“Throng Hears Opera Star, Comedian”
The Milwaukee Sentinel – Feb. 2, 1946
By: Roy L.
Foley
Before a packed auditorium, Metropolitan Opera Star Helen Jepson (left), Danny Kaye, and Dave Terry, orchestra leader (right), rehearse the nationwide Pabst broadcast, highlight of last night's Centurama.
Redheaded Danny Kaye, comedian of a thousand gags, wowed an audience
that literally bulged the walls of the Auditorium last night.
Star of
the Pabst Blue Ribbon broadcast, brought to Milwaukee as an addition to the regular
Centurama show, he shared the microphone with beauteous Helen Jepson of the Metropolitan
Opera who stepped down from the lofty heights of opera to parody commercials and
to sing with Kaye a travesty on “Jack and Jill.”
Incidentally, Kaye just
about stopped the show when he impishly told Miss Jepson that her staccato was much
too tomato (with a broad a). The two of them sang the parody to the score of “Rigoletto,”
to “Coming Round the Mountain,” and then wound up with the blu-
BOHN ‘LANDS ONE’
But fast as Kaye was with impromptu repartee, Mayor Bohn beat him to
the goal on the last line of the broadcast. The mayor asked Danny to give his regards
to the mayor of New York-
“Oh. Really!”
said Danny.
“O,Dwyer,” said the Mayor.
Kaye’s show opened with
a 20 minute broadcast warmup which brought shouts and squeals of merriment from the
audience when he took over Steve Swedish’s orchestra for some long haired direction.
His
performance was so zaney it defies telling. He fell over the podium, kissed Dick
Joy, the announcer, invited the audience to take off its collective collar, and defined
applause as “beating the devil out of one hand with the other.” The audience did
just that. He also stopped the music to announce that “what Milwaukee needs is a
good five cent-
BEDRIDDEN SEES SHOW
Following the broadcast, which was carried over 147 Columbia stations,
Kaye continued his antics while the stage was being set for the regular Centurama
show.
Perhaps the person who got the biggest thrill of the evening was
Georgia Hauke of 3301 W. Highland Av., bedridden victim of arthritis who was the
special guest of the Pabst Brewing Co. Long a Kaye fan, she was brought to the Auditorium
in an ambulance and watched the performance from a wheelchair.
Hundreds
of hopefuls who by some miracle expected the Auditorium walls to expand had to be
turned away. Even Edward Morris, vice president of the Pabst Brewing Co., in charge
of advertising, was seen lugging a chair which he managed to squeeze in next to the
orchestra pit.
There will be one Centurama show, beginning at 8:30 tonight.