Mile-a-Minute Mugger

A comedian who had been on the air only eight times in five years took a firm grasp on a network mike last week--as the star of his own Danny Kaye Show (CBS, Sat., 8-8:30p.m,, E.W.T.).

No Johnny-come-lately to show business, Broadway's limber-faced Danny Kaye was nevertheless an X quantity as a disembodied voice. An album of records by him had been a sellout, but even his most ardent fans thought of him as a wild-eyed, sharp-nosed, mile-a-minute mugger who tore himself apart with frantic pantomime. Last week he proved he could be funny in the dark.

The high point of his first radio show was as good unseen as seen: he played all the parts in a populous, fast-talking skit whose cast of characters covered half a dozen nationalities, two sexes, assorted ages, and a corner of the animal kingdom. It was a good trick, and at least fresher than his repeat performance of the stunt that originally made him a star.

In 1940, when Danny was 27, Moss Hart saw him perform at a Manhattan nightclub, La Martinique, promptly hired him for Lady in the Dark. Opening night, he stood the audience's hair on end with his effortless recitation of 54 Russian composers' names in 40 seconds. Next season he was a full-fledged Broadway star in Let's Face It! Danny Kaye (ne Kominsky) had knocked around in show business for nearly a dozen years before that.

Camping in the Catsldlls. He meant to be a surgeon, but hard times hit his father, a Brooklyn dress cutter, and Danny went to work as a soda jerker. He also tried a job as an insurance man. Then he became a professional life-of-the-party at a summer camp in the Catskill Mountains. When he wasn't cheering up the guests, he washed dishes and waited on table. He worked the summer camps for four seasons. During the winter he pestered Broadway producers, and lived on his summer earnings.

In 1933, a professional dance team visiting Kaye's camp added him to its act. and took him along to play a vaudeville house in Detroit. The show he was in played 41 one-night stands in the U.S., then sailed for the Orient, where it got by in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, and way stations.

Back in the Catskills again, Kaye met small, dark, self-possessed Sylvia Fine and played in a camp show for which she had written the music and lyrics. The show--Straw Hat Revue--went to Broadway in the fall, and lasted ten weeks, which was long enough for Danny to attract some attention. He married Sylvia a month later, and thereby acquired first rights to her talents as script writer, songwriter, idea-man and all-round coach. As usual, she is in full charge of the new radio venture.

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