“Danny Kaye Changes Without Notice”

Herald-Journal – Oct. 21, 1956

By: Bernard Gavzer

The Cedar Rapids Gazette ran this story in their paper on October 22, 1956 as "Man on a Merry-Go-Round" and included more of the article than the Herald-Journal.
The extra portions that the Herald-Journal excluded are in yellow.

CHICAGO, Oct. 20 (AP) – In one of his comic routines, Danny Kaye sings a lyric in which he says, "People think I'm Danny Kaye--and sometimes I am."

It always evokes a chuckle from the audience. Because on the surface it does seem like a screwball thing to be saying--like a man proclaiming he has a split personality. It sounds like the sort of thing that would make a psychiatrist's heart leap with joy.

But if there is any dark meaning to this provoking admission, it isn't to be found in spending any time with Kaye--onstage or off.

Being with Danny Kaye is a little like getting on a merry-go-round that suddenly changes to become a Ferris wheel and then a parachute drop.

Watching him from the wings at the Shubert Theater one night recently produced a typical example.

He was winding up a number to which he dances with two members of the Dunhill dancing team. But instead of concluding it, he went into a zany, impromptu ape dance that turned into something like a game of follow-the-leader.

The musicians were surprised when he drew them into it, along with a visitor standing in the wings. Since they didn’t know what they were supposed to do, they were soon bumping into one another and going every which way.

Later the Dunhills were catching their breath, watching Kaye from the wings, and Kaye fell into another spontaneous piece of business. It was a demonstration of someone approaching a microphone. He loped, hopped, skipped, veered, slid, hobbled, toe-and-heeled his way to the microphone. The audience roared. So did the orchestra.

One dancer said to the other, "Look at that. He's cracking them up with it. And what is that?"

"That's what makes him great," said the second dancer. "Another guy does it and he'd be a flop, but him--he's great."

Before the performance, Kaye was trying to sit still long enough to go through an interview in his dressing room backstage. The room was small and hot. Besides Kaye and the interviewer, there were his personal manager, his press agent, a television actress paying a visit, a British fan who had seen him often in London, his valet, his accompanist and his musical director.

“Ask me a question,” he said, to his interviewer. And before a question could be asked, everyone else in the room was talking.

He then announced he had to put on his makeup and get dressed. Normally putting on makeup is a half-hour job. Kaye did it in less than a minute, mostly as a gag, by simply applying a little pencil shading to his eyebrows.

He did this with elaborate mock seriousness and then studying himself in a mirror, nodded satisfaction, and announced, “Finished.”

He started to change clothes, but no one departed. Standing in his shorts, he extolled the virtue of his legs, but no one seemed inclined to get up and applaud, so he drew on his trousers.

There are some areas of activity in which Kaye is as serious as he can be. These involve the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, golf and baseball.

For UNICEF, he is an ambassador-at-large and has traveled all over the world, in its stead, working toward helping underprivileged children. He talks like he would like to be able to work on it 24 hours a day.

In fact, his world would be considerably more perfect if it provided an additional 24 hours each day devoted to the happy pursuit of a golf ball. He regularly gets around the course in the 70s.

Kaye is a Brooklyn Dodger fan, but in the recent National League race he was also pulling for the Milwaukee Braves because he thought it might do the game more good if the Braves got a crack at the World Series.

On the subject of UNICEF, Kaye exhibits considerable and justifiable pride.

"You know," he said, "that in some countries the children never had any milk until this organization began its work. It seems incredible that in this modern world children would have been unable to get anything as basic as that, but it's a sad fact. Now they call milk "UNICEF" instead of whatever other word they would have for it in their language."

Asked if there was any language barrier with children, Kaye said:

"It isn't a question of communication. With children, it's most remarkable. One thing I've learned is that whenever an adult makes a clown of himself, has has reached out and touched children in a language they will understand. What is funny to a child in Korea is just as funny to a child in Italy."

Kaye traveled some 32,000 miles on his last junket for UNICEF. Most of it was filmed and will be shown on a nationwide television program, Edward R. Murrow's "See It Now," Dec. 2.

"The film has a lot of informational entertainment and a good deal of it comes from the children in the various countries I visited," Kaye said.

Kaye said that as an entertainer he neither fashions his work toward children or adults. Nothing risque ever comes out him on stage, nor does he play down to the audience with many children.

"I'm firmly convinced that adults make the best children," Kaye said. "It's just too bad that they get so big."

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