Victor Borge mixed music with laughter; dead at 91

Victor Borge, the comical musician or musical comedian--depending on your point of view--who taught audiences around the world that classical piano could be fun, died yesterday at his home in Greenwich, Conn. He was 91.

For more than half a century, he kept people laughing with a busy performance schedule.

A Los Angeles Times reviewer assessing a 1996 Borge program noted that, "Some of the comedic bits ... were as old as the music he performed, but it didn't matter. ... Borge made it all seem spontaneous and fresh."

Through radio, television, films, record albums, books and videos, Mr. Borge moved his humor to the masses, adapting handily to new media as it developed.

And while his comedy might have overshadowed his musicianship, he was a first-rate pianist.

"Bad musicians are rarely funny for very long but Victor Borge remained a riot for a remarkably long time," noted Mark Swed, the Times music critic. "He was such fun because he was the kind of brilliant pianist who could make everything look so easy."

Perhaps the question most frequently asked of him was: What made you mix clowning with classical piano?

"Fear," explained Mr. Borge in interviews some year ago. "Even today when I play with the orchestra there are moments when I begin to shake.

"The problem that everyone has, be they great or not so great, is that every time you perform, you are defending yourself, proving that you can do it and do it well. You are auditioning every time you touch the piano, because you never know who might be in the audience. The nerves and the fear can take everything out of you, and it isn't worth it."

He first developed his protective, self-disparaging and unusual persona, which since has delighted generations of concert-goers, as a child in his native Denmark when his parents wanted to show off their prodigy.

"I was taken around, expected to play after dinner on pianos which were generally out of tune--polished, but out of tune," he said wryly. "This poor kid would have to play Mendelssohn or Schubert on these horrors, so I would talk, make up a composer's name. I would play pieces that I just made up. My father (violinist with the Danish Royal Symphony) would get angry with me, because sometimes there were very important people in the audience."

Over the years, Mr. Borge refined his sketches in four languages, earning knighthoods and international popularity. And although the routines were repetitious, they came to be greeted as old friends.

"How many times does an orchestra play Beethoven's Ninth, Fifth or Sixth? But people go back to hear it year in and year out," he said. "I'm like apple pie. Generations come and go, they like it, understand it. It doesn't have to change with the times."

His best-known routines included signaling his page-turner by a pull of the tie, interspersing "Happy Birthday" throughout pieces by Debussy, Chopin, Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart and his trademark phonetic punctuation, in which he used explosive sounds for periods, commas and exclamation points.

Mr. Borge was always careful to balance his spontaneous droll asides and witty sight gags with a superb performance at the piano.

"There has to be enough musical content to please the sophisticated," he said, "and enough broad humor to satisfy those who have come just to laugh."

Born Borge Rosenbaum in Copenhagen, Mr. Borge was educated at the Borgerdydskolen, a public school in his native city.

His father wanted him to follow in his footsteps, but young Mr. Borge preferred piano to violin. At 9, he entered the Copenhagen Conservatory on a scholarship. He later studied at the University of Berlin, and with private teachers in Copenhagen and Vienna.

Mr. Borge made his concert debut at the age of 13 and began composing at 17. At 23 he made his professional comedy debut.

He appeared in six films and wrote a Swedish newspaper column.

On Christmas Eve of 1933 he married Elsie Chilton, an American who helped him escape the Nazis and immigrate to the U.S.

The entertainer quickly earned a place on the Nazi public-enemy list by making fun of the party. Typical was his comment on the irony of a pact between Denmark and Germany: "Now the good German citizens can sleep peacefully in their beds, secure from the threat of Danish aggression."

Shortening his name to Victor Borge, the immigrant translated some of his routines into English and won a spot in a Florida nightclub show. He met entertainer Rudy Vallee, who gave him an audition and loaned him a studio audience that included Bing Crosby's radio sponsors.

Mr. Borge's guest appearance on Crosby's "Kraft Music Hall" in December 1941 led to a niche as a regular on the crooner's show for 56 weeks.

His American career in top nightclubs and concert halls was launched. When he made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1945, the show-business journal Variety headlined its review, "Best Acts of All Play Carnegie Hall Cued by Borge's Show."

He was soon engaged as a summer replacement for the popular radio show "Fibber McGee and Molly," and in September 1946 he began broadcasting "The Victor Borge Show" on NBC. A subsequent one-man Broadway show in 1953 ran for 2 1/2 years, setting an 849-performance record for such solo acts.

Late in his career, Mr. Borge began conducting. His second book, "My Favorite Comedies in Music," co-written with critic Robert Sherman in 1980, was prompted by his study of various musical instruments in preparation for conducting.

Mr. Borge is survived by his five children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild. His second wife, Sanna, died in September at the age of 83.