“Danny Kaye, The Family Man”

In Which His Collaborator (and Wife) Discuss a Subject as Though It Were Familiar

The New York Times – March 8, 1942

By: Sylvia Fine

© The New York Times

[This article was paid for and brought to you by your webmistress, J. Leigh Nolan.]

CAPTION: Here is the "Florodora Sextet" which will take part in the Navy Relief Fund evening Tuesday at Madison Square Garden. From left to right the names are Clifton Webb, Danny Kaye, Vincent Price, Eddie Cantor, Boris Karloff, and Ed Wynn; the lady is Sylvia Fine, who conceived the number and is training the cast.

Many times in the past two years—especially since the advent of “Let’s Face It”—I have seriously considered the advisability of wearing a large sandwich sign, boldly inscribed as “Danny Kaye’s wife,” I have wished that I could bring a grateful glow into the reporter’s eye by admitting that Danny collects one-eyed horses, sleeps in Russian, and charms bill-collectors with double talk. Sorry—but he no more goes through “Melody in 4 F” at the breakfast table than I order from the butcher in a barrage of polysyllabic rhymes.

Being funny, especially when you’re a perfectionist, is pretty hard work. This starts from the moment that I pick up a pencil and face a leering piece of blank paper. Then ensues a period of anywhere from two to eight weeks, during which I chew and swallow eighteen pencils, twenty-nine cups of black coffee, argue with my collaborator, Max Liebman, and am very careful not to let Danny see a single word. This last stems from the fact that Danny hates everything we write—which makes it pretty discouraging to discuss material with him.

Words Don’t Matter

A natural performer, with an instinctive sense of comedy, and what I think is an uncanny sense of timing, the written word is as nothing to him. He has to take the words in his mouth, eyes and hands. HE must play with them, bend them, stretch them and cajole them—and, most important, bounce them against an audience, before he can truly evaluate them. It’s a great thrill for a writer, who must necessarily determine what is funny by purely intellectual and mechanical means, to see some one arrive at the same conclusion—and even top it, by sheer and unerring instinct.

I guess it must be that stimulation he needs from an audience that makes it so difficult to rehearse with Danny alone. Mechanically, there’s absolutely no trouble. What with his quick memory, and perfect musical ear, he not only knows a number in no time, but is a great help to me. I forget my own lyrics. My own harmonies quietly slip away from under me, and I’m stuck. Not Danny—he remembers every word, every chord—and after a pardonable husbandly dissertation on my inefficiency, we go on from there. But, strangely enough, there’s one place where his memory fails him—and drives Max and me to distraction. He’ll improvise hundreds of swell pieces of business—and the next day remember only two or three. That, if I may coin a phrase, is murder. It means that Max and I have to try to remember them, and redescribe them to him—and if you’ve ever seen a cat try to bark like a dog you’ll know exactly what I go through.

“Melody in 4 F” (or “Local Board Makes Good”) is as much Danny’s creation as Max’s and mine. Giving him music and lyrics for the verse only, and a definite outline of the story, we told Danny he was to do a draftee from the time he gets his questionnaire, through his session with an Army doctor, his troubles with a drilling sergeant, and his final winning of honors in maneuvers. This is to be done in pantomime, triple or quadruple time scat-singing, with occasional words to point to the action.

Ensued a period of Max with a cigar, me at the piano, and Danny practically standing on his head—all of us trying to sharpen, remold and remember bits that eventually emerged into a formal number. No, that constant “gibberish,” “double-talk,” or what you will, was never written down. It’s really a series of “hot licks” that worked its way up from New Orleans, in a Dixieland tempo to the rapid-fire propensities of Danny’s tongue—and it’s a source of great perplexity to us that this trick of the tongue should be regarded by so many people, as Danny’s claim to fame. We think it’s a pretty happy facet—but nothing on which to base a career.

Needs an Audience

Strangely enough, Danny finds it almost impossible to rehearse properly, because he’s very self-conscious except when he faces an audience of a thousand people. I can’t explain it—but there it is. During the rehearsals of “Let’s Face It!” when Danny “walked through” his numbers, our constant reassurance that it would be all right on “the night” met with great false heartiness from poor Vinton Freedley, who could see no evidence of the brilliant performer he had thought he had.

During the five weeks in New York, through the dress rehearsal in Boston we could see this uneasiness grow, until five o’clock of the morning before the opening, in his suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, the worried producer could stand it no longer. Prefaced by many soothing phrases he asked us to please understand that if “Fairy Tales” didn’t have an unexpected effect on the audience it would have to come out of the show. We smiled, we knew that Danny felt as though he were in the mental nude, faced with an empty house—but that, protected and warm with 1,500 pairs of eyes, he would blossom forth and give his numbers every bit of that hitherto latent hilarity., Mr. Freedley isn’t worried any more.

Starch and the Dodgers

But all this, as I said before, has nothing to do with our personal lives. Danny is as sensitive about the excess of starch in his collars as any one else—and he says so. We worry about the health of the ivy over the fireplace, and whether this tie looks good with that suit. The daily vicissitudes of the Brooklyn Dodgers have always been a personal matter to Danny—and I’ve seen him rise at 8 a.m. after a matinee day to rush over to a hospital to watch an operation. If there’s a baby in the vicinity he has to stop and make “goo.” If an audience is noisy when another performer is working he gets apoplectic—almost as much as when I bring home a hat with a veil on it. I don’t dare wearing earrings or criticize his passion for bow-ties. If there are potato pancakes to be made for dinner he wants to make them; if there’s a glass of milk around he won’t drink it.

If there’s a window to be closed in the middle of the night we toss for it. If we go driving for the week-end he does the driving and I keep my mouth shut—and he plays tennis while I go swimming. He hasn’t the vaguest idea about his bank balance—he leaves that to his attorney, Louis Mandel, and me, and gaily splurges on his allowance; he loves to sign checks in restaurants—that means Mr. Mandel pays the bill—which he feels has nothing to do with him. He’s usually a very quiet guy, preferring to listen rather than talk, which is often mistaken by people at the next table for unwarranted boredom.

Confident and Diffident

He’s got a one-track mind, and when he’s worried he just can’t manage to be effusive. He rarely complains, is always late for dinner and always punctual for rehearsals and almost anybody who talks well can convince him of anything. Four or five benefits a week? Sure—look out when they stop asking you. He is an odd combination of confidence and diffidence and will take criticism graciously from any one for whom he has respect.

I don’t know whether it was maternal or wifely instinct that made me take over the job of sorting the fan mail, sparing him crackpot requests that would try the reason of a more patient soul than Danny. I remember when the mail consisted of a few stray postcards with a pioneering tone and a terse request for an autograph. Today it takes a secretary and myself to deal with some of the fantastic letters that pile in.

A Letter

Only a few months ago a series of weekly letters from a Midwestern boy, all marked “Air Mail, Special Delivery,” started. He wrote:

“October 2, 1941.

“Dear Danny:

I think you’re a great comedian. Something terrible has happened. My father just died. Can you help me go on the stage?”

“October 10, 1941.

“Dear Danny:

You are the most wonderful performer I ever saw. Something terrible has happened. Our house burned down. Can you help me go on the stage?”

“October 17, 1941.

“Dear Danny:

Just heard your wonderful new records Something terrible has happened. My mother has pneumonia. Can you help me go on the stage?”

This went on, with very sympathetic answers from us until three weeks ago when he seemed to run out of fresh catastrophes and announced again—

“Air Mail, Special Delivery

February 1, 1942

Dear Danny:

Looking forward to seeing your new show. Something terrible has happened, my father just died. Can you help me go on the stage?”

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