Victor Borge

Thanks To Scandinavia mourns the passing of its co-founder and National Chairman Victor Borge.

Victor Borge’s unique combination as musician and humorist has made him a legend in his own time. Affectionately known as "The Great Dane," Mr. Borge is an ambassador of goodwill for both his native Denmark and his adopted America. In fact, he recently received national recognition as a Kennedy Center Honoree. He has been knighted by the Scandinavian countries—Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden—and honored by both the U.S. Congress and the United Nations.

While Victor Borge’s comedic reputation has been built on his not playing the piano, he does possess a magnificent gift that amazes audiences when he does play. As a matter of fact, the noted music critic Jacob Siskind wrote: "Borge is such a cut-up, you don’t expect him to play with that incredible sensitivity that is his…the tone is pure gold." The distinguished violinist and conductor Henri Temianka wrote that "there is more to Borge’s piano playing than he allows us to hear. But, in those fleeting moments we recognize an elegance of touch, a limpidity, a grace, a transparency, a talent that sets apart the few from the many."

Each season Maestro Borge performs with and leads a number of the world’s foremost orchestras, including at times the New York Philharmonic and the Royal Danish. Some orchestras have actually had their seasons rescued by the inclusion of a Victor Borge appearance in their programs or by special benefit performances. With Robert Sherman he has written two books—My Favorite Intermissions and My Favorite Comedies in Music. He made his operatic acting "debut" by performing as both Prince Orlovsky and the jailer Frosch in Sarah Caldwell’s Boston Opera Company production of Die Fledermaus with Beverly Sills. He has conducted five S.R.O. performances of Mozart’s The Magic Flute for the Cleveland Opera. Borge has also presented his own concert adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen, which he narrated and conducted to critical acclaim.

His numerous television appearances include several events on PBS. One, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra hosted by Itzhak Perlman, features Borge as the special guest star performing his famous "Borgeism" on Mozart.

Born in Copenhagen to a musical family, Borge was introduced to the piano by his mother  when he was 3 years old. He was hailed as a prodigy and given a scholarship to the Copenhagen Music Conservatory. While still in his teens, he was awarded scholarships to study with Frederic Lamond and Egon Petri in Berlin and Vienna. Yet Borge’s incredible sense of humor combined with his musical ability established him already in his early 20s as one of the leading film and stage personalities in Scandinavia. Humorist Borge was noted for his biting satire, and when the Nazis invaded his homeland, his barbs about Hitler earned him position number one on the Nazi blacklist. He escaped on the last American passenger ship to leave Northern Europe.

In the nearly 70 years he has lived in the United States, Victor Borge has performed on radio, in films, on television, on Broadway (where, with rave reviews, he made theatrical history with his Comedy in Music which, according to Guiness, holds the record for the longest-running one-man show -- 849 performances), in huge sports arenas, in opera houses and at the White House.

Borge has established scholarships at universities and colleges and, with New York lawyer Richard Netter, created in 1963 the Thanks To Scandinavia scholarship fund in gratitude for the heroic deeds of the Scandinavians who, while risking their own, saved the lives of thousands of the persecuted and doomed during the Holocaust. The multi-million dollar fund has already brought thousands of students and scientists to America from the Scandinavian countries for study and research. In memory of his parents (Borge’s father was an honored member of the Royal Danish Philharmonic Orchestra), he has established a special music scholarship; one of the highest study grants in his native country, it is awarded each summer at a gala ceremony in the Concert Hall of the famous Tivoli Gardens. He has also established scholarship grants at the annual Rebild July Fourth Festival in Denmark -- a Danish celebration of U.S. independence -- in honor of Sanna and Victor Borge, and he has given numerous benefits to help worthy causes.

Mr. Borge spends his treasured free time with his five children and nine grandchildren. An expert skipper, Borge says, "with me the three B’s are Bach, Beethoven and Boats."

Deeply devoted to his native country, he is no less grateful for being a citizen in the one he adopted. "The smile," he says, "is the shortest distance."

For more on Victor Borge, see http://www.kor.dk/borge/