From Brooklyn to Hollywood to Seattle: How Danny Kaye Became an Owner of the Mariners

From Brooklyn to Hollywood to SeattleHow Danny Kaye Became an Owner of the Mariners David Krell (bio) Hans Christian Andersen. The Court Jester. The Five Pennies. White Christmas. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Danny Kaye may be beloved for his movies, but Seattle baseball fans hold him in higher esteem for his integral efforts to revive the city’s major league status in the mid-1970s. Seattle had seen its Major League Baseball (MLB) experience truncated when the Pilots’ owners left for Milwaukee after one season (1969) and changed the team’s name to the Brewers. Joining a group of investors—including Lester Smith, his partner in Pacific Northwest radio and television stations1—Kaye had the opportunity to blend his passion for baseball with a business prospect. They sought to capitalize on the city’s connection to baseball. In addition to the Pilots, Seattle had been a minor league mainstay with the Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League from 1903 to 1906 and 1919 to 1968. Baseball was one branch of the business tree reflecting Kaye’s partnership with Smith, which had begun in the late 1950s through an introduction from their respective attorneys. “My father was a radio station broker and expanded his business to being an owner,” says Smith’s son, Alex, who runs Kaye-Smith Enterprises, now a business solutions company in the Pacific Northwest. “The IRS had a list of companies you could invest in for tax shelters. But you had to pick a similar industry to your business; motion pictures and radio were on the same list. My father needed capital, so his FCC attorney put out feelers and connected with Danny’s attorney. They first went into AM radio, then FM, followed by the concert and promotion business and a recording studio.”2 Smith and Kaye became friends—the entertainer stayed with his partner’s family when he went to Seattle. Besides business interests, they shared a passion for flying; both were amateur pilots.3 In a 1973 interview with British TV host Russell Harty, Kaye explained that he flew planes ranging from the Cessna 150 to the 747.4 Back on terra firma, Kaye loved to cook. He trained [End Page 26] informally with a five-star restaurant in Chinatown in San Francisco and often hosted guests at his Beverly Hills home.5 When the Kaye-Smith consortium got approval for an American League (AL) expansion team in 1977, there was nobody happier than the movie star who had cheered the Dodgers in his native Brooklyn and then in Los Angeles. Born David Daniel Kaminsky on January 18, 1911, to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine—Jacob and Clara (née Nemerovsky)—Kaye had two older brothers who were born in the old country and left for the US a couple of years before the future entertainer came into the world in Brooklyn. Kaye’s fame led to the renaming of his alma mater from P. S. 149 to P. S. 149 Danny Kaye. Performing seemed to be in Kaye’s blood. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times recalled, “The pale little boy entertained his kindergarten classmates with songs, and as he grew into a teen-ager [sic], worked at Brooklyn social clubs singing and telling jokes.”6 Clara died when Kaye was a teenager; he left home with a friend, and they went to Florida to find work as entertainers. When he came back to the Borough of Churches, he worked in a variety of jobs, including as an insurance investigator. A true Brooklynite, Kaye found joy and sorrow at Ebbets Field rooting for the Dodgers. His affection for his beloved team extended westward when the team moved to Los Angeles, where he put down roots because of his movie career. In 1962 his gift for singing quickly manifested in the song “D-O-D-G-E-R-S (Oh Really? No, O’Malley),” which recounts a Giants-Dodgers game complete with running commentary on the plays and the players. Kaye employed a baseball theme in at least one segment on The Danny Kaye Show, a comedy-variety offering that aired on CBS from 1963 to 1967. It highlighted Kaye...

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