This Week’s Song I Wish I’d Written: Mrs. Danny Kaye
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 27th, 2007 No Comments »
Dear Uncle Sam,
It’s time for this week’s song I wish I’d written.
Behind every great man, they say, is a greater woman.
For my money, you’ll find no greater man than actor / comic / song and dance man / chinese chef / aviator / humanitarian Danny Kaye, a fascinating, wonderful guy (to whom all of those terms really apply!)
I’ve been a big fan of his since I was a kid, but the more I learn about him, the more fond I grow of his wife, songwriter Sylvia Fine. With a few exceptions, she only wrote for her husband, but she had a talent, not only for comic songs but for ballads too, that deserves recognition.
Despite Kaye’s bisexual dalliances (infamously with Lawrence Olivier), Kaye and Fine were married from 1940, as Kaye’s career was just beginning, until his death in 1987. All throughout this time he was being supplied with top notch material, both songs and skits, by Fine, a former audition pianist with no formal training, musical or theaterical. Fine knew what sort of song worked with Kaye’s quirky talents, and wrote most of the work he’s best remembered for (”Ballin’ the Jack”, “Ragtime Lullabye”, “Anotole of Paris”, “Outfox the Fox” and the Oscar Nominated “Five Pennies”).
I just saw Kaye’s frivolous fifties film “On the Riviera” recently. It contains some of Fine’s wittiest comic numbers, like “Give Me a Happy Ending”:
“Stay where you are / Listen to Me, Before you make your mind up what the wind-up oughta be / Though it used to be chic / For the end to be bleak / The fad to be sad has had.
Oh, do you like your drama / oh-so-stark? But when the lights come on where are you? / still in the dark Misery may be some people’s cup of tea / But brother, not me /
….I want to rip it, want to rock it / Leave my hanky in my pocket / Give me a happy ending every time.”
Damn I wish I’d written that.
