In the 50's Danny Kaye was a superstar. I lot of people today haven't even heard of him and it is sad. True Kaye's humour has not really aged well but I still think that if you watched The Secret Life of Water Mitty or Wonderman (my favourite Kaye movie) that you couldn't fail to see the charm in Kaye and understand why he was so popular.
Kaye may be known to modern audiences for work that he did later in his life on The Crosby Show. But it is the movies that he made in the beautiful technicolour world of the 50's that Kaye will always be remembered for and rightly so.
No-one could do what Kaye did so well, and together with his wife Sylvia Fine they were a very talented team, now that is was an unusual marriage. They lived apart and yet neither of them ever divorced the other and it was not because of a genuine like of each other for all accounts they could be quite brutal to each other at times.
He left his estate to his daughter Dena but only on the understanding that she was never to write about him or his marriage to Sylvia (Why? ).
Kaye of course was one of the first, if not the first to become a UNICEF ambassador leading the way for the stars of today to follow in his footsteps. He was also a very talented chef who in his house in the Hollywood Hills cooked magnificent and very complicated dinners for his guests, dinners which he rarely joined his guests in eating.
He was by all accounts a very good pilot, he conducted orchestras (albiet in a comedic manner).
He upset the Danes on his tour to Denmark to promote Hans Christian Anderson by sitting on Hans' bed, but I believe that by the time he left Denmark all had been forgiven.
There are some that believe that Kaye and Princess Margaret of England (the queens late sister) were a little more than friends.
His best friend was Laurence Olivier and he drove Vivian Leigh to distraction with the influence that he had on Olivier.
So a complicated, at times difficult man by all acounts. but a man that felt that he could use his celebrity to do good for others, and man that gave up a lot of his time and used his own plane to travel the world and document the blight of children in 3rd world countries.
I love Danny Kaye, I love to watch his movies he is charming and charismatic and it is a real shame that he his not as celebrated today as I do believe he should be.
Kaye may be known to modern audiences for work that he did later in his life on The Crosby Show. But it is the movies that he made in the beautiful technicolour world of the 50's that Kaye will always be remembered for and rightly so.
No-one could do what Kaye did so well, and together with his wife Sylvia Fine they were a very talented team, now that is was an unusual marriage. They lived apart and yet neither of them ever divorced the other and it was not because of a genuine like of each other for all accounts they could be quite brutal to each other at times.
He left his estate to his daughter Dena but only on the understanding that she was never to write about him or his marriage to Sylvia (Why? ).
Kaye of course was one of the first, if not the first to become a UNICEF ambassador leading the way for the stars of today to follow in his footsteps. He was also a very talented chef who in his house in the Hollywood Hills cooked magnificent and very complicated dinners for his guests, dinners which he rarely joined his guests in eating.
He was by all accounts a very good pilot, he conducted orchestras (albiet in a comedic manner).
He upset the Danes on his tour to Denmark to promote Hans Christian Anderson by sitting on Hans' bed, but I believe that by the time he left Denmark all had been forgiven.
There are some that believe that Kaye and Princess Margaret of England (the queens late sister) were a little more than friends.
His best friend was Laurence Olivier and he drove Vivian Leigh to distraction with the influence that he had on Olivier.
So a complicated, at times difficult man by all acounts. but a man that felt that he could use his celebrity to do good for others, and man that gave up a lot of his time and used his own plane to travel the world and document the blight of children in 3rd world countries.
I love Danny Kaye, I love to watch his movies he is charming and charismatic and it is a real shame that he his not as celebrated today as I do believe he should be.
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