Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; Yiddish: דוד־דניאל קאַמינסקי; January 18, 1911 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, singer, and dancer.

Kaye starred in 23 films, notably Wonder Man (1945), 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 (1955).

His parents and older brothers Larry and Mac left Yekaterinoslav (then part of Novorossia in the Russian Empire) two years before Danny's birth; he was their only son born in the United States.

[6] He attended Public School 149 in East New York, Brooklyn (eventually renamed to honor him)[7]—where he began entertaining his classmates with songs and jokes.

[6][11] After leaving school, he held a succession of jobs as a soda jerk, auto insurance investigator, and office clerk.

[6] The experience of trying to entertain audiences who did not speak English inspired him to do the pantomime gestures, songs, and facial expressions that eventually made his reputation.

He usually played a manic, dark-haired, fast-talking Russian in these low-budget shorts, opposite young hopefuls June Allyson and Imogene Coca.

[6][19] The reviews brought an offer for both Kaye and his bride Sylvia to work at La Martinique, a New York City nightclub.

[6][14] In 1941, aged 30, Kaye scored a triumph playing Russell Paxton in Lady in the Dark, starring Gertrude Lawrence.

[23] Rival producer Robert M. Savini cashed in by compiling three of Kaye's Educational Pictures shorts into a patchwork feature entitled The Birth of a Star (1945).

Kaye starred in several movies with actress Virginia Mayo in the 1940s, and is known for films such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), On the Riviera (1951) co-starring Gene Tierney, Knock on Wood (1954), White Christmas (1954), The Court Jester (1956), Me and the Colonel (1958), and Merry Andrew (1958).

Kaye starred in two pictures based on biographies, Hans Christian Andersen (1952) the Danish storyteller and The Five Pennies (1959) about jazz pioneer Red Nichols.

[35][36][37] He related that he had no idea of the familial connections when the Marquess of Milford Haven introduced himself after a show and said he would like his cousins to see Kaye perform.

Kaye portrayed Captain Hook opposite Mia Farrow in a musical version of Peter Pan featuring songs by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse.

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.

[54] A flamboyant performer with his own distinctive style, "easily adapting from outrageous novelty songs to tender ballads" (according to critic Jason Ankeny), in 1945, Kaye began hosting his own CBS radio program, in which he performed a number of hit songs, including "Dinah" and "Minnie the Moocher".

The success of the pairing prompted both acts to record through 1950, producing such rhythmically comical fare as "The Woody Woodpecker Song" (based on the bird from the Walter Lantz cartoons and a Billboard hit for the quartet), "Put 'em in a Box, Tie 'em with a Ribbon (And Throw 'em in the Deep Blue Sea)", "The Big Brass Band from Brazil", "It's a Quiet Town (In Crossbone County)", "Amelia Cordelia McHugh (Mc Who?

The album was reissued as a Columbia LP in 1949 and is described by the critic Bruce Eder as "a bit tamer than some of the stuff that Kaye hit with later in the '40s and in the '50s, and for reasons best understood by the public, doesn't attract nearly the interest of his kids' records and overt comedy routines".

[63] In 1958, Saul Chaplin and Johnny Mercer wrote songs for Merry Andrew, a film starring Kaye as a British teacher attracted to the circus.

[64] A year later, another soundtrack came out, for The Five Pennies (in which Kaye starred as 1920s cornet player Red Nichols), featuring Louis Armstrong.

"[9] Kaye was invited to conduct symphonies as charity fundraisers[11][20] and was the conductor of the all-city marching band at the season opener of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1984.

[75] Rather, he had cooked for several famous French chefs at his house (all of them MOFs), and they signed an "honorary" Meilleur Ouvrier de France diploma for him.

His interest was sparked by his longtime friend, choreographer Michael Kidd, who at the time had recently earned his private pilot's license.

[20] Kaye and his business partner Lester Smith also led an investment group, which was awarded the American League's 13th franchise, which became the Seattle Mariners for US$6.2 million on February 7, 1976.

[83][84] The ownership percentages of Kaye, Smith, and two other remaining original investors were reduced to 5% each when George Argyros purchased 80% of the Mariners for $10.4 million on January 30, 1981.

[20] Working alongside UNICEF's Halloween fundraiser founder, Ward Simon Kimball Jr., the actor educated the public on impoverished children in deplorable living conditions overseas, and assisted in the distribution of donated goods and funds.

[4][87][88] "For all of his success as a performer (...) his greatest legacy remains his tireless humanitarian work—so close were his ties to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) that when the organization received the Nobel Peace Prize, Kaye was tapped to accept it", according to music critic Jason Ankeny.

[20][51] He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the early morning hours of March 3, 1987, aged 76, from complications of heart failure, internal bleeding, and hepatitis C.[103][104] Kaye's body was cremated and his ashes were interred in the foundation of a bench in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

[105] His grave is adorned with a bench that contains friezes of a baseball and bat, an aircraft, a piano, a flowerpot, musical notes, and a chef's toque.

However, Koenig sees Kaye's film work in a different light, "History has smiled on individual pictures — in particular the holiday staple of White Christmas and The Court Jester... the medieval romp has steadily gained a reputation as one of the greatest comedies of all time.