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Jimmy Durante

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Jimmy Durante
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Jimmy Durante

James Francis Durante, better known as Jimmy Durante, (February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American singer, pianist, comedian, and actor, whose distinctive gravel delivery, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose -- his frequent jokes about it included a frequent self-reference that became his nickname: "Schnozzola" -- helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1960s.

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The early years

A product of working-class New York, Durante dropped out of school in the eighth grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist, working the city circuit and earning the nickname "Ragtime Jimmy," before he joined one of the first recognizable jazz bands in New York, the Original New Orleans Jazz Band---Durante was the only member of the group who didn't hail from New Orleans. But his outgoing personality and ability to sell a song to the audience---with or without the jokes (his routines of breaking into a song to use a joke, with band or orchestra chord punctuation after each line became a Durante trademark)---began attracting wider attention by 1920, when the group was renamed Jimmy Durante's Jazz Band.

Inka Dinka Doing It

Durante became a vaudeville star and radio attraction by the mid-1920s, with a music and comedy trio called Clayton, Jackson and Durante. The billing didn't stop Durante from becoming the obvious star of the trio. By 1934, he had a major record hit, his own novelty composition "Inka Dinka Doo," and it became his signature song for practically the rest of his life. A year later, Durante starred in the Billy Rose stage spectacle, Jumbo, in which a police officer stopped him while leading a live elephant and asked him, "What are you doing with that elephant?" Durante's reply -- "Elephant? What elephant?" -- was a regular show-stopper.

He began appearing in motion pictures at about the same time, beginning with a comedy series pairing the Ol' Schnozzola with silent film legend Buster Keaton and continuing with such offerings as The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

On the Air

But Durante made himself a bigger name with his nationally-broadcast radio variety show in the 1940s. Durante all but lucked into radio: the creators of Eddie Cantor's popular The Chase and Sanborn Hour (which also made stars out of Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy) contacted Durante to fill in for Cantor---and Durante was such a hit he was offered his own show.

In 1943, Durante hit his radio stride with future television favourite Garry Moore as his sidekick. Already successful as a solo, Durante's comic chemistry with the young, brushcut Moore---"Dat's my boy dat said dat!" became an instant catchphrase---brought Durante an even larger audience. He became one of the nation's favourite radio stars for the rest of the decade, including a well-reviewed Armed Forces Radio Network command performance with Frank Sinatra that remains a favourite of radio collectors today. And he managed to survive Moore's 1947 departure for three more years -- including a reunion of Clayton, Jackson and Durante on his April 21, 1948 broadcast.

Durante graduated to television in the 1950s, though he kept a presence in radio as one of the frequent guests on Tallulah Bankhead's two-year, NBC comedy-variety show, The Big Show. Durante, in fact, was one of a cast on the show's premiere November 5, 1950 that surely ranks it as among the most high-talent gatherings in the history of American broadcasting---the rest of the cast included humourist Fred Allen, singers Mindy Carson and Frankie Laine, stage musical legend Ethel Merman, actors Jose Ferrer and Paul Lukas, and comic-singer Danny Thomas (about to become a major television star in his own right). A highlight of the show was Durante and Thomas, whose own nose rivaled Durante's, in a hilarious routine in which Durante accused Thomas of stealing his nose. ("Stay outta dis, No-Nose!" Durante barked at Bankhead to a big laugh.)

Beginning in the early 1950s, Durante teamed with sidekick Sonny King, a collaboration that would continue until Durante's death. Jimmy could be seen regularly in Las Vegas after Sunday mass outside of the Guardian Angel Cathedral standing next to the priest and greeting the people as they left mass.

The Sorrow of Mrs. Calabash

Durante's radio show was bracketed with two trademarks: "Inka Dinka Doo" as his opening theme, and the invariable signoff that became another familiar national catchphrase: "Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."

What Durante's fans didn't know---until after his own death---was that the sign-off was his personal salute to his late first wife, Jeanne Olsen, whom he married June 19, 1921. They stayed married until her death on Valentine's Day in 1943. "Calabash" was a typical Durante mangle of Calabasas, the southern California locale where the couple made their home for the last years of her life.

If Valentine's Day proved a day of sorrow for the comedian, he made Christmas Day, 1961, even more joyous than usual when he married his second wife, Marjorie Little, whom he had courted for sixteen years after meeting her at the Copacabana, where she worked as a hatcheck girl -- and was 28 years his junior. (She was 39, he 67, when they married.) The couple adopted a baby, Cecelia Alicia (nicknamed CeCe), who became a horseback-riding instructor near San Diego, married a computer designer, and has two sons and a daughter.

Charitable Work

Jimmy's love for children continued through the Fraternal Order of Eagles, who among many causes raise money for handicapped and abused children. At Jimmy's first appearance at the Eagles International Convention in 1961, judge Bob Hansen inquired about his fee for performing. Jimmy replied: "don't even mention money judge or I'll have to mention a figure that'll make ya sorry ya brought it up." "What can we do then?" asked Hansen. "HELP DA KIDS." Jimmy performed for many years at Eagles conventions free of charge, not even accepting travel money. The Fraternal Order of Eagles in his honor changed the name of their Children's Fund to the Jimmy Durante Children's Fund, and in his memory have raised over 20 million dollars to help children. An acquaintance once remarked of Durante: "You could warm your hands on this man".

Twilight

CeCe's father continued his film appearances through 1963 and television appearances through 1970. He eventually narrated the Rankin-Bass animated Christmas special Frosty the Snowman, which has been an annual holiday favourite since. The television work also included a series of commercial spots for Kellogg's Corn Flakes cereals, in the early 1960s, which introduced Durante's gravelly growl and narrow-eyed, large-nosed countenance to millions of children who probably had no idea how much he had entertained their parents and grandparents in the previous two decades. ("Dis is Jimmy Durante---in puy-son!" was his introduction to some of the Kellogg's spots.)

In 1963, Durante recorded an album of pop standards, September Song. The album became an unexpected best-seller and provided Durante's re-introduction, to yet another generation, almost three decades later: his gravelly interpretation of "As Time Goes By" accompanied the opening credits of the romantic comedy hit, Sleepless in Seattle, while his version of "Make Someone Happy" launched the film's closing credits. The former number appeared on the film's best-selling soundtrack.

Jimmy Durante died of pneumonia in Santa Monica, California, aged 86, and was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City. Aside from "Dat's my boy dat said dat!" and "It's a catastastroke!" (for "catastrophe,") Durante sent such catch-phrases as "Everybody wantsta get inta the act!", "Oombriago!" and "Ha-cha-cha-chaaaaaaa!" into the vernacular.

A character in M-G-M cartoons, a bulldog named Spike, whose puppy son was always getting caught by accident in the middle of Tom and Jerry's mayhem, referenced Durante with a raspy voice and an affectionate "Dat's my boy!" A Durante-like voice was also given to the father beagle, Doggie Daddy, in Hanna-Barbera Augie Doggie cartoons, Doggie Daddy invariably addressing the junior beagle with a Durante-like "Augie, my son, my son." Durante has also remained a favourite subject of comic impersonation, including the recent television comedy, The Family Guy.

Filmography

External links

 

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