“Keep It Live”
The Press-
By: Isobel Ashe
Hollywood
Danny Kaye of the tousled hair and agile body has done something fans never expected.
He’s doing a weekly television series, as viewers now know from having seen his new
Wednesday night hour-
“But I never said I’d NEVER do a weekly series,” Kaye disclaimed in Hollywood a few weeks ago. “I always qualified it with ‘at this time.’ I said I’d do it only when the time was right. And five years ago it wasn’t.
“I was doing movies then, working with children for the United Nations, appearing in theatres six or ten weeks a year. And I realized I’d have to curtail all these activities to do justice to television.
“Then about a year ago I realized I wasn’t sufficiently stimulated. I wasn’t busy enough. It was then I knew the time was right.
“I have never worked so hard in my life, and for the first time in my life I go to the office every day!” he said with a trace of wonderment in his voice.
It is also, Kaye disclosed, the first time in 25 years he’s spent this much consecutive time at home. “And it’s fun. Creativity begets creativity and I’m enjoying it.”
The behind-
All three networks were advised “within two minutes of each other,” Kaye says, of his availability.
CBS made the first offer and was accepted. And then, a floor-
There never was any intention on Kaye’s part or that of his associates that he would
duplicate the one-
“We
couldn’t attempt to do it that way, because it wouldn’t come off. When we did one-
“Now we rehearse five days and then start all over again. While it’s a rough schedule, it’s a stimulating one.”
Kaye feels, as do many of his fellow entertainers, that a show a week is actually easier than one a year.
“You have the luxury of doing a bad one occasionally and you needn’t worry about being run out of town.
“I’m a realist. I know every show can’t be great. We’ll try to make all of them great, of course, because I strive to do things as well as I know how, but undoubtedly there will be some not quite great.
“No one can judge this, only the audience. We all have different tastes and preferences, in television shows or food,” he points out.
There will not be as much special material on the weekly Danny Kaye shows as on the
one-
“I don’t want to overpower the audience. The television audience must yearn to know more about me. I feel communicating with people at home is different than in movies, theatres or clubs. The more they learn about you, the closer they feel. It’s fine to entertain and do sketches, but at one point I want to sit down and communicate with the people rather than perform at them. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have to find something else.”
For the same reason, Kaye refused to be pinned down on an exact format for his show.
“If we have a formula, it’s to do as entertaining a show as we can every week. The format will evolve itself after a few weeks, and the exciting thing is that it can change from week to week. We’re obliged to take more chances.”
It was for this reason that Kaye insisted on taping his show, rather than filming it, as do many comedians.
“If I had my way I’d do it live on tape from Hollywood at 7:00 Wednesday nights, so it would reach the east at 10. That’s as live as you can get.
“As it is, we have only the time from Saturday night when we tape at Television City until the following Wednesday when you see the show.
“I don’t want a rigid form. If the scenery falls down, and it might, at some time or other, I’ll keep on talking until it’s repaired.
“On one of our shows, I just know something will happen—in the audience or with a guest—and it’ll all go sky high.
“But I’d rather take this chance than to risk losing the audience with stopping and starting. Worst yet, the audience may lose me and that’s equally as devastating.”
Kaye has no fear, as do some stars, of over exposure. Rather, it’s his opinion that an entertainer’s obligation is to reach as many people as he can, and only through television can he attain that goal.
“Let’s put it this way: there comes a time when you must take your life and career by the scruff of the neck and shake it up.
“That’s what I’m doing now. I’m not underestimating the pressure, pitfalls and work, but hard work has never fazed me.
“There IS an emotional adjustment, of having to be in one place for 40 weeks we’re doing the shows.
“But it’s fun, finding guests that can showcase to the best possible advantage; possibly finding a television ‘family’ who will work on several shows with me.
“I must say, we have a highly unantiseptic atmosphere. There’s no hysteria.
“We leave the goofs as they are. I think this is the way we can come closest to the live feeling. As I said, unless an enormous disaster occurs, we won’t stop the tape.”
Although as Kaye says, there will not be much special material he has no intention of dropping some of his tested skills.
“I’d be a fool to abandon things I’ve developed and perfected,” he says logically. “And it’s odd how some of them did develop.
“The tea-
“I’d played golf late that day and had gotten to the theatre just in time to change clothes and go on.
“During the show, I commented to the audience, ‘I haven’t had a cup of tea all day,’ and went on with my act.
“Suddenly I turned around; someone backstage had sent a girl out with a cup of tea. I had to do SOMETHING.
“So I accepted the tea with thanks, asked the orchestra for ‘a little tea music, please.’ I got a chair, and did a pantomime of two girls in a tearoom watching another girl they didn’t expect to be there.
“Little bits like that, you don’t drop; you’ve invested too much into them emotionally and I think people enjoy seeing them again.”
It’s a full-
He doesn’t get to watch so many surgical operations any more. He’s first to admit he’s a frustrated doctor, an interest engendered as a youngster by the Doctors Mayo who founded the Minnesota clinic bearing their name.
He abandoned medicine to show business, but still loves to watch operations and even offers unofficial diagnoses.
“And I do have a claim to fame. I’m the only person I know who flew himself to his own appendectomy!”
It happened a few months ago when Danny was touring in the Midwest in his own plane and felt ill. He did his own diagnosis that time, flew to Rochester to the Mayo Clinic and the surgery was performed.
“It could make for fine dinner table conversation. But I don’t talk about my own operations. Only those I’ve watched,” he laughs.
