Specializing in tongue-twisting patter songs, Danny Kaye was a consummate entertainer and comic. He is well remembered for a string of comedies for Samuel Goldwyn in the 1940s, as well as his persistent and honorable efforts for charities, especially UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund).

Born David Daniel Kaminsky in Brooklyn, New York, in 1913, he had a very mixed career in entertainment prior to his motion picture debut. He was a genuine vaudevillian; a dancer, a singer, and a comedian, though without much success at first in any of these careers. He first appeared in pictures in some two-reel comedies, such as Getting an Eyeful, Cupid Takes a Holiday and Dime a Dance, that were moderately amusing but failed financially—these shorts were later compiled into the inaccurately titled film The Danny Kaye Story.

He managed, however, to make his Broadway debut in...