Børge Rosenbaum (Yiddish: בורגע ראזענבוים; 3 January 1909 – 23 December 2000),[4] known professionally as Victor Borge (/ˈbɔːrɡə/ BOR-gə), was a Danish and American actor, comedian, and pianist who achieved great popularity in radio and television in both North America and Europe.

"[3] Victor Borge was born Børge Rosenbaum on 3 January 1909 in Copenhagen, Denmark, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family.

His parents, Bernhard and Frederikke (née Lichtinger) Rosenbaum, were both musicians: his father a violist in the Royal Danish Orchestra,[5][6] and his mother a pianist.

He gave his first piano recital when he was eight years old, and in 1918 was awarded a full scholarship at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, studying under Olivo Krause.

After a few years as a classical concert pianist, he started his now-famous stand-up act with the signature blend of piano music and jokes.

[10] When the German armed forces occupied Denmark on 9 April 1940, during World War II, Borge was playing a concert in neutral Sweden and decided to go to Finland.

[11] He traveled to America on the United States Army transport American Legion, the last neutral ship to make it out of Petsamo, Finland,[12][13] and arrived 28 August 1940, with only $20 (about $435 today), with $3 going to the customs fee.

While hosting The Victor Borge Show on NBC beginning in 1946,[18] he developed many of his trademarks, including repeatedly announcing his intent to play a piece but getting "distracted" by something or other, making comments about the audience, or discussing the usefulness of Chopin's "Minute Waltz" as an egg timer.

[19] He would also start out with some well-known classical piece like Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and suddenly move into a pop or jazz tune, such as Cole Porter's "Night and Day" or "Happy Birthday to You".

The delayed punchline to handing the person the sheet music would come when he would reach the end of a number and begin playing the penultimate notes over and over, with a puzzled look.

He would then go back to the person in the audience, retrieve the sheet music, tear off a piece of it, stick it on the piano, and play the last couple of notes from it.

[citation needed] Making fun of modern theater, he would sometimes begin a performance by asking if there were any children in the audience.

[27] She would try to sing an aria, and he would react and interrupt, with such antics as falling off the bench in "surprise" when she hit a high note.

Comedy in Music became the longest running one-man show in the history of theater with 849 performances when it closed on 21 January 1956, a feat which placed it in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Borge made several appearances on the TV show What's My Line?, both as a celebrity panelist and as a contestant with the occupation "poultry farmer".

(The latter was not a comedy routine: as a business venture, Borge raised and popularized Rock Cornish game hens, starting in the 1950s.

[48] In 1979 Borge founded the American Piano Awards (then called the Beethoven Foundation) with Julius Bloom and Anthony P. Habig.

[55] In accordance with Borge's wishes, his connection to both the United States and Denmark was marked by having part of his ashes interred at Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich, with a replica of the iconic Danish statue The Little Mermaid sitting on a large rock at the grave site, and the other part in Western Jewish Cemetery (Mosaisk Vestre Begravelsesplads), in Copenhagen.