KAYE, DANNY

born Jan. 18, 1913, New York City died March 3, 1987, Los Angeles original name David Daniel Kominski American actor and comedian in motion pictures, television, and on the stage. The son of Ukrainian immigrants, he worked as a comic entertainer in hotels in the Catskill Mountains in New York state and spent the rest of the 1930s doing comedy and dance routines in nightclubs across the United States. During this time he adopted the name Danny Kaye and originated the pantomimes, rapid-fire scat singing, and physical antics that were to become his trademark. Kaye achieved a rapid success on the Broadway stage beginning with The Straw Hat Revue (1939) and Lady in the Dark (1940) and performed for American servicemen during World War II. His first motion-picture appearance was in Up in Arms (1944), and this was followed by starring roles in The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), On the Riviera (1950), Hans Christian Andersen (1952), White Christmas (1954), and Me and the Colonel (1958). Kaye played multiple roles in several of these films, but his basic screen persona was that of a meek and clumsily incompetent man who nevertheless emerges triumphant in the end. Kaye had a weekly variety program on television during the 1960s. Throughout his later career he traveled developing countries giving comic appearances before children.