“Kaye in true-
The Deseret News – Nov. 14, 1981
By: Howard Pearson (Deseret News television editor)
Danny Kaye, who has been identified mostly with slight productions and especially musicals, stars in one of the most dramatic stories of his career on television next week.
The drama is titled Skokie, and it takes over two and one-
It’s certainly a contrast to the Kaye of “Hans Christian Andersen” and “White Christmas” movies and of the symphony orchestra guest performances. He portrays the survivor of Nazi death camps who has been living in the United States since World War II ended. In the story, based on a true incident, a Nazi group has decided to stage a parade in Skokie, a suburb of Chicago. Danny leads the opposition to the Nazis and appears at many rallies to halt the parade.
He finds himself in opposition to some friends in the Jewish community and among attorneys because, actually the story deals with defense of the First Amendment to the Constitution (freedom of speech) and a few of the Jews in the story side with the desires of the Nazis because of the free speech implications.
Kaye rises to dramatic heights several times during the drama.
The day after seeing the drama in New York, I was in an interview session with Kaye with about 50 other television writers.
Asked why he took the script, Danny said, “I don’t know what impelled me to take that story, except it was a powerful and well written script. I liked the way the story turned out. As you know, the picture has no resolution, just as the story itself had no resolution. But it is a powerfully told story and I liked it.”
At the press conference, Danny said, “Some of the people (in one synagogue scene) were real survivors of the holocaust. I had heard some of their stories. I only needed to hear them to meet the challenges in the story. These people had been separated from their parents and children in death camps in Germany, and they could not stand for free speech for Nazis in America. I sensed this.”
One of the writers in the news conference observed that some persons are challenging the stories of death camps. “In California, we have a group of persons who maintain the camp stories were invented to keep the stories of persecution of the Jews alive,” said this interviewer.
Herbert Brodkin, the producer, who also has Holocaust to his credit, said, “We are
conscious of these people. Their charges are being met with pictures and first-
Kaye declared, “Anti-
“I travel a lot for UNICEF. There is no way of letting you know about the children
of the world unless I take you to the countries. There is no way of letting you know
about anti-
John Rubinstein, who appears as an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is fighting for the Nazi right to parade, also was at the press conference. His father, pianist Artur Rubinstein, and mother are from Poland. They left the country during the Hitler persecutions.
“I just went back to Poland awhile ago to meet my relatives,” John said. “It was an emotional experience. My mother’s relatives were not marked as Jews. They escaped the camps. I met scores of them. I met only a distant cousin of my father. All others had been erased. It was a mindshattering experience. Yet I would be on the side of the ACLU in real life. I believe the Nazis should have been allowed to parade, just as happened. Free speech and the right to assemble peaceably must be defended.”
A rabbi in the audience said the events at Skokie “must be seen against the growing distancing of the Jewish tragedy from today. Young people of today think the holocaust was a Jewish holiday. They don’t see it for what it was.”
Besides Kaye and Rubinstein, Skokie stars Carl Reiner, Kim Hunter and Eli Wallach. The featured players are Ed Flanders, Lee Strasberg, Brian Dennehy and George Dzundza.