“TV’s Kaye-
The Milwaukee Sentinel – Sep. 18, 1960
“Zoom, Zoom! Stauk, Stauk! Ha Ha Ha!” The gitgatgittle man. Danny Kaye was leading an audience through a Kaye gypsy song at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. Kaye made the gestures while fans did the singing and they liked it. This was Danny’s first café act in 16 years and he was leading hardened Vegas fans used to jokes on Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, drinking and sex in silly choruses and they ate it up.
Kaye had been a holdout in the nightclub circuit simply because he had enough to do golfing and making a picture a year. He has also been termed a holdout to TV along with movie kings like Clark Gable, but that also is not longer true, for Danny is going to do a TV special on CBS, Sunday, Oct. 30.
Wife Helps Out
He’ll probably do just what he has been turning in Vegas, that is, sing those strange songs with words that run together along with Kaye specialties from his movies, or those written by his wife Sylvia Fine.
Gitgatgittle is sort of a relation to songs like “Alley Oop” and Kaye says he’d like to have a song like the girl in the teenie weenie bikini, but he doesn’t have anything quite in that line. He’ll stick to audience participation songs and he hopes to do some on the October show. The idea is to have an audience for the show of course to give a response, and Danny hopes that fans will answer him when he asks for a “Zoom, Zoom” in their living rooms across the country.
This hasn’t been tried before to his knowledge, but it doesn’t bother Kaye. “We’re also going to have Louis Armstrong,” said Danny.
The numbers haven’t been set yet, but Kaye fans will certainly want to hear his “Balling the Jack.” Nightclub viewers sing this back to him in a soft, round tone and it seems to make everyone feel much better.
Brooklyn Lad
It is hoped Kaye will do a bit of dancing because he moves so beautifully. He is also very good at jumping. His straight up jumps will give cameramen trouble. Another request for the show concerns old school songs that have generally survived the school.
In Kaye’s act, he always talks about his native Brooklyn and somehow his alma mater, P.S. 149 comes up. Kaye says he often finds someone in the audience who did go to the school and then he proceeds to sing this touching song. As he puts it, “It makes me feel like going to war.”
“Everywhere I go in the world,” says Danny. “I meet people from my home town Brooklyn. I don’t know why. Some say it’s so awful the constituents have to leave.”
Danny says he simply hasn’t been doing any television because he didn’t feel he was right for it at the time of offers. Apparently now it is. Anyway he’s taking a shot at it. Danny has been shrewd in limiting his appearances, because his material and style is of a very special type and it would be foolish to exhibit it week after week.
Learns to Fly
What has Danny been doing lately? “Playing golf and learning to fly,” he says. “I tell you, when my career is washed up, I’ll get a job as a steward on an airline and wait for the chance for the pilot to get sick. Then I’ll rush in and take over the controls.”
Since Kaye moves with such rhythm I assumed this coordination also made him good at sports like golf. He admitted he broke 100 the first time he played a full round, but said there was no connection between moving well and excelling at a sport.
“I watched a golf pro with a beautiful swing whack a ball way down the fairway,” said Danny. “Then he walked off the tee hobbling like an old man. No, the two don’t necessarily go together.
Health Addict
“George Burns calls me Fancy Dan,” said Kaye. “My stroke is too exquisite for him.” Then Kaye imitated old friend Burns playing golf. It seems Burns sings, whistles and applauds topped balls by opponents during the early holes. Then he becomes increasingly quiet as his game falls apart.
Besides golf and flying, actor Kaye is also interested in health. In fact, there are many stories on how Kaye used to take care of himself. When Danny winds up a performance he always injects a plug for health. The medical jargon picked up on the way comes out in his psychiatry songs and in his broad imitations of German practitioners.
Fans will hear all the Kaye specialties Oct. 30 from the German psychiatrist to “Deenah.” Added to these are some new numbers tried out in Vegas, one of which is an alcoholic version of “Mack the Knife” that has been well received.
Even if Kaye can’t sing about the girl in the teenie weenie bikini his seat talk is worth having back in circulation. Look for Danny, a good man, in October.