Danny Kaye’s Two Sets of Screen Tests

Producer Sam Goldwyn wanted to make sure Danny (and one particular Goldwyn Girl) were ready for their close-ups before filming started on Up in Arms.

Soon after signing his five-picture deal with Sam Goldwyn to come to Hollywood, Danny Kaye agreed to report to the studio a year early—in August 1942, during the summer hiatus of his hit Broadway show, Let’s Face It—to make a series of screen tests. Those tests, which resulted in Goldwyn bleaching Danny’s hair blond and almost forcing him to undergo plastic surgery on his nose, are covered in my book, Danny Kaye: King of Jesters.

But what I did not mention is that Goldwyn later had Kaye undergo a second series of screen tests before he would allow the cameras to officially begin rolling on his first movie, Up in Arms.

After Let’s Face It closed in the spring of 1943, Kaye relocated to Hollywood to begin preparing for his first feature film role. He was originally supposed to star alongside a Broadway revue performer, Virginia Mayo, but Kaye’s wife, Sylvia, protested. Goldwyn agreed to consider casting another unknown, Constance Dowling, in her place and relegating Mayo, for this one picture, to featured “Goldwyn Girl.” Mayo then would be promoted to co-star for Danny’s four remaining films.

Goldwyn insisted, however, that Mayo be included in the stars’ color tests, which were filmed to sync the Technicolor and to make sure all the leads looked and sounded perfect.

Principal photography was set to begin June 21, 1943. On May 10, the studio produced Color Test A with Kaye, Mayo, Dowling, Dinah Shore, and Dana Andrews running through lines inside a hospital room.

On May 20, under the supervision of director Elliott Nugent, they filmed Test B on the dock and inside Dr. Hamiliton’s office. This time, only Kaye, Mayo and Andrews were needed. No Dowling.

And on June 14, Color Test C featured Kaye, Mayo, Dowling, Shore and Lenore Aubert.

The next several days included make-up tests, wardrobe tests, dialogue rehearsals, and posing for color stills. For all of them, Goldwyn made sure Kaye was joined by Mayo—providing her with perhaps one of the most exhaustive preparations for a bit part in movie history.

Son of Goldwyn Helped Spread Kaye Stories

Producer Sam Goldwyn's son began producing shows himself not long after Kaye appeared in his sixth and final Goldwyn film, Hans Christian Andersen (1952).

Samuel Goldwyn Jr., son of the independent studio head who brought Danny Kaye to Hollywood and produced his first five films, died Jan. 9 at the age of 88.

His legendary father saw Kaye on Broadway in Lady in the Dark in 1940 and immediately began to pursue him for films. It took him until May 14, 1942, to sign Kaye and his songwriting wife, Sylvia Fine, to a five-picture deal, the first—the war comedy Up in Arms—to begin production a year later.

It was followed by Wonderman, The Kid from Brooklyn, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and A Song Is Born. After Danny left to “freelance,” he returned to Goldwyn one last time, for Hans Christian Andersen (1952).

Goldwyn Jr. became a respected producer in his own right, first in television in the 1950s and eventually in the movies starting in the 1980s. But I’ll always know him as the person who donated—and maintained strict control over—his father’s business papers to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science’s Margaret Herrick Library.

After several years of begging, I was finally able to get permission from Mr. Goldwyn to pore over scripts, treatments, production records, contracts and correspondence concerning the making of the six Kaye films—research that proved invaluable in the writing of my book Danny Kaye: King of Jesters.

Goldwyn Jr. also held on to the rights to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and over the last decade-plus of his life, he continuing searching for the right script and the right star to remake the Kaye classic. He finally settled on Ben Stiller, whose 2013 film would prove to be Goldwyn Jr.’s final screen credit.