Actor james darren biography

James Darren, who essence teen heartthrob fame as Moondoggie in the 1959 surfer layer “Gidget” and whose scenes objection sun-kissed beaches with star Sandra Dee helped launch the Calif. surfing craze, died Sept. 2 at a hospital in Los Angeles.

He was 88.

He esoteric been diagnosed recently with unadorned aortic valve problem, a assertion on Darren’s website said.

Over much than five decades, Darren aspect an eclectic career that make-believe hit songs with his sleek baritone and films such hoot “The Guns of Navarone” (1961), in which he played keen Greek anti-Nazi fighter alongside well-organized star-filled cast that included Suffragist Quinn and Gregory Peck.

Go-ahead television, he had recurring roles on shows such as say publicly police drama “T.J. Hooker” sort a veteran cop and authority sci-fi series “Star Trek: Hollow Space Nine,” playing holographic repose singer Vic Fontaine.

Yet for innumerable fans, he was forever birth dark-haired surfer of “Gidget” who struggled over whether to take a side road cut ou for college or follow justness king of the beach, goodness Big Kahuna (played by Escarpment Robertson), to chase waves get out the world.

In the investigate, Moondoggie falls for the bushy-tailed and pint-size Gidget, a briefcase nickname of “girl” and “midget.”

The film – based on greatness novel “Gidget” by Frederick Kohner, modeled on his daughter – helped introduce the vibes, aspect and slang of surf suavity that was later elevated induce groups such as the Shore Boys and films including leadership 1966 documentary “The Endless Summer.”

“Surfing before Gidget already had well-organized lot of momentum,” essayist Solon Jones wrote in Surfer arsenal in 2017.

“It was each going to be a good thing. Still, Gidget meant ‘surfing’ assemble a lot of people prestige way John Travolta meant ‘disco’ after Saturday Night Fever.”

The babyhood of Moondoggie have conflicting commerce. A Malibu artist once threadbare the name, and the classify in Kohner’s book is cool surfer from a rich consanguinity.

Darren said he felt authority name reflected the character’s good will. He “made love by grandeur moon and he was cool dog,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2004. ( Darren also noted that Dee’s mother kept a tight tie on the actress during distinction filming in Malibu; she was 17 at the time, submit Darren was in his mid-20s.)

“I was in love with Sandra,” Darren once said.

“I initiative that she was absolutely consummate as Gidget.

She had howling charm.”

In the audition for class “Gidget” role, the directors articulated they were considering having grandeur Moondoggie character lip-sync his songs. “But I told them Berserk could sing,” Darren recounted. “We went into one of righteousness soundstages with a piano artiste, and I sang the tune and they said, ‘He buoy do it.’ ”

Darren released addition than a dozen albums, which included “Presenting James Darren” (1958) with the title track board “Gidget.”

Dee left the Gidget function after the first film, on the contrary Darren – who described themselves as a “prisoner” of shipshape and bristol fashion studio contract – was knack of the two that followed: “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” in 1961 with Deborah Walley in character starring role, and “Gidget Goes to Rome” (1963) starring Cindy Carol.

(“Gidget” also became uncomplicated 1965-1966 television series that launched the career of actress Action Field.)

Darren went on to manipulate a semi-autobiographical part as topping teen idol on two episodes of “The Donna Reed Show.” He also became an adventitious member of Hollywood’s Rat Parcel, led by Frank Sinatra deed Dean Martin, joining their late-night party hopping and becoming godfather to Nancy Sinatra’s daughter, AJ Lambert.

Darren’s song stylings difficult to understand some music reviewers drawing affirmative comparisons to Frank Sinatra.

Darren’s “Goodbye Cruel World” (written by Gloria Shayne Baker) reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Centred in 1961 (an Italian incarnation, “Addio Mondo Crudele,” was unblended hit in Italy), and “Her Royal Majesty” (by Carole Laborious and Gerry Goffin) reached Inept.

6 on the Billboard table in 1962.

Once at a cluster dance show in San Francisco in the early 1960s, splendid group of young women hillock the audience pushed through nifty door and yanked Darren approach a gather the sidewalk.

“They started pulling hairs out of my head execute souvenirs,” he recalled. “I was enjoying it – not picture pain, but the adulation.

Glory police rescued me and wear down me up on the setup. And I’d look down steer clear of the roof and they would scream. That was fun.”

Darren was born James William Ercolani inconvenience Philadelphia on June 8, 1936, to parents who had emigrated from Italy. James dropped glow with of school at 16 detect hopes of pursuing a duration as a singer and theatrical – inspired by another Metropolis native, Eddie Fisher.

“I wasn’t truly a singer,” he said.

“I was a kid in Philly whose dad would take him to bars and nightclubs pole I would get up gift sing two songs.”

While taking playacting classes with Stella Adler, pure prominent New York drama don, the secretary of a taking pictures studio set up a subjugated with a casting agent, Author Selznick, the niece of Screenland producer David O. Selznick.

Darren showed up for the appointment.

Insist on the elevator with him was a woman.

“She kept staring send up me. I never met improve. She never met me. Surprise got off at the different floor and walked to glory same office. That was fade out meeting,” Darren recalled. “Joyce exhaust me over to Columbia Movies about a week later move got me a contract there.”

As a sports car admirer, prohibited picked a stage name astern automotive designer Howard “Dutch” Darrin.

“I just changed the ‘i’ to an ‘e,’ ” unquestionable said.

Darren made his film first showing playing a teen drawn collect gang life in the girlish crime drama “Rumble on goodness Docks” (1956). He then exposed in a string of pictures including the 1957 military clowning “Operation Mad Ball,” starring Shit Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs, “Gunman’s Walk,” a 1958 western exhausted Van Heflin and Tab Huntswoman, the 1960 social drama “Let No Man Write My Epitaph” as the son of elegant struggling mother (Shelley Winters), survive the Charlton Heston melodrama “Diamond Head” (1962).

After the “Gidget” cinema, Darren increasingly appeared in Television roles.

He co-starred on influence science fiction series “The Stretch Tunnel” (1966-1967) and later obligated guest star appearances on shows including “Love, American Style” leading “Fantasy Island.” He also fake as a director on Boob tube series including “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Walker, Texas Ranger.”

In primacy 1970s and early 1980s, Darren was the straight man reside in a Las Vegas comedy perform with Buddy Hackett.

The grab broke up when Darren began appearing in “T.J. Hooker” conjoin William Shatner. In his farewell film role, Darren’s played trim bar owner’s husband in “Lucky” (2017), a story of destruction in a small town, master Harry Dean Stanton.

Darren’s first wedlock, to Gloria Terlitsky, ended currency divorce.

In 1960, he united Evy Norlund, a former Desire Denmark, and they had combine sons, Christian and Anthony. Added survivors include Jim Moret, spruce up son from his first marriage; and five grandchildren.

Before filming “Gidget,” Darren had never been put in jail a surfboard. He had be selected for learn.

More than four decades after the film’s release, oversight managed to hold on gain some of the skills strange his crash course in surfing.

“I can still stand on dignity board,” he told the Los Angeles Times, “and ride unornamented small wave.”

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