Victor Borge; Pianist, Comedian

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 Saturday at his home in Greenwich, Conn. He was 91.

Borge’s daughter, Rikke Borge, told the Associated Press that her father died peacefully in his sleep as the family was gathering to celebrate Christmas. He had just returned from a trip to Copenhagen, the city of his birth. Borge would have turned 92 on Jan. 3.

“I think he brought laughter to every person he came in contact with,” Rikke Borge said Saturday. “He had a long and happy life.”

For more than half a century, Borge kept people laughing with a busy performance schedule, including frequent Southland appearances.

A Times review of Borge at the Hollywood Bowl in 1996 said: “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, TV, films, records, books and videos, Borge shared his humor with the masses, adapting handily to new media as they developed. And though his comedy may 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,” said Times music critic Mark Swed. “He was such fun because he was the kind of brilliant pianist who could make everything look so easy.”

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

“Fear,” said the very private Borge in an interview some years 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 developed his protective, self-disparaging persona, which delighted generations of concertgoers, as a child in Denmark when his parents wanted to show off their prodigy.

Audiences Welcomed Performer’s Routines

“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 [a Danish Royal Symphony violinist] would get angry with me, because sometimes there were very important people in the audience.”

Over the years, 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” amid pieces by the classical masters and using explosive sounds for periods, commas and exclamation points. Also popular was his “inflated language” in which “wonderful” became “two-derful,” and “the second lieutenant ate the tenderloin with his fork” ballooned to “the third lieu-eleven-ant nined the eleven-derloin with his fivek.”

But he was careful to balance his droll asides and witty sight gags with superb piano work. “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, he was educated at Borgerdydskolen, a public school in Copenhagen.

His father wanted him to follow in his footsteps, but young Borge preferred piano to violin. At age 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.

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

He became a comedian, actor, composer, pianist, writer and even director of stage, screen and radio shows. He appeared in six films and wrote a Swedish newspaper column.

On Christmas Eve in 1933, Borge wed Elsie Chilton, an American who later helped him flee the Nazis.

He had quickly earned a place high on the Nazi public enemies 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.”

When the Germans invaded Denmark in 1940, Borge fortuitously was entertaining in Sweden. He was able to join Chilton in the hold of an overcrowded ship arriving in the United States on Aug. 28.

Escaping From the Nazis

Abandoning all his possessions, including his piano, Borge later joked that he had caught the last available ship out of Petsame, Finland, “with only five minutes to spare.” The couple escaped with just their dog--and had to pay a $3 U.S. customs tax on it.

Adept at Swedish, French and German, Borge taught himself English by sitting through several showings of cheap movies and repeating the dialogue. Changing his name to Victor Borge, he translated some of his routines into English and won a spot in a Florida nightclub show.

He met Rudy Vallee, who gave him an audition and lent him a studio audience that included Bing Crosby’s radio sponsors.

Borge’s guest appearance on Crosby’s “Kraft Music Hall” in 1941 led to a niche as a regular on the crooner’s show for 56 weeks.

Borge’s American career in top nightclubs and concert halls was launched. When he made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1945, 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 radio show “Fibber McGee and Molly,” and in 1946 began broadcasting “The Victor Borge Show” on NBC. His one-man Broadway show ran for 2 1/2 years in the early 1950s, setting an 849-performance record for such a solo act.

Borge’s gags became so expected that when he twitched his nose during a concert because a fly landed on it, the audience considered the reaction part of the act and demanded to know how he trained the fly.

Recalling a concert in which one pianist had played a few opening chords and then slumped forward on the keys, dead, Borge quipped: “If I did that, everybody would laugh.”

Borge’s hobbies of flying and preparing gourmet meals served as a diversion. But another one became a business--and headache. He introduced the delicacy of rock Cornish game hens to the U.S., raising and freezing the birds on a farm he bought in Connecticut for his second wife, the former Sarabel Sanna Scraper--his first marriage ended in divorce--and his children.

Late in his career, 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.

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