“Danny Kaye Talks of Many Things in Ride to Bronx”
Arizona Republic – Aug. 19, 1970
By: Earl Wilson
NEW YORK – Danny Kaye leaned back in the limousine that was taking us up to the Bronx to a hot, humid factory where they make stage scenery.
“Why’m I doing it?” He lit a cigarette. “A dear friend of mine, Moss Hart, once told me: ‘At given points in a man’s life, he must take it by the scruff of the neck and shake it.’”
Danny at 57, after numerous monumental world triumphs, has taken his life by the scruff of the neck and is shaking it. He’s rehearsing to play Noah in Richard Rodgers’ “2x2.” He’s coming back to Broadway where he became a star in “Lady in the Dark” in 1940.
“This musical”—he slapped a huge black-
Would Danny be dancing much?
“Well, it’s a musical—and with only eight people—I imagine I’ll be able to put one
foot in front of the other.”
We rolled up to Sells Scenery. Danny leaped out ahead.
He scrambled up a ladder that was a part of the Ark that will eventually be moved
downtown to the Imperial Theater. It was one of the hottest days—there was no air-
“Danny’s so disciplined,” a friend commented.
“I had to bomb out two of my hobbies for this—flying and my Chinese kitchen,” Danny said.
No point in keeping a jet to fly it once a week. I’ll probably sell it. I have friends who have planes like it that I could fly, but it’s not that easy now. You have to make a reservation to land—a day ahead—like getting a hotel room.”
I asked how many years he’d been acting.
“Well, when I was 19, I was in Shanghai with the A. B. Marcus revue. Ever been to Shanghai? It was then Paris, New York, London, Hong Kong, rolled into one. . .”
And now Danny had his life by the scruff of the neck and we were at 143rd St. and
Canal Place in the Bronx and it was non-