Seeing Danny KAYE, knowing that Mel BROOKS & Gene WILDER just re-did him

[UTUSN]

Not to take anything away from BROOKS/WILDER.

The flick right now on TCM is showing that Ben STILLER's new flick can't match up. Technology don't matter.

[UTUSN]

1. Just to be clear: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" n/t

[UTUSN]

2. Mr KAYE used to have a t.v. variety show, one skit was

where he was in a tent like Lawrence of Arabia and was partaking of a desert banquet and every time he was going to take a nibble, some spy would sneak up behind him and say, "Be careful, it's POISONED!1" and then every time, this went on, until finally (the punch line)

The spy said, "Be careful, it's HOT!!!!!!!!!1"

And Mr KAYE did a LAUREL/HARDY take, saying "I *KNOW* it's HOT!1"


You had to be there.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. What did Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder do?

(I get the Stiller/Mitty reference but not following on Mel and Gene)

[UTUSN]

4. Uh, the broad/hilarious words/physical/everything n/t

[UTUSN]

5. And now that i've dealt with the questions, for the youths who know not:

This is from Wiki, don't think it needs a copyright violation/protection:

*********QUOTE********

Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; January 18, 1913 – March 3, 1987)[2] was an American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and rapid-fire nonsense songs.
Kaye starred in 17 movies, notably The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), Hans Christian Andersen (1952), White Christmas (1954), and The Court Jester (1956). His films were popular, especially his bravura performances of patter songs and favorites such as "Inchworm" and "The Ugly Duckling". He was the first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF in 1954 and received the French Legion of Honor in 1986 for his years of work with the organization.

David Daniel Kaminsky was born to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn. Jacob and Clara Nemerovsky Kaminsky and their two sons, Larry and Mac, left Ekaterinoslav two years before his birth; he was the only son born in the United States.[4] He spent his early youth attending Public School 149 in East New York, Brooklyn—which eventually was renamed to honor him[5]—where he began entertaining his classmates with songs and jokes,[6] before moving to Thomas Jefferson High School, though he never graduated.[7] His mother died when he was in his early teens. Clara enjoyed the impressions and humor of her son and always had words of encouragement; her death was a loss for the young Kaye.

Not long after his mother's death, Kaye and his friend Louis ran away to Florida. Kaye sang while Louis played the guitar; the pair eked out a living for a while. When Kaye returned to New York, his father did not pressure him to return to school or work, giving his son the chance to mature and discover his own abilities.[8] Kaye said he had wanted to be a surgeon as a young boy, but there was no chance of the family affording a medical-school education.[4][9] He held a succession of jobs after leaving school, as a soda jerk, insurance investigator, and office clerk. Most ended with his being fired. He lost the insurance job when he made an error that cost the insurance company $40,000. The dentist who hired him to look after his office at lunch hour did the same when he found Kaye using his drill on the office woodwork.[4][10] He learned his trade in his teenage years in the Catskills as a tummler in the Borscht Belt,[6] and for four seasons at The White Roe resort.[11]

Kaye's first break came in 1933 when he joined the "Three Terpsichoreans", a vaudeville dance act. They opened in Utica, New York, with him using the name Danny Kaye for the first time.[6] The act toured the United States, then performed in Asia with the show La Vie Paree.[12] The troupe left for a six-month tour of the Far East on February 8, 1934. While they were in Osaka, Japan, a typhoon hit the city. The hotel where Kaye and his colleagues stayed suffered heavy damage; a piece of the hotel's cornice was hurled into Kaye's room by the strong wind, nearly killing him. By performance time that evening, the city was in the grip of the storm. There was no power, and the audience was restless and nervous. To calm them, Kaye went on stage, holding a flashlight to illuminate his face, and sang every song he could recall as loudly as he was able.[4] The experience of trying to entertain audiences who did not speak English inspired him to the pantomime, gestures, songs, and facial expressions that eventually made his reputation.[6][10] Sometimes it was necessary just to get a meal. Kaye's daughter, Dena, tells a story her father related about being in a restaurant in China and trying to order chicken. Kaye flapped his arms and clucked, giving the waiter an imitation of a chicken. The waiter nodded in understanding, bringing Kaye two eggs. His interest in cooking began on the tour.[6][12]

When Kaye returned to the United States, jobs were in short supply and he struggled for bookings. One job was working in a burlesque revue with fan dancer Sally Rand. After the dancer dropped a fan while trying to chase away a fly, Kaye was hired to watch the fans so they were always held in front of her.[6][10]

Career


Kaye scored a triumph in 1941 in Lady in the Dark. His show-stopping number was "Tchaikovsky", by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, in which he sang the names of a string of Russian composers at breakneck speed, seemingly without taking a breath.[16][17] In the next Broadway season, he was the star of a show about a young man who is drafted, called Let's Face It!.[18]

His feature film debut was in producer Samuel Goldwyn's Technicolor 1944 comedy Up in Arms,[19] a remake of Goldwyn's Eddie Cantor comedy Whoopee! (1930).[20] Kaye's rubber face and patter were a hit,[citation needed] and rival producer Robert M. Savini cashed in by compiling three of Kaye's Educational Pictures shorts into a patchwork feature, The Birth of a Star (1945).[21] Studio mogul Goldwyn wanted Kaye's prominent nose fixed to look less Jewish,[11][22] Kaye refused. He did allow his red hair to be dyed blonde, apparently because it looked better in Technicolor.[22]

Kaye starred in a radio program, The Danny Kaye Show, on CBS in 1945–1946.[23] The cast included Eve Arden, Lionel Stander, and Big Band leader Harry James, and it was scripted by radio notable Goodman Ace and playwright-director Abe Burrows.

The program's popularity rose quickly. Before a year, he tied with Jimmy Durante for fifth place in the Radio Daily popularity poll.[10] Kaye was asked to participate in a USO tour following the end of World War II. It meant he would be absent from his radio show for nearly two months at the beginning of the season. Kaye's friends filled in, with a different guest host each week.[24] Kaye was the first American actor to visit postwar Tokyo; He'd toured there some ten years before with the vaudeville troupe.[25][26] When Kaye asked to be released from his radio contract in mid-1946, he agreed not to accept a regular radio show for one year and limited guest appearances on radio programs of others.[24][27] Many of the

There are persistent claims that Kaye was homosexual or bisexual, and some sources assert that Kaye and Laurence Olivier had a ten-year relationship in the 1950s while Olivier was married to Vivien Leigh.[76] A biography of Leigh states that their love affair caused her to have a breakdown.[77] The affair has been denied by Olivier's official biographer, Terry Coleman.[78] Joan Plowright, Olivier's third wife and widow, has dealt with the matter in different ways on occasion: she deflected the question (but alluded to Olivier's "demons&quot in a BBC interview.[79] She is reputed to have referred to Danny Kaye on one occasion, in response to a claim that it was she who broke up Olivier's marriage to Leigh. However, in her memoirs, Plowright denies an affair between the two men.[80] Producer Perry Lafferty reported: "People would ask me, 'Is he gay? Is he gay?' I never saw anything to substantiate that in the time I was with him.”[74] Kaye’s final girlfriend, Marlene Sorosky, reported that he told her, "I've never had a homosexual experience in my life. I've never had any kind of gay relationship. I've had opportunities, but I never did anything about them."[74]

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[csziggy]

6. If anyone remakes "The Court Jester" they should be shot

Because no one other than Danny Kaye could do this scene as well: