To Denmark "The Legend"

Borge Rosenbaum was born on January 3, 1909, in Copenhagen, Denmark, to a Jewish family. His father, Bernhard, was born in 1847, and was a violinist with the Royal Danish Chapel. His mother, Frederikke, was born in 1876, and was a pianist. The youngest of 5 boys, he began playing the piano at age 3, and performed his first recital when he was 8. In 1918, he attended the Copenhagen Music Conservatory on a full scholarship and studied piano in Vienna under Victor Schioler and in Berlin under Frederic Lamond and Egon Petri. He played his first major concert in 1926. Realizing that he would never be a concert pianist, Borge developed an act combining piano music with standup comedy. He became well- known in Scandinavia and starred in comedy movies and performed on stage. His father died in 1932 and Borge married an American, Elsie Chilton, in 1933. He embarked on a European tour and included anti-Nazi jokes in his repertoire. At times, these jokes made him the target of physical and verbal abuse. He was in Sweden rehearsing for a show when the Germans invaded Denmark on April 9, 1940. He went to the American consulate and obtained a visa to Finland. He left on the USS American Legion and arrived in the United States on August 28, 1940. He returned to Denmark once during the occupation, disguised as a sailor, to visit his mother who died that same year. When he arrived in the U.S., he had no money and did not speak English. He learned the language by watching movies and translated his act into English. He changed his name to Victor Borge and began performing in night clubs. From December 1941 to 1943, he appeared on Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall radio show. In 1945 he had his own radio show on NBC and made his debut at Carnegie Hall. He became a U.S. citizen in 1948. He divorced Elsie, with whom he had 2 children, and married Sarabel Sanna Scraper in 1953 and she became his manager. They had 3 children. On October 2, 1953, he opened a show, Comedy in Music, on Broadway. In 1963 he cofounded the Thanks to Scandinavia Fund, which provides scholarships to Scandinavian and Bulgarian students in gratitude to those who helped Jews escape during World War II. He was presented a Kennedy Center Honors award in 1999, was knighted by all Scandinavian nations, and honored by the United Nations and the United States Congress.