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Bea Lillie or—and this one hurts— Jerry Lewis. “I hate comparisons,” she groans, registering despair. “All my life,” explains Kaye, who is 27, “I thought I was ugly. I just about got to the point where it didn’t matter so much when someone brought up Jerry Lewis. I became a comedienne because I didn’t like my face and I found when I distorted it, people laughed. But I didn’t know anything about the subtleties of acting. A real actress can say more with a glance than with a whole facial contortion. “Real comedy,” according to the soft-spoken Kaye, “is achieved by set¬ ting up a universal truth and then exaggerating it. I used to want to be a great comedienne, but now I know that I really want to be a great ac¬ tress who is funny. Someday, maybe, even like Shirley Booth.” Kaye is probably the most self- deflating person ever to have wan¬ dered into show business. It could, of course, be argued that for the benefit of the press all performers have simulated modesty. But Kaye’s self- consciousness, which refers only to her physical being, not her talent, seems bom of hypersensitivity. At lunch one summer afternoon she was called to the phone. As she left the table she wrapped a coat around so that other diners couldn’t see her body. “I’m fat,” she claims. She isn’t, but she diets anyway. Spike Jones gave the Cleveland girl her start as a comic tuba player and specialty singer. From there, she went off on her own into night clubs, playing New York’s chic East Side Blue Angel for 66 weeks. She appeared in nine different shows, including the English company of “Touch and Go,” which gave two command performances. But she never got before the Broadway critics until “The Golden Apple,” and then, she says, “The show was an artistic hit,” which means, “The critics loved it but we closed before the public got to see very much of us.” It was in “Touch and Go” that Nat Karson, then producer of The Snm- mer Comedy Hour, first saw Kaye. When her name was later submitted to him he remembered who she was and signed her for two shows with options for others. Meanwhile, NBC officials were so impressed they signed her to a five-year contract last April, without asking her to go through the so-called proving ground of the sum¬ mer dog days. “I think I’m being groomed for something big,” Kaye says. “Other¬ wise they wouldn’t guarantee my salary whether I work or not.” Last year, NBC had 10 non working people under contract. But Kaye is destined to work for her low-caloried meals. She’s slated for four of the Comedy Hotirs this winter, a few of the “spec¬ taculars,” and has completed a pilot film for a new situation comedy. She also has an offer to play Las Vegas at $5000 a week. Five years ago she worked there for $850—and, she adds, “I thought it was a lot of money.” 21