a whale of a time.
The royal family’s regard for Kaye is best illustrated by the fact that he and his accompanist, Sammy Prager, were the only commoners who attended a private dinner for King Frederick of Denmark when the latter visited London.
Danny sat between the Queens of England and Denmark, Sammy between King Frederick and the Duchess of Kent. Things were never like that in Brooklyn.
The Duchess of Westminster once asked Danny for his autograph but stipulated that it must be different from any other autograph he had given in England.
“That’s easy,” he said signing ‘David Daniel Kaminsky,’ his real name. “No one else in England has that autograph.”
The latest gesture certain to endear him to Britons came when he heard Sir Field, the late great British comedian, had left a very small estate.
On June 25, a special midnight show at the Palladium, conceived and run by Kaye, will net about 50,000 tax free dollars to go into a trust fund for Field’s children.
That’s probably the answer to the way Britain feels about Danny Kaye.
He’s a nice guy and they know it.