Børge Rosenbaum (Yiddish: בורגע ראזענבוים; 3 January 1909 – 23 December 2000),[4] known professionally as Victor Borge (/ˈbɔːrɡə/BOR-gə), was a Danish-American comedian and pianist who achieved great popularity in radio and television in both North America and Europe. His blend of music and comedy earned him the nicknames "The Clown Prince of Denmark",[1] "The Unmelancholy Dane",[2] and "The Great Dane".[3]
Borge played his first major concert in 1926 at the Danish Odd Fellow Palæet (The Odd Fellow's Lodge building) concert hall. After a few years as a classical concert pianist, he started his now famous stand-up act with the signature blend of piano music and jokes. He married the American Elsie Chilton in 1933, the same year he debuted with his revue acts.[9] Borge started touring extensively in Europe, where he began telling anti-Nazi jokes.[10]
When the German armed forces occupied Denmark on 9 April 1940, during World War II, Borge was playing a concert in neutral Sweden and decided to go to Finland.[11] He traveled to America on the United States Army transport American Legion, the last neutral ship to make it out of Petsamo, Finland,[12][13] and arrived 28 August 1940, with only $20 (about $435 today), with $3 going to the customs fee. Disguised as a sailor, Borge returned to Denmark once during the occupation to visit his dying mother.[14]
Move to America
Even though Borge did not speak a word of English upon arrival, he quickly managed to adapt his jokes to the American audience, learning English by watching movies. He took the name of Victor Borge and, in 1941, he started on Rudy Vallee's radio show.[15] He was hired soon after by Bing Crosby for his Kraft Music Hall programme.[16]
Borge quickly rose to fame, winning Best New Radio Performer of the Year in 1942 and earning favorable reviews for his performances at New York City's Roxy Theater and Capitol Theatre in 1943.[17] Soon after the award, he was offered film roles with stars such as Frank Sinatra (in Higher and Higher). While hosting The Victor Borge Show on NBC beginning in 1946,[18] he developed many of his trademarks, including repeatedly announcing his intent to play a piece but getting "distracted" by something or other, making comments about the audience, or discussing the usefulness of Chopin's "Minute Waltz" as an egg timer.[19] He would also start out with some well-known classical piece like Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and suddenly move into a harmonically similar pop or jazz tune, such as Cole Porter's "Night and Day" or "Happy Birthday to You".[20]
Style
One of Borge's other famous routines was "Phonetic Punctuation," in which he read a passage from a book and added exaggerated sound effects to stand for most of the main punctuation marks, such as periods, commas, and exclamation marks.[21] Another is his "Inflationary Language", in which he added one to every number or homophone of a number in the words he spoke. For example: "once upon a time" becomes "twice upon a time", "wonderful" becomes "twoderful", "forehead" becomes "fivehead", "anyone for tennis" becomes "anytwo five elevennis", "I ate a tenderloin with my fork, and so on and so forth" becomes "I nined an elevenderloin with my fivek, and so on and so fifth".[16]
Borge performing before an audience in 1957
Borge used physical and visual elements in his live and televised performances. He would play a strange-sounding piano tune from sheet music, looking increasingly confused; turning the sheet upside down or sideways, he would then play the actual tune, flashing a joyful smile of accomplishment to the audience (he had, at first, been literally playing the tune upside down or sideways). When his energetic playing of another song would cause him to fall off the piano bench, he would open the seat lid, take out the two ends of an automotive seat belt, and buckle himself onto the bench, "for safety". Conducting an orchestra, he might stop and order a violinist who had played a sour note to get off the stage, then resume the performance and have the other members of the section move up to fill the empty seat while they were still playing: from off stage would come the sound of a gunshot.[22]
He also enjoyed interacting with the audience. Seeing an interested person in the front row, he would ask them, "Do you like good music?" or "Do you care for piano music?" After an affirmative answer, Borge would take a piece of sheet music from his piano and say, "Here is some", and hand it over. After the audience's laughter died down, he would say, "That'll be $1.95" (or whatever the current price might be). He would then ask whether the audience member could read music; if the member said yes, he would ask a higher price. If he got no response from the audience after a joke, he would often add "… when this ovation has died down, of course." The delayed punchline to handing the person the sheet music would come when he would reach the end of a number and begin playing the penultimate notes over and over, with a puzzled look. He would then go back to the person in the audience, retrieve the sheet music, tear off a piece of it, stick it on the piano, and play the last couple of notes from it.[citation needed]
Making fun of modern theater, he would sometimes begin a performance by asking if there were any children in the audience. There always were, of course. He would sternly order them out, then say, "We do have some children in here; that means I can't do the second half in the nude. I'll wear the tie (pause). The long one (pause). The very long one, yes."[26]
In his stage shows in later years, he would include a segment with opera singer Marylyn Mulvey.[27] She would try to sing an aria, and he would react and interrupt, with such antics as falling off the bench in "surprise" when she hit a high note. He would also remind her repeatedly not to rest her hand on the piano, telling her that if she got used to it, "and one day a piano was not there – Fffftttt!" After the routine, the spotlight would rest on Mulvey, and she would sing a serious number with Borge accompanying in the background.[28]
Victor Borge continued to tour until his last days, performing up to 60 times per year when he was 90 years old. [44]
Other endeavors
Borge made several appearances on the TV show What's My Line?, both as a celebrity panelist and as a contestant with the occupation "poultry farmer". (The latter was not a comedy routine: as a business venture, Borge raised and popularized Rock Cornish game hens, starting in the 1950s.)[45]
Borge helped start several trust funds, including the Thanks to Scandinavia Fund,[46] which was started in dedication to those who helped the Jews escape the German persecution during the war.[46]
Aside from his musical work, Borge wrote three books: My Favorite Intermissions[47] and My Favorite Comedies in Music[48] (both with Robert Sherman), and the autobiography Smilet er den korteste afstand ("The Smile is the Shortest Distance") with Niels-Jørgen Kaiser.[49]
In 1979 Borge founded the American Pianists Association (then called the Beethoven Foundation) with Julius Bloom and Anthony P. Habig. The American Pianists Association now produces two major piano competitions: the Classical Fellowship Awards and the Jazz Fellowship Awards.[50]
Family
He married his first wife, Elsie Chilton, in 1933. After divorcing Elsie, he married Sarabel Sanna Scraper in 1953, and they stayed married until her death at the age of 83 in September 2000.[51]
Borge had five children (who occasionally performed with him): Ronald Borge and Janet Crowle (adopted) with Elsie Chilton, and Sanna Feirstein, Victor Bernhard (Vebe) Jr., and Frederikke (Rikke) Borge with Sarabel.[52]
On 23 December 2000, Borge died in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the age of 91, after 75 years of entertaining.[53][54] He died peacefully in his sleep a day after returning from a concert in Denmark. "It was just his time to go," Frederikke Borge said. "He's been missing my mother terribly."[55] (His wife had died only three months earlier.) Barely a week earlier he had recorded what would be his final televised interview with Danish television, later aired on New Year's Eve. In a poetic coincidence, when asked where he would be spending his Christmas and New Year's, Borge responded "somewhere completely different".[56]
In accordance with Borge's wishes, his connection to both the United States and Denmark was marked by having part of his ashes interred at Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich, with a replica of the iconic Danish statue The Little Mermaid sitting on a large rock at the grave site, and the other part in Western Jewish Cemetery (Mosaisk Vestre Begravelsesplads), Copenhagen.[57]
When the Royal Danish Orchestra celebrated its 550th anniversary in 1998, Borge was appointed an honorary member[60] — at that time one of only ten in the orchestra's history.[61]
Victor Borge Hall,[67] located in Scandinavia House in New York City, was named in Borge's honor in 2000, as was Victor Borges Plads ("Victor Borge Square") in Copenhagen in 2002.[68] In 2009, a statue celebrating Borge's centennial was erected on the square.[69]
Asteroid (5634) Victorborge is named in his honor.[70]
On 14 March 2009, a television special about his life, 100 Years of Music and Laughter, aired on PBS.[73]
On 7 February 2017, it was reported that, according to a press release by the Danish production company M&M Productions, both a television series and cinematic film about the life of Borge were foreseen to be filmed in 2018.[74][75]
^Bjørn Rasmussen (1969). Filmens hvem-vad-hvor (in Danish). Politiken. p. 239. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
^"Det Kongelige Teater – Kort fortalt" (in Danish). Archived from the original on 10 January 2011. Retrieved 3 October 2010. Om Bernhard Rosenbaum, som var bratschist i Kapellet fra 1888–1919 sagde Victor Borge: "Min far spillede i Kapellet i over 30 år – vi kunne heller ikke kende ham, da han kom hjem [My father played in the orchestra for more than 30 years – we couldn't recognise him, when he came home.]
^Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 29 April 1944. p. 25. ISSN0006-2510. Retrieved 3 October 2010. Victor Borge and his dead-pan interpretations of phonetic punctuation and gags clicked soundly with the pew-sitters.
^Young, Mark (2 March 1998). The Guinness Book of World Records 1998. Bantam Books. p. 439. ISBN978-0-553-57895-9. Retrieved 3 October 2010. The longest run of one-man shows is 849, by Victor Borge (Denmark) in his Comedy in Music from October 2, 1953 through 21 January 1956 at the Golden Theater, Broadway, New York City.
^"Celebrity Deathwatch: Victor Borge, Comic Pianist, 91". Archived from the original on 10 January 2011. Retrieved 2 October 2010. Borge, who had not been ill, had been planning to tour Australia next week. "It was just his time to go," his daughter said. "He's been missing my mother terribly."
^Clausen, Bente (9 May 2001). "Victor Borges aske deles". Kristeligt Dagblad (in Danish). Retrieved 3 October 2010.
^"Danish Rabbi Will Visit Area Temple". Hartford Courant. 15 September 1997. Retrieved 3 October 2010. [Bent Melchior] will also speak at Trinity College and, along with Victor Borge, receive an honorary degree from the college.
^"News in Brief". News of Norway. 30 (7). Norwegian Information Service: 28. 6 April 1973. The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav – Knight First Class – has been awarded to the Danish-born American entertainer, Mr. Victor Borge, for his activities in establishing and carrying on the work of the scholarship program Thanks to Scandinavia, Inc. The decoration was presented to Mr. Borge by Norway's Consul General in New York, Mr. Eigil Nygaard.
^"Victor Borge". Kennedy-center.org. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
^"Nye og ændrede vejnavne 2001–2003" (in Danish). Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 3 October 2010. Victor Borges Plads. Benævnelse for en plads beliggende i J.E. Ohlsensgades udmunding i Nordre Frihavnsgade. Besluttet i Bygge- og Teknikudvalget den 9. oktober 2002.
^Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 12 June 1954. p. 22. ISSN0006-2510. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
^National Collegiate Players (1955). The Players magazine. National Collegiate Players. p. 83. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
^Borges first performance in Denmark since World War II recorded 12 August 1958 in the Copenhagen concert-hall Odd Fellow Palæet (The Odd Fellow's Lodge building). ListenArchived 25 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine The 32 minutes show was sponsored by FONA, transmitted by the recently established Radio Mercur to 275.000 listeners and subsequently sold as a 10-inch LP for kroner 19.50.
^Music and dance. Australian Musical News Publishing Co. 1958. p. 27. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
^Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 27 July 1959. p. 28. ISSN0006-2510. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
^Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 28 April 1962. p. 30. ISSN0006-2510. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
^Mackenzie, Sir Compton; Stone, Christopher (1963). Gramophone. General Gramophone Publications Ltd. p. 23. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
