The Comedy of Victor Borge

By Bruce “Charlie” Johnson

Victor Borge passed away December 23, 2000. If he was a clown or not depends upon whether you use an exclusive or inclusive style definition of clowning. It is a matter of personal opinion. I personally think he was a masterful clown who used a naturalistic appearance. In any case, clowns could learn a lot by studying his work, which fortunately is well documented by audio and video recordings. I had the pleasure of seeing two of his live performances. At the age of 91, he was still performing. The only adjustment he had to make for age was eliminating the fall off his piano bench. 

I had the opportunity to interview his business manager. He said that Victor greatly admired clowns but did not consider himself to be one.

Victor Borge (Jan. 3, 1909 – Dec. 23, 2000) Victor Borge said, “to people who take music seriously, I’m a musician. To people who don’t take music seriously, I’m a comedian. To people who don’t take anything seriously, I’m a clown.”

Whether or not you consider Victor Borge a clown, clowns can learn from him and be inspired by him. For example, one of his routines is to start playing a piece, which doesn’t come out right. He takes a closer look at the sheet music, turns it over, resumes playing, and now it sounds right. Arthur Pedlar uses a similar bit in his routine. 

His son toured with him playing an inept page-turner. Albert Alter plays a similar role in the BozoArts Duo. Victor combines physical comedy, verbal humor, and amazing musical ability.

In one of Victor’s bits, he keeps sliding off the piano bench. Finally he opens the lid of the bench, pulls out a seat belt, and buckles himself down. After finishing the song, he stands to take a bow, but the bench is lifted up because he forgot to unbuckle the seat belt.

Another way he copes with sliding off the seat is to pull out his pocket-handkerchief and use it to carefully measure the distance between the piano and bench. When he is sure the bench is properly positioned, he puts the handkerchief away. Then as he sits down, he grabs the bench and pulls it forward. 

At the age of 91, the only concession he made to age was eliminating falling off the piano bench.

One of his most famous verbal routines was inflationary language. He explains that everything else has gone up so why shouldn’t language. He says, “I will add one to any number reference in a word. Fascinate becomes fasci-nine. Forgotten becomes forgot-eleven, and so fifth.”

He picks up a book to read a story using inflationary language. He talks to his audience as he flips through the entire book. He apologizes for taking so long because he thought it was at the beginning of the book. He finally finds the story that he is looking for, and happily announces that it is on page 91. He looks puzzled, turns the book over, and says, “I’m sorry, here it is on page 16.”

Then Victor tells a hilarious story about Don Two, the inflated version of Don Juan.

Victor’s most famous routine combined verbal and physical comedy. It is Phonetic Punctuation. He explains that punctuation marks help us when we read, but we sometimes have problems when we listen because we don’t know where the punctuation is. Phonetic Punctuation is is solution. He has created a motion and sound for each punctuation mark. He demonstrates his system and then reads a love story complete with punctuation.

Victor normally used Verbal Punctuation as an encore. He said that if he left the routine out of a concert it would be like Judy Garland leaving out “Over the Rainbow.”

A military doctor following World War II used phonetic Punctuation as a diagnostic tool. Many soldiers experienced hearing loss, and doctors had trouble determining the cause. A doctor discovered that if they played a recording of Victor’s routine, the patient would start smiling if the cause was psychosomatic, which could be cured. If the patient didn’t smile, they knew the cause was physical, and the hearing loss was probably permanent. According to Victor, “he (the doctor) said many of the patients were helped that way. That made me very happy. I don’t think anybody could remain stoical in the face of laughter.”

In Laughing Matters (Volume Seven Number Four), Victor said, “When I played on Broadway in 1953, a nurse came and told me that she had attended a patient who had terminal cancer, and that he had laughed so hard at my Phonetic Punctuation record that he had actually coughed up the tumor. That sounds like I made it up, but I didn’t.”

Much of his verbal humor contains references to music history. Introducing one number, he explains, “This concerto was written in four flats because Rachmaninoff had to move three times while he wrote it.”

A lot of his humor is based upon his amazing skill as a pianist. For example, he plays “Happy Birthday” in the style of famous composers like Bach and Brahms.

Each performance of his one-man show is a little different because he tailors it to the specific audience. His opening and closing was always the same. The response to his opening routines helped him identify the interests of that audience. If there was a lot of laughter at his jokes, he knew that audience was looking for comedy. If they applauded his first musical numbers, he knew they were interested in music. If the responded to his historical references, he knew they were well educated about music. Sometimes he changed the order of numbers or substituted one for another to get the desired response from that particular group. He interacted with his audiences and played off of them.

When I saw him perform in Long Beach, CA, a couple was admitted late. He asked them where they were from. They answered Anaheim, a town less than thirty miles away. He said, “That’s nice. I’m from Denmark and I got here on time.”

He remembered when they entered. Later in the show, he referred to something that had happened before they came in. He looked at them and explained what they had missed. The next time he referred to something that had happened before they arrived, he told them, “Ask the people next to you to explain it.” The third time he referred to something before their entrance, he told them, “I know that you don’t understand that. However, if you can’t make the effort to get here on time you don’t deserve to know.”

Victor would ask people to name their favorite composers. When somebody mentions Bach, he asks them, “Which one, Johann Sebastian or Offen?”

He would ask a woman in the front row if she liked piano music. When she says yes, he gives her a sheet of music. Later in the show, he begins repeatedly playing the same two notes. He begins searching through the pages of sheet music on the piano while still playing those notes. Then he remembers the page that he handed out. He retrieves it from the woman, and then plays the last four notes of the song.

His son, Ronny, toured with him as his stage manager. I noticed something interesting. When Victor was exiting the stage during a blackout, Ronny held a flashlight at floor level. The beam of light shinning across the stage gave Victor a trail to follow making it easy to walk straight ahead. Only those people seated in the front rows could see the small beam of light.

Victor Borge was born January 3, 1909, in Copenhagen. His real name is Borge Rosenbaum. His parents, Bernhard and Frederikke Rosenbaum, were musicians. His father played violin in the Royal Danish Philharmonic Orchestra for 35 years. His father was 61 when Victor was born. His mother started teaching Victor to play the piano when he was three.

Victor was recognized as a prodigy, and was granted a scholarship to the Royal Danish Academy of Music. As a teenager, he received scholarships to study with Frederic Lamond, in Berlin, and Egon Petri, in Vienna.

He was trained as a classical pianist, but his talent for comedy soon became evident. When his parents asked him to play at their dinner parties, he would announce he was playing one of Beethoven’s sonata’s, and then play one of his own compositions in Beethoven’s style. He thought it was funny when one of the guests would respond, “ah, yes, that has always been my favorite of Beethoven’s works,” or, “I’ve never heard it played so well.”

Victor got his initial performing experience playing the organ at funerals, and the first one he played for was his father’s.

In 1926, at the age of 17, he gave his first piano concert, at the Odd Bellow Palaeet in Copenhagen, and was haled as a talented musician.

During the 1930’s, Victor became Denmark’s most popular entertainer. He made his debut as a musical comedian in a revue in 1933, and appeared in four Danish films. He composed the music for one of his films. He was known for his satirical comedy, especially his comments about the Nazi’s. One of his jokes from this period was “What is the difference between a dog and a Nazi? A Nazi lifts its arm.”

When Germany invaded Denmark in 1940, Victor topped the Nazi hit list because of his satirical jokes. He fled to America, sailing on the SS American Legion, the last ship to leave Northern Europe.

(In 1963, Victor Borge and Richard Netter created the Thanks To Scandinavia Scholarship Fund in recognition of the work of the Scandinavian citizens risking their lives to save thousands of doomed people during the Nazi Holocaust. The multi-million dollar fund has brought over three thousand Scandinavian students and scientists to the United States to study and conduct research.) 

Victor did not know any English when he came to America. One of the ways that he got used to the language was to go to movie theaters and spend all day watching the films.

In 1941, Victor was booked on Bing Crosby’s radio program. His first wife spoke Danish and English so she translated some of his routines for him. He memorized them. He was originally hired just to warm up the audience before the show, but he was so successful that he was made a guest on the next broadcast. He was a big hit, and remained on the program for fifty-six weeks. The following year he was named “the best new radio performer of the year” by the American press.

In 1944, Victor made his American movie debut. He played Sir Victor Fizroy victor in “Higher and Higher”. He played an uncredited bit part in “The Story of Doctor Wassell”. In 1966, victor played the voice of the Second Tailor in “The Daydreamer”, an animated movie about Hans Christian Anderson. To further preserve the culture of his native land, Victor performed “Victor Borge Tells Hans Christian Anderson Stories”, a direct to video project for young children. He played himself in the 1983 film, “The King of Comedy”.

Victor embraces his new country when he became an American citizen in 1948. However, he still loved his native country and was referred to as “The Great Dane.”

He made his TV debut on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 5, 1949.

He hosted his own half-hour comedy-variety TV show from February 3, 1951 to June 30, 1951.

His one-man show, Comedy in Music, debuted in Seattle, WA in February of 1953. After touring all year, he opened at The Golden Theatre in New York for what was supposed to be a short stay on October 5, 1953. He was such a hit his performances were extended into 1956. The 849 performances of that show are still a record for the longest run of a solo Broadway show.

His Broadway show had a basic format. It always included variations on a theme, medley of favorite songs, the friendly finale, the Mozart Opera, and Phonetic Punctuation. But there was a great deal of spontaneity within that. The variations and medley songs might be different in each performance. Depending on the response he was getting, he might spend more time talking to the audience. The proportion of comedy and serious music also changed with each performance. This was reflected in the names of the nineteen numbers listed in the theater program. They were: 1. Frankly 2. We 3. Don’t 4. Know 5. What 6. Mr. Borge 7. Will 8. Do 9. But 10. We’re 11. Sure 12. He’ll 13. Keep 14. Us 15. Posted 16. From 17. Time 18. To 19. Time.

His Broadway show was televised as an episode of Omnibus, a ninety-minute commercial free cultural program funded by the Ford Foundation. He has made many other television appearances since then.

Victor has given many benefits to help worthy causes, including orchestras. Many orchestras have had a profitable season only because of including a Victor Borge performance in their schedule.

Victor Borge is a respected conductor. In 1998, he conducted the Royal Danish Philharmonic Orchestra in a Royal  Command Performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. He has conducted The Magic Flute for many prestigious orchestras. He also conducts and narrates an acclaimed adaptation of Carmen by Bizet. Even when Victor is conducting, he includes comedy. In one bit, the concertmaster (a.k.a. first chair violinist) enters a passage one beat behind the rest of the musicians. Victor stops the music, and orders the musician to leave. When they get off stage, a shot is heard. Then Victor commands the nervous violinists to all move up one chair.

Victor has appeared as a performer in operas. He played both Prince Orlovssky and the jailer Frosch in Sarah Caldwell’s Boston Opera production of “Die Fledermaus” with Beverly Sills.

Victor created a musical scholarship, one of the highest study grants in Denmark, in honor of his parents. The award is presented each summer in a gala ceremony in Tivoli Garden.

Victor Borge is also an author. With Richard Sherman he wrote My Favorite Intermissions (1971) and My Favorite Comedies In Music (1981). These books preserve much of Victor’s verbal comedy from his performances, and they introduce readers to music history in a fun way. In 1982, I attended a Victor Borge performance. He plugged his newest book, and announced that he had autographed each of the copies for sale in the lobby. The audience laughed because it sounded like a joke. There were cases of books in the lobby. When I purchased my copy, I discovered that Victor had been serious. It really was autographed.

Victor has been honored for his many contributions. He was given a Medal of Honor by the Statue of Liberty Centennial Committee at a gala ceremony at Ellis Island. He has been knighted by the five Scandinavian countries -Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. (He says that five knights makes him a weekend.) Both the United States Congress and the United Nations have honored him. When Joel Goodman’s Humor Project instituted their very prestigious International Humor Treasure award  in 1991, the first person honored was Victor Borge. He was selected for the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.

Victor Borge created a tremendous legacy of comedy. Fortunately, it has been preserved for us to study, admire, and be inspired by.

Originally published in from The Clown In Times Vol. Six Issue Three Winter 2000

© Copyright 2000 by Bruce “Charlie” Johnson. All rights reserved.

I posted an excerpt of this article on my original website. The editors of Scanorama, the Scandinavian Airlines inflight magazine, read that excerpt and invited me to write a new article about Victor for their publication. As a result, I got to interview Victor’s business manager, son, and one of his daughters. I had always admired his performances. After I talked with them I can to admire him even more as a wonderful person.