Victor Borge

Victor Borge Born January 3, 1909 in Copenhagen, Denmark Died December 23, 2000 in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA (heart failure) Birth Name Børge Rosenbaum Nicknames The Clown Prince of Denmark The Great Dane Height 5' 9" (1.75 m) Mini Bio (1) Pianist, composer, songwriter, entertainer and actor, educated at Borgerdydskolen and the Conservatory of Copenhagen. He studied with Egon Petri and Frederic Lammond. His concert career began in 1922, and he performed in a musical revue in 1934, and in films by 1937. Arriving in the US in 1940, he made his American radio debut on the Bing Crosby show. He was featured in his own one-man show "Comedy in Music", plus concert appearances throughout the USA and Europe. Joining ASCAP in 1961, he composed "Blue Serenade". Spouse (2) Sarabel Sanna Scraper (17 March 1953 - 19 September 2000) ( her death) ( 3 children) Elsie Chilton (24 December 1933 - 1953) ( divorced) ( 2 children) Trivia (15) Recipient of 22nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime contribution to arts and culture, presented by President Bill Clinton in Washington, DC, Dec. 5, 1999. Borge publicly derided Adolf Hitler in his native Denmark just before World War II. When the Germans invaded that country, he managed to escape to America because, since he was married to an American women, he got an American visa. One of his famous skits involves "phonetic punctuation", in which he accents commas, question marks and periods with sound effects. He is the founder of the Thanks to Scandinavia Foundation. Father of Frederikke Borge, Ronald Borge, Vebe Borge, Sanna Feinstein and Janet Crowle. In 1953, he starred in the one-man Broadway production "Comedy in Music", with which he toured off and on until his retirement. This was a show in which Borge often announced he was going to play a piece, but seldom actually got around to doing it because of his hilarious comments to the audience. The show went through several editions over the years, but always retained some of the same comic remarks. He hosted the first US telecast of the Danny Kaye film, Hans Christian Andersen (1952). He was the voice-over artist for the Heineken beer adverts in the UK during the 1970's. 'Heineken does this because it refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach.' Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald S. Smith, pg. 57-58. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387 Attended Øster Borgerdyd High School in Copenhagen, Denmark. Borge, almost single-handedly, developed the Rock Cornish game hen industry in America. He owned a very large farm where he raised Rock Cornish hens. His son, Ron Borge, appeared many times on stage with his father as the timid page turner. His Comedy in Music one-man show on Broadway reached 849 performances, the longest solo run in Broadway history. Became a U.S. citizen after his move there, but remained popular in his native Denmark and often performed there. Recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation in 1986. Personal Quotes A woman complimenting me on my act one night told me she hadn't laughed so much since her husband died. And I wish to remind you that the smile is the shortest distance between people, and the more we smile, the less we fight. Because to my knowledge, no one ever fought smilingly...and won. So not goodbye, then. Never goodbye. Just...so long. Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.