“Danny Kaye: Tells His Story”
Salt Lake Tribune – Oct. 12, 1947
By: Hedda Hopper
HOLLYWOOD—Several weeks ago Danny Kaye made news on two counts. It was announced
first he was parting company with his producer, Sam Goldwyn; second, with his wife,
Sylvia Fine. These were the two people most closely associated with the red-
Goldwyn had given the talented Danny his first break in pictures and followed up with a succession of films that had landed the actor on top of the cinema heap.
It was Sylvia who, besides being his wife and bearing him a child, had hovered over Danny’s professional career, writing his songs, advising him, urging him forward. In the show world the names of Kaye and Fine were together like bread and butter, which is exactly what a phase of their association provided.
For several months previous to the actual split up there had been rumors that the Kaye marriage was none too solid. Nevertheless, since it was a professional as well as domestic alliance, few believed the actual break would come, but it did. And Hollywood, never noted for a long memory, began to howl ingratitude on Danny’s part.
I do not condone most Hollywood divorces, but I do believe there are two sides to every question; and I think that each person should have the right to present his side. So I asked Danny to come by my house and tell me his story.
When he arrived he said:
“I’m scared silly of newspaper people. Every time I make a statement it seems to appear in print with a different meaning than I intended. I don’t believe the distortion is deliberate. But reporters unconsciously color my statements with their own emotion, perspective, and interpretation.”
Danny off screen looks like an unrelaxed dancer. He seems as tense as a coiled spring. He’s an actor to the bones, and during the course of an ordinary conversation may resort to a dozen dialects to help his listeners better visualize the characters he’s describing. His talent for mimicry is perfect. Unlike many of his profession, he’s straightforward and articulate without benefit of a script.
“If I speak realistically,” said he, “you must remember that I was born poor in Brooklyn and learned the values of life early. People say my five years in Hollywood have changed me. I don’t deny it. The years change any one who keeps growing, no matter where he is. Some people may think Hollywood has made a heel of me; others may say the town has changed me for the better. They have a right to their own opinions.
* * *
"You want to know about my splitup with Sylvia. First, please get this straight: no outside influence caused the separation. Before we agreed upon it, Sylvia and I sat down and talked over our problems like two intelligent people. Our present separation is an attempt to salvage our marriage, not end it.
“I know that sounds paradoxical, but let me explain. For the last eight years we’ve been working hard to get ahead. In the process our personal relationship suffered.
“We decided on a temporary separation, so we could stand back, look at our marriage objectively, and try to figure out a way to make a go of it.
“Don’t think I fail to appreciate Sylvia. She was perfectly content to work through me, let me be the big guy. Perhaps she’d have been content even to live through me. But I didn’t want things that way. I think that to belong to somebody truly you must first belong to yourself; to make other people happy you first must be capable of making yourself happy.
“Success has brought me a form of personal happiness, for example; and I’ve been able to pass that happiness on to my father. It’s not merely that I can buy him anything he wants. The biggest kick he gets out of life is being the father of Danny Kaye.
“So I’m chiefly interested in Sylvia’s finding a personal happiness and keeping her individuality. If we, as two distinct individuals, can work toward the same goal, I think our marriage is saved.”
I asked what would happen to his and Sylvia’s professional relationship if the marriage splitup proved to be permanent.
“If our marriage ends,” replied Danny, “Sylvia won’t work with me. And even if she would, I don’t think I’d want her to.”
* * *
I then turned the conversation to Danny’s break with Sam Goldwyn. “It’s been suggested,” said he, “that I’m acting ungrateful toward Sam. I don’t look at the matter that way.
“Let me be the first to say that I consider Sam a great producer and to admit that he’s been wonderful to me.
“But however much I like and admire Goldwyn, I have my own career to think about. I don’t think Sam gave me my first break out of charity. He took a gamble on me and the dice came up 11. And I’m sure that if my pictures had lost money Sam’s gratitude toward me wouldn’t have been great enough to keep picking up my options. He’s a realist, too.
“I believe that Goldwyn made an honest attempt to find something different for me in every picture we made. But there was a certain sameness about them.
“I felt that if my destiny was to make only musicals, I wanted to do only a few pictures. Maybe just one every two or three years. I can always go back to the stage and night clubs.
“But I first want to find out what I can really do on the screen. Warners offered me a wonderful deal, and I took it.
“The very fact that Warners are considering me for ‘Don Quixote’ is encouraging. I did not make the reported statement that I’d never do another picture for Sam. If he had a good story for me I’d sign with him tomorrow.”
It’s difficult to reconcile such a realistic person with Danny’s latest screen characterization in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”
In the title role Kaye plays a meek, hen-
It gives Danny plenty of leeway for his superb sense of mimicry, for in sequence he plays a heroic flyer, a big shot gambler, a tough cowboy, a Parisian hat designer, a steamboat captain, and a noble surgeon.