“Danny Kaye Captivates with Solo Show”

The Day – Jan. 19, 1953

By: Mark Barron

This article was transcribed from a newspaper. As a result, a small portion was unreadable.

NEW YORK (AP) – In what was undoubtedly one of the most exciting one-man shows Broadway has ever seen. Comedian Danny Kaye returned last night to the Palace theatre and captivated an audience including many celebrities.

One of the highest paid performers in the world, he earns between $500,000 and $750,000 a year—he comes into the Palace for a limited run of eight weeks. He is getting 60 percent of the box office gross, up to $40,000 a week and 65 percent of anything over that. The advance sale for the eight weeks had mounted to $250,000 last night when he opened on what happened to be his 40th birthday.

In the audience applauding him, and often joining him in singing were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Piper Laurie, Mary Healy, Martha Raye, Marlene Dietrich, Irene Selznick, Gertrude Berg […unintelligible…]

He sang song after song, including some new ones, and then included some audience favorites which he had done long ago on the Broadway musical comedy stage when he played in such as “Lady In The Dark” with Gertrude Lawrence and in “Let’s Face It.”

The audience kept demanding more so Kaye sent the exhausted orchestra offstage for a brief rest. But he remained on stage with a piano player and continued to entertain. Not only did he sing, but he played one-character farces and did tap, soft shoe and almost every other kind of dance. He threw in quite a bit of strenuous acrobatics.

Finally exhausted himself, he sat on the edge of the stage with his legs stretched over the footlights and sang several of the songs he does in the leading role of the new-motion picture, Hans Christian Andersen.

The orchestra, rested, came back and he went into his exciting performance again. Finally amid cheers from the audience, he said, “It is now time for all of us to go home and permit our baby sitters to go home.”


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