Danny Kaye's Stomping Grounds: Then & Now, Part II

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His Catskills days behind him, Danny Kaye continued his slow climb up the ranks of show business primarily in New York. His biggest stops included:

(6) Where Danny Met Sylvia: 201 W. 52^nd St., New York, NY
Two years his junior, Sylvia Fine grew up not far from Danny. She remembered having a crush on him as a young girl. For his part, Kaye did not seem to remember her, even though he briefly worked for her father, the neighborhood dentist. The first meeting they both recalled was in February 1939, in a loft-turned-makeshift theater on W. 52^nd Street. Danny was rehearsing for a revue, Sunday Night Varieties, which was in need of another songwriter. Enter Sylvia.
They called the space the Keynote Theatre, and held performances on three consecutive Sundays. They were ready for a fourth performance, but were closed down when police discovered the facility didn’t have a proper license. The second-story “theater” has been used for a variety of purposes ever since. Today, it’s a for-rent event space called Manhattan Manor, which sits above Rosie Grady’s Saloon and looks out on Central Park.
Sunday Night Varieties, meanwhile, was able to move up in the world, to a better-furnished space inside the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel. The 38-story art deco hotel, at 106 Central Park South, was purchased by Donald Trump in 1981, who closed the hotel in 1985 to convert it into condos and rename it The Trump Parc. 

Through the doors and head up and, for a fleeting moment, you'd find a loft theater called the Keynote.

(7) Danny’s Broadway Debut: 219 W. 49^th St., New York, NY
Kaye first appeared on a Broadway stage on Sept. 28, 1939, in The Straw Hat Revue. Comprised of sketches, songs and variety acts lifted from Danny and Sylvia’s last summer camp gig, the show ran for 75 performances at the Ambassador Theatre on 49^th Street. 
The Ambassador had a unique set-up; because it was built in 1921 on an angled lot, it had to be situated diagonally, creating an extra-wide, none-too-deep auditorium, guaranteeing that even the worst seats in the house were close to the action. Many of its stately architectural features from the days of Danny remain intact, and its hulking chandelier is a reminder of the Straw Hat Revue’s Act One climax, “The Great Chandelier.” The theater has stayed active ever since, and since 2003 has been the home of Chicago. 

In the revue's show-stopping "The Great Chandelier," Danny played the Masked Gondolier.

Even the back of the balcony at the Ambassador offered audiences a close up look at young Danny Kaye.

(8) Danny’s First Solo: 57 W. 57^th St., New York, NY
Kaye’s first break as a solo performer came in January 1940 when he agreed to a two-week tryout engagement at Dario’s La Martinique nightclub, inside the Medical Arts Building on W. 57^th Street. Although the high-rise had 21 floors, La Martinique wasn’t on any of them—it was stashed in the basement, which had been used as a themed nightclub (first Parisian, then Cuban, and finally Latin American) since 1934.
At La Martinique, Danny performed Sylvia’s songs in a solo act for the first time, accompanied by Sylvia on piano.Over the years, the building—now simply called “57”—has housed a wide range of offices and businesses, including a few other nightclubs and a disco. 

Through the doors and head down to the basement was where you used to be able to find the La Martinique.

(9) Danny Goes Legit: 250 W. 52^nd St., New York, NY
Kaye had only a small supporting role in Lady in the Dark, and one he kept for fewer than five months, but with it he nearly stole the show. It premiered at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre, which today operates as the Neil Simon Theatre. 

Danny in Lady in the Dark at Broadway's Alvin (now Neil Simon) Theatre.

(10) Danny’s Starring Role: 249 W. 45^th St., New York, NY
Danny spent nearly a year and a half headlining the Cole Porter musical comedy Let’s Face It at the Imperial Theatre. The playhouse has premiered A-list productions ever since, including the original runs of Annie Get Your Gun (1946), Call Me Madam (1950), Oliver! (1963), Fiddler on the Roof (194), Cabaret (1967), Pippin (1972), Dreamgirls (1981), and of course Kaye’s return to Broadway, Two by Two (1970). 

Danny's two longest-running Broadway shows both played at the Imperial.

Next Time: In Part III, our travels will take us to more Danny Kaye landmarks outside of New York.

The Sketch Danny Saved by Obliterating

Danny Kaye had a blast helping to destroy this Mikado spoof on a 1964 episode of The Danny Kaye Show, and crack up Imogene Coca and Harvey Korman in the process.

The new Danny Kaye: Legends DVD contains several slick entries of the Danny Kaye Show, but one episode that was so riddled with screw-ups it could have turned into one of the most embarrassing productions Kaye was ever associated with. Instead, thanks to Danny’s ad-libbing, it turned into one of the most fun.

What helped tremendously that week were two of Kaye’s co-stars, guest star Imogene Coca and series regular Harvey Korman. Coca had decades of experience adjusting to mid-performance mishaps. In 1939, she and Danny had appeared in dozens of sketches together live on stage at Camp Tamiment, and in the 1950s she and Sid Caesar had performed countless more sketches on live TV. Kaye’s TV series wasn’t live, but almost. It was shot “live on tape,” meaning it was recorded straight through in real time and then aired on CBS, usually with minimal editing, four nights later.

Series regular Harvey Korman, on the other hand, had much more trouble keeping a straight face when the unexpected came up, as weekly viewers of the Carol Burnett Show know (which Korman signed on for weeks after the last Danny Kaye Show aired). Tim Conway, in particular, knew Harvey’s weakness and would delight in trying to crack him up and get him off script.

Danny wasn’t quite so bad, but would occasionally try to break up Korman to help liven up a so-so sketch. Such was the case on the taping of December 6, 1964. Practically from the start, things started to go wrong. During a quick cold opening astronaut sketch, Danny stumbled on some of his lines and laughed it off—but you can see that he’s amused by Harvey slightly dropping his straight face, just for a millisecond. A dance number and a “perpetually-unemployed Rudy” skit followed, without a hitch. But then came Tony Bennett singing a few songs and one of the camera operators, for some reason, kept shooting the overhead boom mic.

Next up was one of Imogene Coca’s patented routines, a spoof of Swan Lake, with her in a molting swan costume. Although a comedienne, Coca had also spent years studying ballet and would frequently parody it. Swan Lake, too, went off effortlessly, because it was a number built around Coca and one she had performed many times before.

But then the wheels came off the bus. At Tamiment, Kaye and Coca had done a Jewish Mikado. So for the TV episode’s big production number, they’d do a World War II Japanese Mikado, called the Fledermikado.

From the opening scene, the actors started tripping on some of their lines. Korman began losing a little of his composure. Kaye—probably sensing the sketch would otherwise be flat—called him out mercilessly. He also took note of all the other things that kept going wrong—what was supposed to be an avalanche of hats falling from the sky turned into a dribble. Harvey hit his hat on the top of a low doorway. Harvey’s fake beard fell off. Kaye used the fallen beard as a punchline and prop for the remainder of the sketch, at one point even pinning it on Coca’s chin. By the end of the skit, he had the entire dancing troupe in hysterics.

Proof that this disaster was far more hilarious than if they would have stuck to the script is the fact that, as was their custom, the episode was taped in front of a live audience twice, once where the sketch went relatively smoothly, and once where everything went wrong. You can see which version ended up airing the following Wednesday night.

What to Expect on the New Danny Kaye Show DVD

Christmas is coming early again this year, with the October 15, 2015, release of another batch of six great Danny Kaye Show episodes.

This third collection, called “Danny Kaye – Legends,” features Kaye swinging with A List guests, like Lucille Ball, Louis Armstrong, and George Burns.

The two previous releases included one disc with black-and-white episodes from the series’ sketch-centric first two seasons, and a second disc with color episodes from the music-heavy third and fourth seasons. As a bigger fan of the early shows, I’m not crazy about the idea of this time offering just two Season Two shows and four from the latter years, but completely understand the decision, since the bigger musical stars and the full color do make those shows seem much more contemporary.

Here’s what to expect:

• The Lucille Ball Show. Including this disc was a no-brainer. Danny and Lucy work great together, from the balloon dance opening to the quick-change sketch finale. This episode has been viewable in pieces on YouTube for several years, but it will be great to see it cleaned up and reassembled. (Episode 42, originally aired 11-4-64)

• The Tony Bennett Show. The crooner may be the reason for including this episode, but Danny reuniting with Imogene Coca, his Camp Tamiment co-star, from the 1930s, in spoofs of Swan Lake and the Mikado, will be my main reason for watching. (Episode 47, 12-9-64)

• The Shirley Jones Show. This episode may have been “love-themed,” but taping it was anything but, as recalled director Steve Binder (who would be fired after the next episode). On the plus (and perhaps more accurate) side, the Righteous Brothers perform “Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.” (Episode 68, 9-29-65)

• The Liberace Show. I’m really looking forward to this one, Liberace notwithstanding. It features Danny in one of his James Blonde spoofs, in a Giovanni sketch, and teaming with two lovely frequent guest stars (Victoria Meyerink and Vikki Carr) in the song Billy Barnes wrote for them, “Vickie.” (Episode 106, 1-11-67)

• The Satchmo Show. Louis Armstrong actually taped two episodes of The Danny Kaye Show a month apart in late 1966. Whichever one the DVD’s producers choose, whether the one with the Salute to St. Louis medley and Danny’s Paul Revere number or the one with “The Five Pennies Saints” and Kaye’s Spanish fairy tale “Jose and the Beanstalk,” they can’t go wrong. (Episode 104, 11-16-66, or Episode 107, 1-4-67)

• The George Burns Show. Burns’ wife and longtime comedy partner Gracie Allen died just a couple of years before this episode was taped, so it will be great to see the master back performing. He works flawlessly with Kaye, in a medley of old standards and in a Jerome sketch. (Episode 113, 3-1-67)

My thanks to DVD producer MVD Visual for continuing to make these shows available and for picking out another group of winners. Keep releasing them, and we’ll keep buying them.