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Nobodys Fool The Lives of Danny Kaye
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1994
4 people want to read
About the author
Martin Gottfried
19 books7 followersMartin Gottfried,was a New York drama critic for over forty years and the author of five biographies and two books of theater criticism.
Gottfried graduated from Columbia College in New York City in 1959,and attended Columbia Law School for three semesters, next spending one year with U.S. Army Military Intelligence.Gottfried began his writing career as the classical music critic for The Village Voice, doubling as an off-Broadway reviewer for Women's Wear Daily, a position that made him the youngest member of the New York Drama Critics Circle in the organization's history.
Winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and recipient of two Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, Martin Gottfried was the chief dramatic critic for the New York Post and Saturday Review. He is the author of A Theater Divided, Jed Harris: The Curse of Genius, All His Jazz: The Life and Death of Bob Fosse, Balancing Act: The Authorized Biography of Angela Lansbury and Nobody’s Fool: The Lives of Danny Kaye.
Gottfried graduated from Columbia College in New York City in 1959,and attended Columbia Law School for three semesters, next spending one year with U.S. Army Military Intelligence.Gottfried began his writing career as the classical music critic for The Village Voice, doubling as an off-Broadway reviewer for Women's Wear Daily, a position that made him the youngest member of the New York Drama Critics Circle in the organization's history.
Winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and recipient of two Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, Martin Gottfried was the chief dramatic critic for the New York Post and Saturday Review. He is the author of A Theater Divided, Jed Harris: The Curse of Genius, All His Jazz: The Life and Death of Bob Fosse, Balancing Act: The Authorized Biography of Angela Lansbury and Nobody’s Fool: The Lives of Danny Kaye.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 10, 2025
This biography does a tremendous job of capturing the life and career of a celebrated hollywood star and Broadway performer named Danny Kaye. Mr. Kaye was a talented, but complicated man whose personal life and showbiz career seemed to go through extreme highs and lows throughout his lifetime.
It was thrilling to learn about Danny's intriguing career as a world-class actor, singer, and comedian who started performing in the Catskills as a teenager before eventually starring in Broadway hits and Hollywood movies from 1930s through 1950s. He was well known for singing songs on stage like Minnie the Moocher and acting in blockbuster movies such as the 1947 hit entited The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Danny enjoy much success in the USA and United Kingdom.
As his career started to fade in the 1960s and 1970s, he dived headfirst into his favorite hobbies including piloting airplanes all over the word, cooking fine foods, and watching doctors perform surgeries. When serious his health problems struck later in life, he suffered from deep depression and was isolated from many friends. In the end, only his wife (Sylvia Fine) and daughter (Dena) would have contact with him. Even after his death, Mrs. Kaye went out of her way to ensure no one knew where he was buried. It was such a sad ending to an otherwise full and colorful life.
This book is a fun read even though I was not familiar with Mr. Kaye's work (he was before my time). If you are a fan of Danny Kaye, you will definitely enjoy this book.
It was thrilling to learn about Danny's intriguing career as a world-class actor, singer, and comedian who started performing in the Catskills as a teenager before eventually starring in Broadway hits and Hollywood movies from 1930s through 1950s. He was well known for singing songs on stage like Minnie the Moocher and acting in blockbuster movies such as the 1947 hit entited The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Danny enjoy much success in the USA and United Kingdom.
As his career started to fade in the 1960s and 1970s, he dived headfirst into his favorite hobbies including piloting airplanes all over the word, cooking fine foods, and watching doctors perform surgeries. When serious his health problems struck later in life, he suffered from deep depression and was isolated from many friends. In the end, only his wife (Sylvia Fine) and daughter (Dena) would have contact with him. Even after his death, Mrs. Kaye went out of her way to ensure no one knew where he was buried. It was such a sad ending to an otherwise full and colorful life.
This book is a fun read even though I was not familiar with Mr. Kaye's work (he was before my time). If you are a fan of Danny Kaye, you will definitely enjoy this book.
August 10, 2025
I could go on and on about the things I dislike about Martin Gottfried’s telling of Danny Kaye’s life….
Some main reasons not to read this book:
1) Gottfried loooooves to psychoanalyze EVERYONE but he has so many contradictory theories that he continually gives up towards the end of each bout of analysis, even going so far as to end a paragraph with the definitive simple sentence “Or not.”
2) GOD BUT THE WAY HE TALKS ABOUT WOMEN IS AWFUL!!! Every time he introduces a new woman, he is sure to say something about her attractiveness or bust size immediately. It gets to the point where all analysis Gottfried does on Kaye’s relationships with his wife and his female friends seems highly questionable.
3) Gottfried provides a lot of conflicting information about whether Danny Kaye was queer, but one thing’s for sure: Gottfried wants him to be! Sure, Kaye played effeminate characters sometimes but Gottfried’s takeaway from this was that Sylvia Fine (Danny’s wife) thought of him as androgynous… that’s quite a leap. I think there’s some sort of a case to be made for Kaye’s queerness or at least his place in a conversation about queerness in Hollywood, but Gottfried’s does not effectively argue this point.
Some main reasons not to read this book:
1) Gottfried loooooves to psychoanalyze EVERYONE but he has so many contradictory theories that he continually gives up towards the end of each bout of analysis, even going so far as to end a paragraph with the definitive simple sentence “Or not.”
2) GOD BUT THE WAY HE TALKS ABOUT WOMEN IS AWFUL!!! Every time he introduces a new woman, he is sure to say something about her attractiveness or bust size immediately. It gets to the point where all analysis Gottfried does on Kaye’s relationships with his wife and his female friends seems highly questionable.
3) Gottfried provides a lot of conflicting information about whether Danny Kaye was queer, but one thing’s for sure: Gottfried wants him to be! Sure, Kaye played effeminate characters sometimes but Gottfried’s takeaway from this was that Sylvia Fine (Danny’s wife) thought of him as androgynous… that’s quite a leap. I think there’s some sort of a case to be made for Kaye’s queerness or at least his place in a conversation about queerness in Hollywood, but Gottfried’s does not effectively argue this point.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews