“Danny Kaye Discusses Secret of His Success”
Joplin Globe – July 12, 1959
HOLLYWOOD – Danny Kaye revealed one of the secrets of his success on the Paramount set of Dena Pictures’ “The Five Pennies” the other day – he aims his comedy at children.
“If the kids laugh I’m reaching the grownups,” Kaye said. “Children have a quick sense of the ridiculous. They like clowns.”
Kaye followed this formula on “Five Pennies.” If he could make nine-
Yet the picture is mainly the story of bandleader Red Nichols and his Five Pennies
whose music influenced the jazz of today. The picture co-
It was no accident that Kaye began to use children as a sounding board. He loves kids, friends say, even more than his much publicized work for the United Nations Children’s Fund indicates.
Once on a New York street a little girl asked for his autograph in a peculiar squeaky voice. Kaye took her home to find out what was wrong with her. Learning from her parents that she had a mental speech block, he sent her to the best doctor he knew and paid the bill.
Such sympathy for children—(he named his film company for his daughter, Dena)—prompted him to make “The Five Pennies.” “It was the girl in the story that sold me,” he said.
Kaye, who entertains on stage for two hours at a time when he makes public appearances, never tells a joke or does a routine that you could not repeat to your children, friends say.