To Victor Belongs the Spoils

849 performances is usually considered pretty healthy for a Broadway show. For a one-man Broadway show, it's more than healthy, it's historical. The one man who recently chalked up that fantastic figure, grossed over two million bucks in the bargain, and is now accumulating even more performances on national tour, is a melancholy Dane who was once employed in a funeral parlor: Victor Borge.

The solo show has been tried by others – Cornelia Otis Skinner, Maurice Chevalier, Joyce Grenfell, Emlyn Williams (luminaries, all), but never with the success enjoyed by the batty Mr. Borge. And this in spite of (or because of) the fact that he used basically the same material he had been using for years in night clubs, on radio, records and television.

Borge plays the piano, which is sometimes funny. He also gives short lectures on music, which are always funny. In fact, he can scarcely open his mouth without provoking laughter.

This sometimes has very little to do with what he says. During his 819th performance, for example, he announced with a straight face: "This is my 819th performance; last night was my 818th performance." He paused. "Tomorrow will be my 820th performance." The audience laughed uproariously. Formally-attired Borge tilted his well-bar-bered head to one side, lifted one eyebrow and shrugged almost imperceptibly, as though he couldn't see what was so funny. Reading his words on paper, you share the feeling. They aren't funny. That is, the words aren't funny. But when Borge speaks them, a mysterious alchemy transforms them into high humor.

Seated at the piano, he will announce Chopin wrote the next number in four flats, then mumble: "Because he had to move four times." The audience breaks up. If Red Skelton delivered the same line, he'd get stony silence.

At the start of his show he would ask for requests from the audience, explaining: "I do not usually do request numbers . . . unless I have been asked to do so." Then he'd turn to the keyboard and announce: "This request is from a lady . . . at least I sincerely hope so." But before playing a note, he would rise and walk purposefully to the front of the stage, smile benignly and say: "We are going to have an intermission pretty soon." The audience would titter. He'd hesitate a moment, smile some more, strike a sincere attitude and add: "I thought you'd like to know that." The audience would roar. Any other top comedian would cut off the heads of his writers if they tried to foist such material on him.

But Borge has no writers. He does not even write his own material. He just makes it up as he goes along. He has mastered the art of putting together two perfectly constructed sentences that seem to be vaguely connected and at the same time have absolutely no relationship to one another. When he notices his audience is confused he attempts to clear things up. The explanation complicates matters even more and the result is convulsing.

But two hours of this would have been hard to take. Borge divided his show into three parts: straight piano, monologue without piano and "pianologues," a sort of stunted piano recital with verbalized program notes.

One of Borge's most famous sketches, which, for the sake of a title, can be called The Borge Method of Punctuation, had an origin typical of much of (continued on page 69)Victor(continued from page 17) his material – accidental. The sketch is nothing more than a system of verbal punctuation. Each punctuation mark has a special sound. For instance, the exclamation point may be a wet splutter and short Bronx cheer, a comma an abrupt piercing whistle and a period a kind of hoarse grunt. According to Borge, this system clarifies verbal communication, just as the written punctuation system clarifies written communication. The sentence "'Come here, son,' the father said, 'and pick up this cigarette butt!'" might sound like this: "Splutter-splutter splut Come here tweet son tweet splut the father said tweet splut and pick up this cigarette butt gruk splut splutter-splutter." For the sake of improving upon the original story, Borge always explains he developed the system when he first arrived in the U.S. and had difficulty understanding Americans. He soon discovered Americans had trouble understanding themselves. The reason, he felt, was that punctuation marks were left out of speech.

Actually, Borge originated the sketch in Copenhagen, city of his birth and original fame. He was rehearsing a show and one of the actors had a bad cold. While reading his lines, the man could barely get a phrase out without sneezing, coughing, or clearing his throat. The effect was hilarious, and Borge, though sympathetic, dissolved into laughter. He developed a sketch in which he interspersed a reading with coughs, throat clearings and sneezes, later refined it to its present form.

Victor Borge was born Börg Rosen-baum in Copenhagen, Denmark, on January 3, 1909, son of a violinist in the Royal Danish Opera orchestra. For some reason, perhaps because it was shinier and made more noise, young Börg preferred the piano to the violin.

He was playing piano and reading music at age four; performed at a benefit at age ten; and made his important public debut at age 13 as soloist in Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra. About a year later, playing with the hundred-man State Symphony in Copenhagen, he succumbed to his comic sense and launched himself as a puncturer of overblown social sham, a satiric commentator on customs and mores. The unveiling came halfway through a concerto, during a long, two-fingered trill. Borge told one biographer: "The sight of those serious old musicians grinding away for all they were worth while I twiddled with my two fingers was suddenly too much for me. I looked over my shoulder at the audience and winked at them." The audience's explosive laughter provided the cresendo to the trill. Said Borge: "I figured that even if I had spoiled it for a few musical purists, the majority of the people had had a better time than usual at a concert."

Ever since, Borge's aim has been to entertain rather than cultivate. His present-day audiences, not familiar with his history, leave a performance with a vague but nagging feeling that they heard snatches of musical genius and would have liked to have heard more. And ever since, he has applied the theory of the wink – the act of benevolent irreverence – to his routines. In introducing Debussy's Claire de Lune, he'll pull a Fractured French and explain: "English translation: Clear the Saloon."

When he came to America in 1940, he had no money, he was a stranger in a strange land and couldn't understand the language. In Denmark he was famous, in America he was unknown. He went to Florida in the winter of 1940, ate for a while on 25 cents a day, which paid for enough citrus fruit to fill his stomach. He performed without fee at private parties whose only saving grace was the food served. When Al Jolson and Hilde-garde cancelled a benefit at the Whitehall Hotel in Palm Beach, he filled in. This led to a one-night stand at the Everglades Club which got a good notice from vacationing Charles Ventura in his New York World Telegram column.

This inauspicious start plus the English he learned from attending double-features for months in New York got him an opportunity to do a warmup for a Bing Crosby radio show, originating in Los Angeles, where Borge was making the rounds of movie studios and radio stations. To the chorus of uncontrolled laughter from Crosby's studio audience, Borge signed as a regular on the show itself and stayed 56 weeks. He once again was famous.

Now an American citizen, he has appeared often on television, has had his own network radio shows, has played such places as the Roxy, Waldorf and Plaza in New York and the Palmer House in Chicago, and toured the country with his own orchestra.

The itinerant – though well-paid – vaudevillian found road-show work in the U.S. and abroad a mixed blessing. "I was presented with pianos that were unplayable; eight out of ten were museum pieces which should never have been played. That is the reason for so much comedy in my work. I used to do more music in my performance. But the bad pianos forced me to make fun of everything I did."

Today as always, Borge works almost wholly without props. He is a self-con (concluded on next page) tained comedian. There is, of course, his piano. During his Broadway show a prop chandelier was lowered as he did an uninhibited takeoff on Liberace. And finally, there is L'Amour, his tiny pet poodle.

L'Amour, whom Borge calls "Lammy" for short, joined the show of his own accord. One night he nosed open the dressing-room door, wandered down the flight of stairs leading backstage and meandered on stage. He sniffed around, stalked off with an air of sublime boredom. He did the same during all the succeeding shows, while Borge, as he did that first night, played on, unperturbed and unaware.

Borge opened his one-man show in Seattle after knuckling under to the theatre owner's insistence on a flat-rate rental of $3,000 instead of a percentage deal. He was there one week and grossed $72,000 in two weeks. When he hit New York, he collected a hatful of rave notices, plus his entire investment after just three performances.

Borge is as competent a businessman and producer as he is an entertainer. He makes his own business decisions and supervises all phases of his show. He arrived in New York the afternoon of the Broadway opening; designed, bought and put up the settings; laid out the vastly complicated lighting schedule and went through a full dress rehearsal.

Direction of the show was complicated by the fact that it was somewhat extemporaneous. Indeed, the theatre program read: "Frankly we don't know what Mr. Borge will do but we're sure he'll keep us posted from time to time. P.S. There is also an intermission . . . but only Mr. Borge knows when." To guide the stage manager, Borge used a system of subtle hand signals, much as a baseball catcher uses to communicate with his pitcher. Since he often said whatever popped into his mind ("I still can't understand why Jimmy Roosevelt signed that letter."), a huge recording machine in his dressing room taped every performance, just in case he hit on something he wanted to use again.

Of course, not everybody finds Borge irresistible. Some folks find he palls on them after awhile. Others return to see him again and again. One man saw his show 53 times. A 92-year-old lady wrote she hadn't smiled in 30 years until she saw Borge. A Rosemont, Pa., man admired his impeccable dress, asked him the name of his tailor (Pucci, of Chicago). A Riverdale, N.Y., woman ended a wildy enthusiastic letter saying, "I'm really cold sober."

Now that his fabulous one-man show has closed in New York, Borge is taking it on the road – news that should gladden the hearts of those who were unable to catch it on the Great White Way.

This will undoubtedly create more Borge enthusiasts. We would like to assure these new addicts that, despite Victor's seeming incoherency, irrelevancy and general confusion, they are not watching the antics of a plastered performer. Not at all.

He's really cold sober.

"There will be no curtain calls because there is no cast, so we don't have to wait to see who gets the most applause."

"It was hard for me to learn to speak English. In Denmark we speak with a ghghghghgh and here you speak with a ththththth. The translation from ghghghghgh to ththththth is quite a translation."

"It was hard for me to learn to speak English. In Denmark we speak with a ghghghghgh and here you speak with a ththththth. The translation from ghghghghgh to ththththth is quite a translation."

"It was hard for me to learn to speak English. In Denmark we speak with a ghghghghgh and here you speak with a ththththth. The translation from ghghghghgh to ththththth is quite a translation."

"The Baldwin piano people have asked me to announce that this is a Steinway."

"This is the second Hungarian Rhapsody by Schlitz, the junior composer from Wisconsin."

"Is this too drafty for you?"

"I don't know this number as well as another I am not too familiar with. In fact, this one I don't know at all."

"I will now play some excerpts. There are two reasons why I do excerpts. One is I don't know the whole thing. That is the other reason, too."