In many films, as well as on stage, Kaye proved to be an able actor, singer, dancer, and comedian. He showed his serious side as ambassador for UNICEF and in his dramatic role in the memorable TV film Skokie, when he played a Holocaust survivor.
In 1987 Kaye died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California. An amazing actor, singer, dancer, comic, and all-around entertainer, Kaye was a Renaissance man off the stage as well, where he was a celebrated chef, a baseball team owner, and an airplane pilot, flying everything from Piper Cubs to Boeing 747's.
The son of Ukrainian immigrants, Kaye began his performing career in the 1930s as a comic entertainer in hotels in the Catskill Mountains and in nightclubs across the United States. During this period he originated the pantomimes, rapid-fire scat singing, and physical antics that were to become his trademarks.
Unable to serve in the military because of a back problem, Kaye spent much of the early 1940s performing both at home and abroad in support of the troops. In 1943, he moved to Hollywood in order to kick-start his movie career.
There are some huge age differences amongst the cast.
Crosby, who plays Clooney's love interest, was 51 when the movie debuted. That's a 25-year age gap! As for Danny Kaye, he was 43. (It's also funny to note that Dean Jagger, who played the retired, elderly general, was actually born a few months after Crosby.)
Received an honorary Academy Award Oscar in 1955 "for his unique talents, his service to the Academy, the motion picture industry, and the American people". UNICEF's New York Visitor's Centre is named to honor Danny Kaye. In December 1996, the PBS series American Masters aired a special on Kaye's life.
As soon as his career took off in the early 1940s with his Broadway and New York nightclub performances, Danny Kaye began participating in events to raise money for military efforts during World War II. He performed at USO shows and war bond sales throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
Who was the highest ranking actor in military history?
He's had 18 hours as first pilot of a B-52." On July 23, 1959, Stewart was promoted to brigadier general, becoming the highest-ranking actor in American military history. During the Vietnam War, he flew as a non-duty observer in a B-52 on an Arc Light bombing mission in February 1966.
He was Bob Hope's and Humphrey Bogart's favorite comedian. His trademark red hair was his natural color, but he was persuaded to dye it blond because it looked better that way in Technicolor. Studio mogul Samuel Goldwyn Jr. also had asked him to get his nose fixed so it would look less Jewish, but he refused.
Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine in London American actor, singer and comedian Danny Kaye arrives with his wife, Sylvia Fine, for an appearance in London. November 1948.
Born in New York, raised in California, and a graduate of Stanford University, Dena Kaye has had a multimedia career as a journalist. She is the daughter of entertainer Danny Kaye and songwriter/producer Sylvia Fine Kaye.
While Danny Kaye worked hard to be able to accurately fake playing cornet (he practiced for months learning the fingering of the instrument), it was the real Red Nichols who provided all of the cornet playing for Kaye in this movie.
In 1960, he began doing specials on television and this led to his own TV series, The Danny Kaye Show (1963), which ran from 1963 to 1967. Some of his last roles were also his most memorable, such as an intense Holocaust survivor in Skokie (1981) and as a kind but goofy dentist in an episode of The Cosby Show (1984).
According to a series of memos released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI investigated a rumor that Kaye dodged the draft during World War II. Allegedly, Kaye faked a medical condition in order to gain 4-F status and exemption from military service.
Audrey was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1929. She grew up as Audrey Kathleen Ruston and worked as a doctor's assistant during the 'Bridge Too Far' battle of Arnhem and Hunger Winter of 1944.
Sterling Hayden. Proclaimed “The Most Beautiful Man in Hollywood,” Sterling Hayden left acting to fight in WWII. The OSS recruited Hayden, an expert seaman to spy under the pseudonym name John Hamilton. He set up secret shipping operations in Italy and parachuted in Croatia.
DiCaprio has starred in two Quentin Tarantino movies, but only Once Upon a Time in Hollywood earned him an Oscar nomination. That year, DiCaprio lost out on the Best Actor Oscar to Joaquin Phoenix for Joker.
In a major upset, Sylvester Stallone – who played the beloved retired boxer in "Creed" – lost the Best Supporting Actor Oscar to Mark Rylance from Steven Spielberg's "Bridge of Spies." The loss came as a surprise after Stallone won a Golden Globe in the same category.
George C. Scott always had a reputation for his dislike of the whole event, as he rejected two nominations in his career and spoke openly about his distaste for the ceremony. When he was nominated for Best Actor in 1971 for his leading role in 'General George S. Patton', Scott refused the nomination.
It does seem that he was very embarrassed at not being called up and it was evidently decided that he could do more to help the war effort by entertaining and boosting war bond sales than by being in uniform. Crosby's embarrassment about his absence from the armed forces ended on December 5, 1942 when the War Dept.
