“Danny drops twinkle as mean Captain Hook”
The Miami News – Dec. 11, 1976
By: Malcolm N. Carter (Associated Press)
NEW YORK—Danny Kaye insists he’s no child at heart at the age of 63. Not one bit.
“I left my childhood behind 100 years ago,” he said. Then he jammed a thumb into his mouth and added with a pregnant pause:
“Arthur J. Malcolm once said that to be a child at heart is to be stupid.” And just who is Arthur J. Malcolm?
Silence, and that inevitable twinkle in his eye.
Don’t look for that twinkle on NBC Sunday night, however, when Kaye plays a mean old Captain Hook in “Peter Pan” (Ch 7 at 7:30)
The “Hallmark Hall of Fame” had stored for a year this brand new version of the classic tale in which Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard starred for a generation of reruns. The occasion of its broadcast is Hallmark’s 25th anniversary on NBC.
Mia Farrow plays the title role, John Gielgud is the narrator and Julie Andrews sings “Once Upon a Bedtime” off camera in a production with 14 new songs by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse.
On his way to Europe for yet another journey on behalf of the United Nations Children’s Fund, Kaye allowed that he liked the old production just fine. It reminded him, he said, of crystal radios.
“It looked absolutely primitive,” Kaye recalled. “It was TV in its infancy, and they shot it like a stage play.”
Wearing a houndstooth sport jacket and dark trousers, Kaye was alternately outrageous and impish—as always.
No prude in private, he said he nonetheless demands only those roles that might be classed as good clean entertainment.
“This is a standard of mine that is not inflicted on me either by my profession or by my colleagues,” he said, waxing serious for a rare moment. “It is a standard I set myself.”
He insisted, however, that he would not impose his standards on anyone else. Nor should anyone, he said. His advice was that individuals who don’t like dirty movies or violent TV programs should make a pocketbook protest and simply shouldn’t watch them.
“If you want to protest, then don’t go and they’ll stop making them,” he said before lapsing into mirth. “Peter Pan was one of the dirtiest people in the whole world.”
This Benjamin Spock of children’s entertainment was asked whether he has detected a change in their attitudes.
“Children’s attitudes don’t change toward things anymore than adults’ attitudes change towards things,” he scoffed. “Do you think human behavior is any different now than it was 100 years ago?” Replying himself, the onetime Hans Christian Andersen continued:
“People are doing the same things today that they did 50 years ago, only they don’t mind as much.”
Someone asked him how many Captain Hooks have preceded his.
“How many?” he bellowed, rattling paintings on the paneled walls of an elegant Manhattan restaurant. “There have been 114 Captain Hooks. There were 37 companies playing ‘Peter Pan’ in northern England alone between January and September.”
Then the irrepressible actor rolled his eyes heavenward with that discernible twinkle: “How the hell do I know how many Captain Hooks there were?”