—From “He’s Funny That Way” by Robert M. Yoder, in the December 18, 1948, issue of The Saturday Evening Post
One of the hottest movie fans of all time appeared in New York in 1940. This was the entertainer Victor Borge, fleeing his native Denmark because he was fairly high on a Nazi black list. Borge is a concert pianist turned comedian, which is something entirely different from a comedian imitating a concert pianist. He deals in pauses and quick changes of the emotional key. Using the best formal manner of a soloist such as he used to be, he digresses.
“This is a sonata for four hands. It has never been performed, because we have never found anyone with four hands.” Borge sits, hands on the keys, and knowing now how well he can play, the concert audience grows quiet.
“Before I play this,” he says, digressing again, “I want to tell you the story behind it. Otherwise, it will be just a bunch of notes. This sonata tells the story of a young man and a young girl. Well, she isn’t so young, but she’s all right. The boy’s mother — who, by the way, is much older than he is, of course — disapproves of him fooling around with this girl. So he assures his mother he ain’t fooling.”
Borge goes on, telling of each movement, until finally the boy saves the girl from drowning in the fourth movement, and they live unhappily ever after.
Borge ponders, and decides not to play. “Now that you’ve heard the story,” he says, “you don’t need the music; it’s merely repetition. Another thing is it takes too long to play it. It would take an hour and a half to play it with one hand alone. So you can imagine — with both hands and the orchestra, it would take weeks.”
Best of Borge
“I know two numbers, that’s all. One is Clair de Lune, and the other one isn’t. … Clair de Lune — English translation: ‘Clear the saloon.’”
“My sister is the brightest person in the family … into which she married. “
“My grandfather invented the burglar alarm. It was stolen from him. … He invented the cure for which there was no disease. His wife later caught the cure and died. … He always experimented. Once he crossed an Idaho potato with a sponge. It tasted horrible. But it sure held a lot of gravy!”
“Laughter is the closest distance between two people.”
“I don’t mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I’ve saved all year.”
“I wish to thank my parents for making it all possible … and I wish to thank my children for making it necessary.”
This article is featured in the November/December 2023 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.
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