"Nhu! Uhng! Uh! Ieh! Nhu! Uhng! Uh! Ieh!" This is the sound one must make while patting an imaginary bongo drum and dancing about with shuffling steps. You do this when you're about 6 years old, and watching 'A Song is Born'. A wonderfully funny scene is at the start of this film about a group of music professors. Their benefactor drops by, concerned that the funding she has given them over the past ten years is wasted as they still haven't produced any research. She's quite a conservative woman, and is astounded when Danny tries to explain about all the different types of music they have already studied and recorded. He grabs a drum and begins prancing about the room to demonstrate the benefit of her funding of their work with an example, all the while grunting the African words to a love song - and even manages to get his benefactor into the mood, whilst singing along and dancing!

My love of Danny Kaye began with sitting on a wooden floor way back before it was fashionable to have one, because we didn't have much money and couldn't afford carpeting. I didn't have many toys, and treasured the few I had gotten at Christmas or birthdays over the years. I'd sit, cross legged, on the lounge room floor with Panda, complete with bell in his ear and worn patches in his fur, completely engrossed in the television. But not just any show. Back in the '70's and 80's, Australian commercial tv could be relied on to play six to ten classic movies over a weekend. You would get at least two stations playing two each from noon, and on a Saturday night, Bill Collins hosted a showcase of great films from 8:30pm.

My mother, always wanting to give myself and my two sisters a well rounded education which included all of the Arts, would encourage us to watch all the wonderful movies from the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties; films starring Ester Williams, Deanna Durbin, Shirley Temple, Gene Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Spencer Tracey, Katharine Hepburn, Rod Taylor, Errol Flynn, you name it. However, I'd never, ever miss a Danny Kaye movie. It was Christmas for me when one of his films was on over a weekend.

At first it was his films that got me hooked. I've cried with laughter watching classics like 'The Court Jester' - one of the greatest scenes from all comedies is in this film as Danny, the Jester who has been knighted in order to joust for the hand of the fair Gwendolyn (played by Angela Lansbury), is told by Gwen's nurse, a witch, that she has poisoned a drink in order to take out his opponent for him. The lines are thrown back and forth as she tries to help him remember which drink to take; the chalice from the palace? No the vessel with the pestle! Ah but then there's the flagon of the dragon so where's the pellet with the poison? No matter how many times you see this film, you'll still laugh while you wonder how he managed to wrap his lips around the many tongue twisting lyrics and words he was famed for singing which his wife, Sylvia Fine, wrote for him.

Then Danny as a performer and entertainer had a huge influence on me as a child, his moves, his smile, his laugh, his singing was something I studied and watched. I was in a choir for many years, and often tried to emulate his easy way of singing a song, sounding effortless yet full of emotion. I enjoyed his humour and style, the way he carried himself, and respected the enormous effort he put into children - his work with UNICEF as well as his concerts and shows.

Most people might know Danny only from 'White Christmas', a film played almost every year at Christmas time somewhere around the world, although it's not really a Christmas film. Danny was third choice for the role opposite Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor and Fred Astaire turning it down. Danny and Bing are in the army together, and sing and dance to entertain the men when they're not fighting the enemy. After the war they team up and become a popular act on stage with hit shows wherever they go. They discover that their platoon leader, whom they loved and respected, has fallen on hard times and is running a inn upstate. Having met a couple of gorgeous sisters who are also working in show business, they head up to the inn to help out by staging a show to bring the people in and make him some money.

It's not Danny's best role, he is more suited to working on his own than being second banana to Bing or anyone. But as it's a movie shown a lot over the holiday season, people recall him as being that kind of character, or in another famous film he did, 'Hans Christian Anderson'. Very loosely based on the authors life, Danny shone as Hans, who is a shoemaker and story teller which distracts the towns folks children and frustrates their parents no end.

I've seen almost all of Danny's movies, as well as the televised concerts with symphony orchestras he conducted with relish and hilarity, with an emphasis on Kiddy Proms - music that would appeal to children in order to expose them to classical and other types of music in an entertaining way. His documentaries on the plight of children worldwide were been shown on tv here, as well as his groundbreaking work with UNICEF, which he helped to set up. This is a man who was a superstar in every sense of the word in the 30's, 40's, 50's and even the 60's and 70's - selling out packed theatres and cinemas with his films and tours. And yet nowadays his work is rarely shown on tv, and his name is rarely mentioned in the press when discussing stars from the era.

Danny was multi talented; he was a singer, comedian, dramatic actor and dancer who in his spare time was also a pilot, chef and humanitarian. His love of flying took him all over the world, and the perfect choice to help UNICEF in its creation and inception of humanitarian work with children all over the world. He shot documentaries on the plight of kids in third world countries and what UNICEF was doing to improve their situation, and got television to show these programs in order to get more funding to help more kids. He'd host dinner parties for his friends at home, insisting on cooking them wonderful gourmet meals in a kitchen filled with industrial cooking equipment which would normally be seen in a restaurant.

Although he did a lot of roles of being a wimpy kind of guy who flukes into incredible situation, you can still see that mischievous look in his eye, and would have great fun playing up in scenes such as the fencing scene with Basil Rathbone in 'The Court Jester'. Due to being under hypnosis, with the snap of the fingers he's transformed from a cowardly jester into a confident killer. Danny looks to be having great fun in scenes like 'Wonder Man', playing twins, one a bookworm, the other a cocky performer. When the performer is killed and his nerdy brother has to take his place on stage, he changes in the twinkling of an eye to the self assured, accomplished and polished performer that he was.

He started in show business as a 'tummler', a slapstick styled actor first entertaining people at holiday resorts and then in vaudeville in the thirties, and progressed to stage shows for his unique style of comedy that he created with the help of his wife, who wrote all his music for him. Danny was also successful on television as well as stage and screen, with his own show that ran from 1963 to 1967. It was an award winning variety show, filled with sketches and skits and special guests. After this he returned to stage and screen, and didn't really retire, turning up in programs as diverse as 'The Lucille Ball Show', 'The Twilight Zone', 'The Muppet Show' and 'The Cosby Show' before he passed away from a heart attack in 1987, and I've missed him ever since.