Danny Kaye
Author: Trudy Stroup
As I have contemplated the research that I have collected on Danny Kaye, I remember thinking that there really wasn't a lot of information to collect. Website after website gave the same information with very little "new" information to glean. And as I have been looking over my notes, I think I know why. Danny was more concerned with his fellow man than his career. He recognized his talent from an early age, performing at three day Jewish wedding events from the age of 5; singing and dancing for wedding guests. Later he would say, “I became an entertainer not because I wanted to, but because I was meant to.”
Born on January 18, 1911, or maybe 1913, (a running joke most of Danny's life) David Daniel Kaminsky was the only American-born child of Jacob Kaminski, a Russian horse trainer, and his wife, Clara Nemerovky, a homemaker. The couple immigrated to the United States in the early 1900's with their two sons, Mack and Larry, in tow. Once in the States, Jacob made his living as a tailor. I couldn't find any information on why he changed careers. Maybe it was that he found it difficult to garner work in his chosen profession and had to rely on previous immigrants for work. However, that is a big ol' guess on my part! I lean in this direction because it was a common situation that immigrants found themselves in. The fact that immigrants spoke little to no English was a huge barrier to them getting a well-paying job. Those that came before helped the new immigrants to learn the language and hired them to work in their places of business to get established in the community. Sadly, this is the only information I could find on his early life. Whether the family was poor and destitute or wealthy and privileged is unclear.
I did find out that Danny quit school at the ripe old age of 13 and he and a friend hit the road to make their fortune playing music. They returned home to Brooklyn just a few short months later, broke. After returning home, Danny worked every odd job he could get. He was a soda jerk, an office clerk, a messenger boy, and an insurance appraiser; unfortunately most jobs proved to be out of his skill set. He was fired from appraising after only one day. However, he met future wife Sylvia Fine while running errands for her father, who held a position as a dentist. From there, he went to "The Borscht Belt" of the Catskills resorts and was hired as a tummler. Being a tummler is like being a court jester; he roamed around the resort and entertained people on the grounds. From there he made the familiar transition to local stages, shortening his name to Danny Kaye around this time.
In 1939, he graduated to Broadway in "The Straw Hat Review". He was reunited with Sylvia that same year. She was a talented lyricist, composer, pianist, and writer. The couple eloped at the end of the year and was married on January 3rd, 1940. The 40's were a ripe time for the couple as Sylvia became Danny's manager and very often wrote scripts and music for his performances. In 1941, Danny once again found himself on Broadway in the production "Lady in the Dark", a Moss Hart production. That play would provide Danny with the catalyst that would shoot him to fame. Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill wrote the songs for the play and one of those songs was "Tchaikovsky". That song listed 50 Russian composers’ names. Danny not only memorized the torturous song in an afternoon, but he also performed it flawlessly onstage that night in 38 seconds flat! I guess his parents speaking Russian while he grew up paid off. lol. When a talented actor can sing, dance, and act, they are called a triple threat. Danny blew that out of the water! He could sing, dance, act and impersonate. He was a star comedian and a pratfall expert; a skill that he found while tripping unintentionally during a performance onstage. His accidental success with the pratfall received copious laughs and applause. An uncredited writer once described Danny this way, "If Danny Kaye had not been born; no one could possibly have invented him. It would have been stretching credibility far past the breaking point."
By the time 1944 rolled around, Danny Kaye headed out west under contract with, you guessed it, Samuel Goldwyn. He also began his recording career in California and picked up a couple of hobbies. He could fly any airplane from a single engine plane to a DC-10 and even a 747. And though he couldn't read a drop of music, he was a conductor; performing at the New York Philharmonic. During his conduction of "The Flight of the Bumble Bee", he replaced his baton with a fly swatter! His other hobby was Chinese cooking. He became a master Chinese chef who prepared a meal for several French chefs. When asked if he was nervous about the upcoming dinner, Danny smiled and said, "Why should I be nervous? What do they know about Chinese cooking?" I guess in this one statement he summed up his personality. He was confident in everything he did, no matter the company. He was a laid back, easy going, talented-though-shy man, who was comfortable in a suit or polo shirts. He was a frequent inclusion on the Best Dressed lists of Hollywood and easily seen in public dressed sharply but always comfortable. He simply was himself.
In 1948, Danny was to play London's Paladium Theatre for six weeks and tickets sold out in five days at a cost of $2.60 a ticket! Several of those tickets ended up on the black market and sold for $50 each; quite a little sum in the '40's! In 1954, Danny was named the first World Ambassador for UNICEF - The United Nations Children's Fund. He traveled the world, seeing to the needs of children and our troops and performing during three wars; WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. He also raised over $6 million for the Musician's Pension Fund. Performing began to take a second seat to helping others in the mid fifties, and his performances became fewer and farther between. He continued to make movies well into the fifties; dabbling in radio and television into the sixties. "The Danny Kaye Show" was popular from 1963 to 1967, (I urge you to look up his performance of "Ballin the Jack", it's on Youtube!), but his heart was in what he could do for others, and in the 70's, most of his time was spent in humanitarian efforts. In the 80's, there is little information on what his life was like. He preferred to be the unsung hero and kept his later years in low profile.
In March of 1987, Danny checked into the hospital, having complications with his heart and hepatitis. It is unclear whether the complications were from a previous heart surgery during which he contracted hepatitis, or if he contracted hepatitis during his travels and the heart problems were a separate issue. What is clear is that he passed away in the hospital on March 3rd of that year. Married until Danny's death, Danny and Sylvia had only one child; a daughter named Dena who was born in 1946. Dena is a Stanford graduate and successful freelance journalist as well as radio and television broadcaster.
© 2015-2016 Trudy Stroup. All rights reserved.
Author: Trudy Stroup
As I have contemplated the research that I have collected on Danny Kaye, I remember thinking that there really wasn't a lot of information to collect. Website after website gave the same information with very little "new" information to glean. And as I have been looking over my notes, I think I know why. Danny was more concerned with his fellow man than his career. He recognized his talent from an early age, performing at three day Jewish wedding events from the age of 5; singing and dancing for wedding guests. Later he would say, “I became an entertainer not because I wanted to, but because I was meant to.”
Born on January 18, 1911, or maybe 1913, (a running joke most of Danny's life) David Daniel Kaminsky was the only American-born child of Jacob Kaminski, a Russian horse trainer, and his wife, Clara Nemerovky, a homemaker. The couple immigrated to the United States in the early 1900's with their two sons, Mack and Larry, in tow. Once in the States, Jacob made his living as a tailor. I couldn't find any information on why he changed careers. Maybe it was that he found it difficult to garner work in his chosen profession and had to rely on previous immigrants for work. However, that is a big ol' guess on my part! I lean in this direction because it was a common situation that immigrants found themselves in. The fact that immigrants spoke little to no English was a huge barrier to them getting a well-paying job. Those that came before helped the new immigrants to learn the language and hired them to work in their places of business to get established in the community. Sadly, this is the only information I could find on his early life. Whether the family was poor and destitute or wealthy and privileged is unclear.
I did find out that Danny quit school at the ripe old age of 13 and he and a friend hit the road to make their fortune playing music. They returned home to Brooklyn just a few short months later, broke. After returning home, Danny worked every odd job he could get. He was a soda jerk, an office clerk, a messenger boy, and an insurance appraiser; unfortunately most jobs proved to be out of his skill set. He was fired from appraising after only one day. However, he met future wife Sylvia Fine while running errands for her father, who held a position as a dentist. From there, he went to "The Borscht Belt" of the Catskills resorts and was hired as a tummler. Being a tummler is like being a court jester; he roamed around the resort and entertained people on the grounds. From there he made the familiar transition to local stages, shortening his name to Danny Kaye around this time.
In 1939, he graduated to Broadway in "The Straw Hat Review". He was reunited with Sylvia that same year. She was a talented lyricist, composer, pianist, and writer. The couple eloped at the end of the year and was married on January 3rd, 1940. The 40's were a ripe time for the couple as Sylvia became Danny's manager and very often wrote scripts and music for his performances. In 1941, Danny once again found himself on Broadway in the production "Lady in the Dark", a Moss Hart production. That play would provide Danny with the catalyst that would shoot him to fame. Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill wrote the songs for the play and one of those songs was "Tchaikovsky". That song listed 50 Russian composers’ names. Danny not only memorized the torturous song in an afternoon, but he also performed it flawlessly onstage that night in 38 seconds flat! I guess his parents speaking Russian while he grew up paid off. lol. When a talented actor can sing, dance, and act, they are called a triple threat. Danny blew that out of the water! He could sing, dance, act and impersonate. He was a star comedian and a pratfall expert; a skill that he found while tripping unintentionally during a performance onstage. His accidental success with the pratfall received copious laughs and applause. An uncredited writer once described Danny this way, "If Danny Kaye had not been born; no one could possibly have invented him. It would have been stretching credibility far past the breaking point."
By the time 1944 rolled around, Danny Kaye headed out west under contract with, you guessed it, Samuel Goldwyn. He also began his recording career in California and picked up a couple of hobbies. He could fly any airplane from a single engine plane to a DC-10 and even a 747. And though he couldn't read a drop of music, he was a conductor; performing at the New York Philharmonic. During his conduction of "The Flight of the Bumble Bee", he replaced his baton with a fly swatter! His other hobby was Chinese cooking. He became a master Chinese chef who prepared a meal for several French chefs. When asked if he was nervous about the upcoming dinner, Danny smiled and said, "Why should I be nervous? What do they know about Chinese cooking?" I guess in this one statement he summed up his personality. He was confident in everything he did, no matter the company. He was a laid back, easy going, talented-though-shy man, who was comfortable in a suit or polo shirts. He was a frequent inclusion on the Best Dressed lists of Hollywood and easily seen in public dressed sharply but always comfortable. He simply was himself.
In 1948, Danny was to play London's Paladium Theatre for six weeks and tickets sold out in five days at a cost of $2.60 a ticket! Several of those tickets ended up on the black market and sold for $50 each; quite a little sum in the '40's! In 1954, Danny was named the first World Ambassador for UNICEF - The United Nations Children's Fund. He traveled the world, seeing to the needs of children and our troops and performing during three wars; WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. He also raised over $6 million for the Musician's Pension Fund. Performing began to take a second seat to helping others in the mid fifties, and his performances became fewer and farther between. He continued to make movies well into the fifties; dabbling in radio and television into the sixties. "The Danny Kaye Show" was popular from 1963 to 1967, (I urge you to look up his performance of "Ballin the Jack", it's on Youtube!), but his heart was in what he could do for others, and in the 70's, most of his time was spent in humanitarian efforts. In the 80's, there is little information on what his life was like. He preferred to be the unsung hero and kept his later years in low profile.
In March of 1987, Danny checked into the hospital, having complications with his heart and hepatitis. It is unclear whether the complications were from a previous heart surgery during which he contracted hepatitis, or if he contracted hepatitis during his travels and the heart problems were a separate issue. What is clear is that he passed away in the hospital on March 3rd of that year. Married until Danny's death, Danny and Sylvia had only one child; a daughter named Dena who was born in 1946. Dena is a Stanford graduate and successful freelance journalist as well as radio and television broadcaster.
© 2015-2016 Trudy Stroup. All rights reserved.