“Eviction Threat Makes Kaye Indignant, Stubborn, Accusing”

Oxnard Press-Courier – Jun. 4, 1946

HOLLYWOOD (U.P.) – Householder Danny Kaye, who said his home was his somewhat run-down castle, held out today against the landlady who wants to throw him out in the street. The sheriff said he couldn’t help either side.

The landlady is Mrs. Maxie Rosenbloom, a child psychologist who divorced her prize-fighter husband six months ago. She says Kaye is wrecking her Bel-Air mansion.

Comedian Kaye says it was a wreck when he moved in, but it was better than the gutter and he was staying until he found some place to put his furniture, Mrs. Kaye, and a little Kaye due this October. [His daughter was actually due in December, not October. – J.N. webmistress]

“There never was anything legal about her bluff to get us out on grounds we damaged her property,” the movie funnyman declared. (The sheriff, who does the evicting in these parts, said he’d never seen any papers.) “And I’m staying right here until I get good and ready to move.”

He’s readier now, though, than he was before. What he’s looking for, he says, is a landlady who has heard of the OPA.

When he and his wife, Sylvia Fine, moved into the Rosenbloom’s 11-room Bel-Air mansion it looked like something Mr. Rosenbloom had been using for a training camp, Kaye said.

“It was a mess,” he snorted. “We fixed it up and now she’s trying to collect some publicity by saying we wrecked the joint. That backfired plenty.

“The money we owe her has been garnished by bill collectors. Until all this fuss got in the papers they didn’t know where to find her.”

The triple-tongued comedian doesn’t like her version of the Kaye’s talents. She called him a wild party-giver and a destroyer of property.

“The truth is,” he went on, “she forced us to spend weeks fixing up her house before she’d agree to let us move in. It cost $1,250 to sand blast and paint the front. We had a gardener working for two weeks just to clean the junk from the backyard so it would look respectable.

“And her story about me hiding in the house while seven process servers banged at the door is all lies. I wasn’t even home. One man showed up and Sylvia accepted the papers.”


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