Existing comment:
Danny Kaye as Russell Paxton in the circus scene from Lady in the Dark. Alvin Theatre, New York, 1941.
Broadway
After many years of hard work and struggles in the New York entertainment business, Danny Kaye was finally able to break into Broadway when Moss Hart attended one of Kaye's performances at the nightclub La Martinique in late 1940. Hart was so struck by Kaye's stage presence and performance skills that he wrote a role for Kaye in his new musical Lady in the Dark, which featured songs by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin.
Although Kaye's part was small in Lady in the Dark, his performance of the song, "Tschaikovsky [and Other Russians]," in which he rattled off the names of fifty Russian composers in less than forty seconds, brought the house down. The piece became a staple of Kaye's repertoire and was included in nearly all of his performing endeavors from his stage shows to his television and radio shows. |