Nobody's Fool: The Lives of Danny Kaye

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Simon & Schuster, 1994 - Biography & Autobiography - 352 pages
It is the facinating story of an energetic, athletic, curious, perhaps overly mothered kid from Brooklyn who became an utterly original star parlaying his multiple talents into a career as one of the most popular and adored entertainers in American history. With his songwriting wife and mentor, Sylvia Fine, he formed a unique and perhaps perverse team, and the two of them created a Danny Kaye who enchanted an entire country. He combined the joy and ingenuousness of a child with the knowing wink of sophisticated entertainer. But while he was fostering this image and developing into one of the greatest of stars, and even an international humanitarian, was Danny Kaye concealing very different life - a secret life of his own? In Nobody's Fool, Gottfried passes through the veil of secrecy and beyond the elegant image of Kaye that was so brilliantly nurtured and protected during his lifetime.

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Contents

Section 1
7
Section 2
13
Section 3
24
Copyright

18 other sections not shown

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About the author (1994)

Martin Gottfried was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 9, 1933. He graduated from Columbia College in 1955, attended Columbia Law School, and served in the Army in Europe. He worked as a classical music critic for The Village Voice and an Off Broadway critic for Women's Wear Daily before becoming a drama critic for The New York Post in the mid-1970s and then for the Saturday Review near the end of the decade. His first book of criticism, A Theater Divided: The Postwar American Stage, was published in 1968 and won the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism. His other works include Broadway Musicals and More Broadway Musicals. He also wrote several biographies of entertainers and playwrights. His first biography, Jed Harris: The Curse of Genius, was published in 1984. His other biographies include All His Jazz: The Life and Death of Bob Fosse, George Burns and the Hundred Year Dash, and Arthur Miller: His Life and Work. He died from complications of pneumonia on March 6, 2014 at the age of 80.

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