The 100 Greatest Brooklynites of All Time: 70 to 61
One of the best pure “song and dance men” of all time, little David Daniel Kaminsky was born and raised in East New York, and was, by all accounts, a bona fide ham from the very beginning. Amazingly, after his mother died when he was 15, the young Kaye ran away to Florida with a guitar-playing friend, where the two tried to make a living as entertainers. After that didn’t work out (shocker), Kaye bounced around in a variety of odd jobs (insurance, dentist’s assistant) until he landed an actual entertainment gig at the age of 20, with a touring vaudeville troupe. From that point on (1933) Kaye slowly climbed the entertainment ladder, performing from Osaka to the Catskills, and eventually on Broadway. His big break was in Samuel Goldwyn’s 1944 hit movie Up in Arms, the first of many beloved pictures including A Song is Born, White Christmas, and Hans Christian Andersen.