February 10 |
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James Francis Durante
's Birthday
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Jimmie Durante was a singer, pianist, comedian
and actor, whose distinctive gravel voice, comic language butchery, j, 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 1970s. Jimmie became a vaudeville star and radio attraction by the mid-1920s, with a music and comedy trio called Clayton, Jackson and Durante. Jackson and Durante appeared in the Cole Porter musical The New Yorkers which opened on Broadway on December 8, 1930. By 1934, he had a major record hit, his own novelty composition" Inka Dinka Doo" and it became his theme song for practically the rest of his life. A year later, Jimmie starred on Broadway in the Billy Rose stage musical 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, "What elephant?", was a regular show-stopper. He made several successful films including The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) playing "Banjo" (a character based on Harpo Marx), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962), and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). Jimmie made his television debut on November 1, 1950, 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. He later stared in the popular The Jimmy Durante Show in which w was the venue of the last performance by Carmen Miranda. Carmen suffered a heart attack while dancing with Jimmy from which she died the next morning.
In 1963, Jimmie recorded an album of pop
standards, September Song. The album became a 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. |
Jellied Moose Nose
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© 2011 Gordon Nary and Tyler Stokes