Danny Kaye

At 76 years old, Danny Kaye physical status not available right now. We will update Danny Kaye's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; Yiddish: January 18, 1911-2007) was an American actor, comedian, guitarist, and dancer. His appearances included physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and flash-fire novelty songs.

Kaye appeared in 17 films, including Wonder Man (1945), The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), The Inspector General (1949), The Inspector General (1949), and The Court Jester (1955). His films, especially those involving patter songs and favorites such as "Inchworm" and "The Ugly Duckling," were well-received.

He was the first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF in 1954 and was honoured with the French Legion of Honour in 1986 for his years with the organization.

Early years

David Daniel Kaminsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 18, 1911 (though he would later say 1913) to Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants Jacob and Clara (née Nemerovsky) Kaminsky. He was the youngest of three sons. Larry and Mac left Yekaterinoslav (the Russian empire's oldest son) two years before his birth; he was the only one born in the United States.

He attended Public School 149 in East New York, Brooklyn (eventually renamed to honor him)—where he started amusing his classmates with songs and quips. He attended Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, but did not graduate.

His mother died when he was in his early teen years. Kaye and his buddy Louis escaped to Florida not long after. Kaye performed on the guitar while Louis played the guitar, and the pair lived for a while. When Kaye returned to New York, his father did not expect him to return to school or work, giving him the opportunity to grow and discover his talents. Kaye said as a young child, he wanted to be a surgeon, but the family could not afford medical education.

He worked as a soda jerk, auto insurance examiner, and office clerk after dropping out of school. The majority of the cases were terminated with him firing. He left the insurance industry after making an error that cost the insurance company $40,000 ($600,000 in 2019 adjusted for inflation). When Kaye discovered Kaye using his dental drill on the office woodwork, he fired him and asked him to look after his office over lunch and run errands. Kaye met Sylvia Fine, the dentist's daughter, at an audition in 1939, and the pair eloped in 1940. In the Borscht Belt, he learned his trade in his teenage years in the Catskills as a tummler.

Kaye's first break came in 1933 when he was with the Three Terpsichoreans, a vaudeville dance group. They opened in Utica, New York, where Danny Kaye used the stage name Danny Kaye for the first time. With the performance La Vie Paree, the artist appeared in the United States and Asia. On February 8, 1934, the troupe began a six-month tour of Asia. A typhoon struck Osaka, Japan, during its stay there. The troupe's hotel sustained significant damage. A piece of the hotel's cornice was hurled into Kaye's room by the strong winds. By the evening's performance time, the city was in the midst of the storm. With no electricity, the audience became drained and anxious. Kaye performed every song he could remember as loudly as he could remember, to calm them.

He was inspired by his experience of trying to please audiences who didn't speak English to make the pantomime gestures, songs, and facial expressions that later made him famous. When ordering a meal, he finds them often. Dena, Kaye's daughter, related a tale about her father being in China and trying to order chicken. Kaye clucked and clucked, owing to the waiter's imitation of a chicken. When Kaye two eggs were delivered, the waiter nodded in understanding. On the tour, he began to cook.

When Kaye returned to the United States, jobs were in short supply, and he had trouble finding reservations. Sally Rand, a fan dancer, performed in a burlesque revue. Kaye was always on the audience when the dancer dropped a fan while trying to chase a fly away, so the fans were never farewelled.

Personal life

Kaye and Sylvia Fine grew up in Brooklyn, just a few blocks apart, but they didn't meet until they were working on an off-Broadway show in 1939. Sylvia was an audition pianist.

Danny had worked with her father Samuel Fine, a dentist, according to Sylvia. Kaye, a resident of Florida, married John and Janet in Fort Lauderdale on January 3, 1940. The couple were married for life, except for a divorce in 1947 and 1948, when Kaye was involved with Eve Arden in 1947 and 1948.

Dena, the couple's only child, was born on December 17, 1946. Dena did not like her father's appearance when she was younger because she didn't know that people were supposed to laugh at what she did. "Whatever she wants to be, she will be free of interference from her mother nor from me," Kaye said in a 1954 interview. Dena aspired to become a writer as a teenager.

Kaye had a 10-year mystery affair with Laurence Olivier, according to Donald Spoto, the author of Laurence Olivier (HarperCollins). Despite widespread media rumors since the book's release, no evidence has been published. Terry Coleman, an English journalist who spent four years researching Olivier's letters and memorabilia, couldn't find any evidence that linking Kaye and Olivier. Coleman said, "I did check it and talked to a number of people." I could not find a single trace of an affair with Danny Kaye in this mountain of archives."

Dena Kaye's daughter Dena told TCM host Ben Mankiewicz that Kaye's reported birth year of 1913 was incorrect, and that he was really born in 1911.

Adlai Stevenson's campaign in 1952 as a Democrat, he endorsed it. Kaye was the godfather of actress Mary Louise Weller.

Source

Career

Kaye's debut film appearance came from a New York-based Educational Pictures film for a string of two-reel comedies in 1937. In these low-budget shorts opposite teenage hopefuls June Allyson and Imogene Coca, he portrayed a male, black-haired, fast-talking Russian. When the studio closed down in 1938, the Kaye line came to an end. Danny Kolbin, who lived in the Catskills in 1937, was working in the Catskills.

Sylvia Fine, the pianist, lyricist, and composer, was the pianist, lyricist, and composer in his short stay in Broadway. The Straw Hat Revue opened on September 29, 1939, and ended after ten weeks, but critics caught Kaye's work. Both Kaye and his bride Sylvia were invited to work at La Martinique, a New York City nightclub. Kaye's accompanist appeared with Sylvia. Playwright Moss Hart saw Danny performer in his hit Broadway comedy Lady in the Dark, and he was cast in his hit Broadway comedy Lady in the Dark.

Kaye, 30, had a great success in Lady in the Dark, starring Gertrude Lawrence, who appeared Russell Paxton in 1941. Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin's "Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians)" was his show-stopping number, in which he sang the names of a number of Russian composers at breakneck pace, presumably without taking a breath. He appeared in the upcoming Broadway season as the lead of a show about a young man who is drafted named Let's Face It!

He made his film debut in producer Samuel Goldwyn's Technicolor 1944 comedy Up in Arms, a reversal of Goldwyn's Eddie Cantor comedy Whoopee! (1930) Robert M. Savini, a rival, wowed in by compiling three of Kaye's Educational Pictures shorts into a patchwork film entitled The Birth of a Star (1945). Kaye's prominent nose was supposed to be less Jewish, but he did allow his red hair to be dyed blond, presumably because it looked better in Technicolor.

Kaye appeared on CBS from 1945 to 1946 in The Danny Kaye Show. The program's success has soared. In the Radio Daily popularity poll, he tied for fifth place in a year. Following the demise of World War II, Kaye was encouraged to participate in a USO tour. It meant he would be out of his radio show for almost two months at the start of the season. Each week, Kaye's family members were entertained with a new guest host. Kaye was the first American actor to visit postwar Tokyo. He had been touring there ten years before with the vainqueville troupe, and he enjoyed it. When Kaye first applied for annuity in mid-1946, he refused to commit to a regular radio show for one year and only on other radio stations with limited guest appearances. Many of the show's episodes have survived today, including Kaye's opening "Git gat gittle, giddle-de-tommy, riddle de biddle de roop, fa-san, fiddle de wada" — the show's opening sequence. "British historians are renowned for their literary works."

Kaye appeared in several films in the 1940s with actress Virginia Mayo, including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1949), The Inspector General (1954), and Merry Andrew (1958). Hans Christian Andersen (1952) the Danish storyteller and The Five Pennies (1959) about jazz pioneer Red Nichols starred in two pictures based on biographies. Sylvia Fine, his wife, wrote several tongue-twisting songs for which Kaye became well-known. She was also a film director. Doubles, two people who look alike (both Danny Kaye) being mistaken for each other in a comedy way was included in some of Kaye's films.

Though his wife wrote the bulk of Kaye's stuff, he made a substantial amount of it himself, often while performing. Kaye had one character he never shared with the public; Kaplan, the owner of a rubber company, was born solely for family and friends. The Kaplan character was portrayed by his wife, Sylvia:

"roused the royal family to merriment and was the first of many entertainers to turn British variety into an American preserve" when he appeared at the London Palladium in 1948. The royal family left the royal box to watch from the front row of the orchestra, according to a Life magazine. After a show, he said he had no idea of the Marquess of Milford Haven's family connections and that he wanted his cousins to see Kaye perform. Kaye said he never returned to the venue because there was no way to recreate the magic of that time. In November of the same year, Kaye was invited back to London for a Royal Variety Performance. Kaye was full with The Inspector General (which had the unfortunate title of Happy Times) when he received the invitation. Warner Bros. pulled the movie off to allow their actor to attend. The Andrews Sisters of Decca began their appearance at the London Palladium in 1948, the trio was well received, and David Lewin of the Daily Express announced: "The audience welcomed the Danny Kaye roar."

In 1952, he hosted the 24th Academy Awards. The program was broadcast on radio; later telecasts of the Oscar ceremony followed. Kaye travelled to Australia in the 1950s, where he appeared Buttons in a production of Cinderella in Sydney. Kaye founded Dena Pictures, a production company named for his daughter, in 1953. Knock on Wood was his company's first film. In 1960, the company became known as Belmont Television.

Kaye appeared on television in 1956 on the CBS show See It Now with Edward R. Murrow. Danny Kaye's "UniceF ambassador with music and humor" on his 50,000-mile, ten-country tour. His first solo effort was in 1960, when Sylvia and GM sponsored a one-hour special, followed by GM, with similar specials in 1961 and 1962.

He curated The Danny Kaye Exhibition from 1963 to 1967; it received four Emmy awards and a Peabody award. In 1963's The Man from the Diners' Club, his last cinematic role appeared.

Kaye did a stint as a What's My Line?

He appeared Geppetto in a television musical version of Pinocchio with Sandy Duncan in the title role. In a musical adaptation of Peter Pan starring Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, Kaye portrayed Captain Hook opposite Mia Farrow. He appeared in episodes of The Muppet Show and The Cosby Show as a guest, as well as in The Twilight Zone in the 1980s.

Kaye was a good actor, singer, dancer, and comedian in several films, as well as on stage. In his dramatic role in the iconic TV film Skokie, he showed his serious side as the ambassador for UNICEF and played a Holocaust survivor. Kaye performed an orchestra during a comedic sequence of concerts arranged for UNICEF fundraising before his death in 1987. Kaye has been a recipient of two Academy Awards, an Academy Honorary Award in 1955 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1982. He was voted the Screen Actor Guild Annual Award in that year.

Kaye performed and performed in the 25th anniversary of Disneyland's celebration in 1980, as well as the opening celebrations for Epcot (EPCOT Center at the time). Both were broadcast on primetime television in the United States.

Though Kaye said he couldn't read music, he was supposed to have flawless pitch. "easily adapting from outrageous novelty songs to tender ballads," Kaye says in 1945, he began hosting his own CBS radio show, which included "Dinah" and "Minnie the Moocher."

Kaye formed the No. 67 in 1947 after working with The Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and Laverne) on Decca Records, resulting in the No. 58. "Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)" is the subject of a 3 Billboard. "The success of the pair has brought them together, with such humourously comedic fare as "The Woodpecker Song" (based on the bird from Walter Lantz cartoons and a Billboard hit for the quartet) and "It's a Quiet Town (Mc Who?)" "Amelia Cordelia McHugh" ("Put 'em in the Deep Blue Sea)" on the bird from the Walter Lantz cartoons and a Billboard "It em" ("I 'em (And Throw a" ("In Crossbone County" ("I" ("I" ("The Woodpecker Song a" ("And Throw 'e" ("And Throw a" (Miet" ("I" ("Iem in the quartet "Mem in the ensemble "And Throw a" ("It Town (Mem in the quartet'em in the Is "In Crossbone County (Mem in the ensemble'em in the "I" (and)" ("Mem in the "em in the quartet'em in the "And Throw "In Crossbone County)" (Mem in the band from Brazil) "" (And Throw em in the quartet)" (And Throw a) "Ching-a-sa," Danny and Patty Andrews of "Orange Colored Sky" duets. The performers performed "A Merry Christmas at Grandmother's House (Over the River and Through the Woods) and a duet by Danny and Patty, "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth."

Danny Kaye, Kaye's debut album, had been released by Columbia Records in 1942, with songs performed to the accompaniment of Maurice Abravanel and Johnny Green. In 1949, Columbia University Press was reissued as a Columbia LP and is described by critic Bruce Eder as "a little tamer than some of the stuff that Kaye produced in the 1940s and 1950s, but for reasons best understood by the public, his children's music and overt comedy routines don't attract nearly the same enthusiasm as his kids' records and overt comedy routines."

In 1950, a Decca single, "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts," was introduced, becoming another chart hit for him. Danny Kaye Entertains (1953, Columbia) was his second Columbia LP album, including five songs from his Broadway musical Lady in the Dark's 1941 debut, including "Tschaikowsky (and Others Russians)".

Following the success of Hans Christian Andersen (1952), two of the company's songs written by Frank Loesser and sung by Kaye, "Thumbelina" and "Wonderful Copenhagen" were among the top hits in the United States, with the former title securing a minor US hit, with the former title reaching No. 62. On the UK Singles Chart, number 5 appears. Danny at the Palace, a live recording at the New York Palace Theater, was released in 1953, followed by Knock On Wood (Decca, 1954) a collection of songs from Kaye's film "The Singing Strings, accompanied by Victor Young and His Singing Strings.

Kaye's initial sign in 1956 was for three years with Capitol Records, which brought his single "Love Me Do" out in December of that year. The B-side, "Ciu Ciu Bella," with lyrics by Sylvia Fine, was inspired by an event in Rome when Kaye, a UNICEF project, befriended a 7-year-old polio victim in a children's hospital who performed this song in Italian.

Saul Chaplin and Johnny Mercer wrote songs for Merry Andrew, a film starring Kaye as a British teacher attracted to the circus in 1958. The score increased to six figures, all sung by Kaye; conductor Billy May's 1950 composition "Music of the Big Top Circus Band") was deposited on the second side of the Merry Andrew soundtrack, which was renamed "Music of the Big Top Circus Band" (renamed "Music of the Big Top Circus Band). A year later, another soundtrack for The Five Pennies (in which Kaye appeared as 1920s cornet player Red Nichols) appeared, starring Louis Armstrong.

Kaye played world-famous orchestras in the 1960s and 1970s, but he had to know the scores by ear. Even as Kaye's style was enhanced by unpredictable antics (he once traded the baton for a fly swatter to fly "The Flight of the Bumblebee") was lauded by Zubin Mehta, who once said that Kaye "has a very pleasant conducting style." Dimitri Mitropoulos, then conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, mentioned his involvement with an orchestra. "Here is a man who is not musically trained, who is unable to even read music, and he gets more out of my orchestra than I have," Mitropoulos said after Kaye's appearance. In 1984, Kaye was invited to perform symphonies as a charity fundraiser, and she was the conductor of the all-city marching band at the Los Angeles Dodgers' season opener. He has raised over US$5 million in support of musician pension funds over his career.

Kaye's fame was enough to spawn imitations: the fabled isle.

Source