“When a clown was needed, Danny Kaye was always there”
The Spokesman-
By: Desmond Ryan (Knight Rider)
Danny Kaye, who died Tuesday at the age of 74, never met a kid he couldn’t charm, and there are many stories of his rapport with children.
One of my favorites comes from the mid-
There was a mother with a baby boy on the flight and, as was his habit, Kaye – who portrayed Hans Christian Andersen on screen and became a Pied Piper to the world’s children in his three decades of work for UNICEF – picked up the infant and waltzed the child off to first class to entertain him.
The baby gurgled happily throughout the one-
But the baby bawled in outrage and every time the comedian stopped the show and tried to leave there were more howls. A trouper to the last, Kaye took a manful gulp and kept the baby amused for the entire flight. The weary mother made the most of the relief and slept all the way to New York.
There was a childlike element to Kaye’s brand of comedy and it was one he recognized.
“I think I get along with kids because I’m not afraid to be a child,” he once remarked. “Adults often are, and that’s too bad because there is a big chunk of child in everyone as long as he lives.”