Victor Borge

Danish-born pianist and comedian

• Born: January 3, 1909
• Birthplace: Copenhagen, Denmark
• Died: December 23, 2000
• Place of death: Greenwich, Connecticut

Borge was an accomplished classical concert pianist and a consummate entertainer. Through the use of humor, he endeared himself to his audiences and made classical music appealing.

Early Life

Victor Borge (VIHK-tur BOR-guh) was born Børge Rosenbaum on January 3, 1909, in Copenhagen, Denmark, to Bernhard and Frederickke Lichtinger Rosenbaum. Borge’s parents were musicians, and he began piano lessons at the age of three. In 1918, when he was nine years old, Borge won a scholarship to the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where he studied the piano. Borge gave his first performance as a soloist with the Copenhagen Philharmonic when he was ten years old. In 1926, he played in his first major concert and continued to play as a concert pianist until 1934.

Life’s Work

In 1933, Borge married Elsie Chilton, an American. Borge began to mix humor with his music and developed a nightclub revue act, which debuted in 1933. He toured Europe extensively, and in 1937 he made his film debut. Borge appeared in six Danish films before World War II broke out, and by 1940 he became one of the best-known entertainers in Scandinavia.

Borge ridiculed the Nazis extensively during his act, and he was blacklisted, both because he was Jewish and because of his outspoken criticism of the Nazis. Borge was playing a revue in Stockholm, Sweden, when the Germans invaded Denmark on April 9, 1940. His wife was still in Denmark, but both Borge and his wife managed to escape to Finland, where they boarded the USS American Legion, bound for were chosen. Borge and his wife arrived on August 28, 1940, with about twenty dollars between them. Borge did not speak any English, so he began to learn the language by watching films, and he started translating his revue act from Danish into English. He changed his name from Børge Rosenbaum to Victor Borge, using his given name as his new last name. Borge thought that his name sounded too German to Americans, and his choice of Victor was in homage to his piano teacher.

In 1941, Rudy Vallee hired Borge to do audience warm-ups for his radio program. Borge also auditioned for another radio program, Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall. Borge first appeared as a guest, but his success led to him being signed as a regular performer. He went on to do fifty-four performances for the show. In 1942, he was named best new radio performer of the year.

Borge also had his own radio show between 1943 and 1951, which aired on various networks, including the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and Mutual. He debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1945. In 1953, Borge opened a show called Comedy in Music at the Golden Theatre in New York City. It was so popular that Borge set a world record of 849 consecutive performances for the show.

In 1948, Borge acquired his American citizenship. He and Elsie adopted twins but divorced in 1951. In 1953, Borge married again. His second wife, Sarabel (Sanna) Scraper, had been his manager and had a daughter from a previous marriage. The couple later had a son and a daughter.

In 1951, Borge starred in his own television series for a single season. He continued to appear on television as a guest star and in the occasional special. Borge would remain active as a touring performer until his death. A consummate performer, Borge was affectionately called “The Great Dane,” “The Clown Prince of Denmark,” and “The Unmelancholy Dane.” Several of his concerts were recorded by the Public Broadcasting System and made available in audio and video formats, including his two most famous acts, “Phonetic Punctuation” and “Inflationary Language.”

In 1963, Borge and New York attorney Richard Netter established the “Thanks to Scandinavia” scholarship fund, which awards scholarships to health-care practitioners and students from Scandinavia and Bulgaria to travel to the United States to further their education. The scholarship is a way of expressing gratitude to the people of those countries for their protection of Jews during World War II.

Borge cowrote two English-language books with Robert Sherman, My Favorite Intermissions in 1971 and My Favorite Comedies in Music in 1980. In 1997, with Niels-Jørgen Kaiser, he cowrote a Danish-language book, Smileter den korteste afstand (a smile is the shortest distance).

In 1999, Borge received the Kennedy Center Honors for his lifetime achievement of contribution to American culture through the performing arts. He received seven honorary degrees and was knighted five times, once by each of the Scandinavian countries.

At the age of ninety-one, Borge died in his sleep of heart failure at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, and he was buried at Putnam Cemetery. His grave is marked with a statuette of the Little Mermaid (the original statue stands in the harbor of Copenhagen, a tribute to the story by Hans Christian Andersen).

Significance

Borge’s contribution to the fields of music and entertainment helped to draw to classical music audiences that otherwise would not have been interested in it. His work appealed to both sophisticated listeners and ordinary people. Borge’s humor included sight gags and wordplay, and he often included audience members in his act by asking them questions or passing out sheet music.

Bibliography

Borge, Victor, and Robert Sherman. My Favorite Comedies in Music. New York: Franklin Watts, 1980, 1994. Borge tells anecdotes about the history of modern music and the composers and performers who make it.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. My Favorite Intermissions: Victor Borge’s Lives of the Musical Greats and Other Facts You Never Knew You Were Missing. New York: Doubleday, 1971. Borge writes in a humorous vein about the lives and times of famous composers, including Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner.

McConnell, Stacy A. Contemporary Musicians: Profiles of the People in Music. Vol. 19. Detroit, Mich.: Gale, 1997. An encyclopedia of musicians, this work includes a biography and discography.