Posted on: Fairfield County Obituaries Reply Here: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ct/FairfieldObits/452 Surname: ------------------------- Obituaries - December 24, 2000 Statesman Journal, Salem, OR Victor Borge Jan. 3, 1909— Dec. 23, 2000 Classical music’s Borge dead at 91. The “clown prince” dies at home in his sleep Saturday. The Associated Press GREENWICH, Conn. (Fairfield Co.) — Victor Borge, the daffy pianist whose whimsical approach to the classics earned him the moniker the “clown prince” of Denmark, died Saturday. He was 91. Borge died at home in sleep, his longtime manager, Bernard Gurtman, said. Borge had just returned from Copenhagen, the city of his birth, and was excited about spending Christmas with his family, Gurtman said. Borge would have turned 92 on Jan. 3. For decades, Borge delighted audiences by deflating the pomposity of classical music. He fell off his bench, played music upside down and in weird ways, and repeatedly milked laughs from such classic routines as “phonetic punctuation” in which he used goofy sounds to indicate commas, periods and question marks in his monologue. He kept up a busy career into his 80s, touring and issuing videos, including “The Best of Victor Borge,” which sold some 3 million copies. “Some people reach the point where they must try desperately to hold on to something that isn’t there anymore, no matter how great they are,” he said in a 1986 interview. “This is where I am very, very lucky. We all do what we can, we all have limitations. Apparently, within my limitations, there is enough to go on and on and on and on.” Borge performed 100 or more nights a year, sometimes as pianist and sometimes as conductor, usually as a clown but sometimes in dead earnest. In his later years, he directed Mozart’s “Magic Flute” in Cleveland and prepared a concert version of “Carmen.”