“Kaye’s Hook role to be aired”

Beaver County Times – Nov. 27, 1976

NEW YORK (UPI) – Danny Kaye remains firmly convinced that he did the television version of “Peter Pan’s” Captain Hook in 1934—at least that’s the way it seems.

In the world of calendars, not to be confused with the not-so-secret world of Danny Kaye, he actually played Hook to Mia Farrow’s Peter in a Hallmark Hall of Fame version of the James M. Barrie play that was filmed in 1975. It has been held over for broadcast on NBC this Dec. 12, 7:30-9:30 p.m., Eastern time, because Hallmark wants to bunch up a group of greats for the 25th anniversary of its wholly sponsored television shows.

Kaye talked to a group of reporters in New York about the show, and a lot of other things including UNICEF (for whose benefit he has worked for 23 years), Chinese cooking (he does it personally a la virtuoso but in restaurants it comes out something unprintable) and violent television (he doesn’t do it personally, but says the people who want it stopped should stop paying to see it).

“If I had seen ‘Peter Pan’ again right before I agreed to do it, I’m not sure I would have,” he said. “That was made something like 20 years ago. When I did see it recently I thought it looked absolutely primitive. Television was in its infancy then. It was shot like a stage thing.”

He added that the flying gimmickry that Miss Farrow does was handled by a British firm with close to 200 years experience in the fake flying trade—Kirby’s Flying Ballet. The first time they had Miss Farrow up on wires they swung her splat into a wall.

Kaye is an excellent listener, which adds to his charm as reporters group groped for material, but he also is a constant performer who is always on, whether advising a reporter with terminal laryngitis to drink tequila, which would kill all foreign invaders, or fielding questions about morality in entertainment.

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