“Hamlet’s Out: Danny Kaye Hour Set on Ch. 10”

Delaware County Daily Times – October 29, 1960

Danny Kaye laughs at the classic show business cliché that every comedian secretly yearns to play Hamlet.

Danny doesn’t.

“I will continue to make faces, stand on my head and tell funny stories,” quoth Kaye, “as long as anybody is around to look and listen.”

The comedian will be seen in “An Hour with Danny Kaye,” a special, in color, Sunday from 8 to 9 p.m. on Ch. 10. Danny made his only previous television appearance on “See It Now” back in 1956, when CBS Television Network cameras followed him on his overseas tour on behalf of UNICEF. Previously, of course, and since then, Kaye has entertained – and been acclaimed here and abroad – in movies, night clubs and on the stage.

Danny Kaye began to establish his reputation as one of the world’s outstanding clowns nearly two decades ago. But preceding this recognition was a long, hard struggle that began back in the early 1930s, when he entertained on the Borscht Circuit, a group of summer resorts in New York’s Catskill Mountains. Kaye’s varied duties included waiting on tables, performing in plays and musicals, and “toomling.” (For the uninitiated, “toomling” means creating a tumult by exaggerated antics – such as tumbling fully clothed into a swimming pool, or parading through the hotel lobby in a bizarre get-up, or slapsticking with guests and fellow waiters in the dining room – the object being to discourage guests from checking out when the weather is bad or boredom otherwise sets in.)

Kaye played the resorts for five summers, returning each fall to his native Brooklyn (where he was born on Jan. 18, 1913), and spending the winters in unsuccessful attempts to get interviews with Broadway producers.

In the spring of 1939, Kaye, by now understandably discouraged with the lack of progress in his career, met a young pianist-composer named Sylvia Fine while auditioning for an off-Broadway revue. Astutely, Miss Fine recognized a potential star in the still undisciplined comedian. She persuaded Max Liebman, producer of shows at a Pennsylvania summer camp (and who, incidentally was to become one of television’s leading producers), to hire Kaye for the coming season. That fall, Danny signed for the cast of a Broadway production, “The Straw Hat Revue,” in which he performed a number of Miss Fine’s compositions. Although the show ran only a few weeks, Kaye, for the first time, received high praise from the critics for his uninhibited fun-making.

Jan. 3, 1940 during a holiday in Florida, Kaye and Miss Fine were married. A few weeks later, while performing at a New York night club, Kaye caught the eye of Moss Hart whose “Lady in the Dark” was about to go into rehearsal. Hart wrote Kaye into the script, and on opening nigh Danny stopped the show with his nimble-tongued rendition of “Tchaikowsky,” an Ira Gerswhin lyric incorporating the names of 50 Russian composers.

At that, Kaye’s rise was breath-taking. His night club act, featuring material written by his wife, broke all records wherever he played; he became the first comedian to be held over for five weeks at New York’s Paramount Theatre; he starred in a Broadway revue, “Let’s Face It,” and inevitably, he signed a long-term motion picture contract.

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