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Jimmy Durante
James Francis Durante (/dəˈrænti/ də-RAN-tee, Italian: [duˈrante]; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of the United States' most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He often referred to his nose as the schnozzola (Italianization of the American Yiddish slang word schnoz, meaning "big nose"), and the word became his nickname.
Durante was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was the youngest of four children born to Rosa (née Lentino) and Bartolomeo Durante, both immigrants from Salerno, Campania, Italy. Bartolomeo was a barber. Durante served as an altar boy at St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church, known as the Actor's Chapel.
Durante dropped out of school in seventh grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist. He played in piano bars under the name "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 not from New Orleans. His routine of breaking into a song to deliver a joke, with band or orchestra chord punctuation after each line, became a Durante trademark. In 1920, the group was renamed Jimmy Durante's Jazz Band.[citation needed]
By the mid-1920s, Durante had become a vaudeville star and radio personality in a trio named Clayton, Jackson, and Durante. When the trio played Broadway's famed Palace Theater during the week of June 4, 1928, Betty Felsen's production of Ballet Caprice headlined the bill. Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson, Durante's closest friends, often reunited with Durante in subsequent years. Jackson and Durante appeared in the Cole Porter musical The New Yorkers, which opened on Broadway on December 8, 1930. Earlier the same year, the team appeared in the film Roadhouse Nights, ostensibly based on Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest.[citation needed]
By 1934, Durante had a major record hit with his own novelty composition, "Inka Dinka Doo", with lyrics by Ben Ryan. It became his theme song for the rest of his life. A year later, Durante starred on Broadway in the Billy Rose stage musical Jumbo. Durante also appeared on Broadway in Show Girl (1929), Strike Me Pink (1934), and Red, Hot and Blue (1936).
During the early 1930s, Durante alternated between Hollywood and Broadway. Outstanding among his early motion pictures was The Phantom President (1932), starring George M. Cohan, with Durante as his gregarious pal. Durante then replaced Cliff Edwards as the comic foil in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and Buster Keaton comedies: Speak Easily (1932), The Passionate Plumber (1932), and What! No Beer? (1933). Although his style of fast-talking comedy did not always mesh smoothly with the mimed visuals of Keaton, their series proved successful enough and might have continued, but Keaton was experiencing personal problems, including loss of control over his movies, alcohol abuse, and a messy divorce, so MGM fired Keaton and kept Durante. MGM gave Durante leads in moderately budgeted comedies like Meet the Baron (1933) and Hollywood Party (1934), but he could not carry an entire feature film; he was more effective as somebody's sidekick, and MGM released him in 1934.
Durante went to England to work in a Richard Tauber film musical, Land Without Music (released in the United States as Forbidden Music). Upon his return to Hollywood, no movie jobs for him were available. Columbia Pictures offered him a major role in its college musical Start Cheering, filmed in 1937, and he received excellent critical notices, re-establishing him in movies. From then on, he almost always appeared in strong supporting roles.
Durante went on to appear in the Gene Autry musical Western Melody Ranch (1940), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942, playing Banjo, a character based on Harpo Marx), Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962, based on the 1935 musical), and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).
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Jimmy Durante
James Francis Durante (/dəˈrænti/ də-RAN-tee, Italian: [duˈrante]; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of the United States' most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He often referred to his nose as the schnozzola (Italianization of the American Yiddish slang word schnoz, meaning "big nose"), and the word became his nickname.
Durante was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was the youngest of four children born to Rosa (née Lentino) and Bartolomeo Durante, both immigrants from Salerno, Campania, Italy. Bartolomeo was a barber. Durante served as an altar boy at St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church, known as the Actor's Chapel.
Durante dropped out of school in seventh grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist. He played in piano bars under the name "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 not from New Orleans. His routine of breaking into a song to deliver a joke, with band or orchestra chord punctuation after each line, became a Durante trademark. In 1920, the group was renamed Jimmy Durante's Jazz Band.[citation needed]
By the mid-1920s, Durante had become a vaudeville star and radio personality in a trio named Clayton, Jackson, and Durante. When the trio played Broadway's famed Palace Theater during the week of June 4, 1928, Betty Felsen's production of Ballet Caprice headlined the bill. Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson, Durante's closest friends, often reunited with Durante in subsequent years. Jackson and Durante appeared in the Cole Porter musical The New Yorkers, which opened on Broadway on December 8, 1930. Earlier the same year, the team appeared in the film Roadhouse Nights, ostensibly based on Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest.[citation needed]
By 1934, Durante had a major record hit with his own novelty composition, "Inka Dinka Doo", with lyrics by Ben Ryan. It became his theme song for the rest of his life. A year later, Durante starred on Broadway in the Billy Rose stage musical Jumbo. Durante also appeared on Broadway in Show Girl (1929), Strike Me Pink (1934), and Red, Hot and Blue (1936).
During the early 1930s, Durante alternated between Hollywood and Broadway. Outstanding among his early motion pictures was The Phantom President (1932), starring George M. Cohan, with Durante as his gregarious pal. Durante then replaced Cliff Edwards as the comic foil in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and Buster Keaton comedies: Speak Easily (1932), The Passionate Plumber (1932), and What! No Beer? (1933). Although his style of fast-talking comedy did not always mesh smoothly with the mimed visuals of Keaton, their series proved successful enough and might have continued, but Keaton was experiencing personal problems, including loss of control over his movies, alcohol abuse, and a messy divorce, so MGM fired Keaton and kept Durante. MGM gave Durante leads in moderately budgeted comedies like Meet the Baron (1933) and Hollywood Party (1934), but he could not carry an entire feature film; he was more effective as somebody's sidekick, and MGM released him in 1934.
Durante went to England to work in a Richard Tauber film musical, Land Without Music (released in the United States as Forbidden Music). Upon his return to Hollywood, no movie jobs for him were available. Columbia Pictures offered him a major role in its college musical Start Cheering, filmed in 1937, and he received excellent critical notices, re-establishing him in movies. From then on, he almost always appeared in strong supporting roles.
Durante went on to appear in the Gene Autry musical Western Melody Ranch (1940), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942, playing Banjo, a character based on Harpo Marx), Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962, based on the 1935 musical), and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).