- published: 26 May 2009
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James Francis "Jimmy" Durante (February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. His jokes about his nose included referring to it as a "Schnozzola", 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 Bartolomeo Durante and his mail-order bride Rosa, both of whom were immigrants from Salerno, Italy. Bartolomeo was a barber, and his wife Rosa was the sister of a woman who lived in the same boarding house. Jimmy Durante served as an altar boy at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church, known as the Actor's Chapel.
Durante dropped out of school in eighth grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist. He first played with his cousin, whose name was also "Jimmy Durante." It was a family act, but he was too professional for his cousin. He continued working the city's piano bar circuit and earned 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 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.
Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Durante - The Song's Gotta Come From The Heart - Voice Cameo by Al Jolson
Jimmy Durante `Young At Heart` 09/26/69
Jimmy Durante Live in Vegas 1955 TV
Jimmy Durante - Make Someone Happy
I'll Be Seeing You - Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante - I'll Be Seeing You
Jimmy Durante I'll See You In My Dreams
Jimmy Durante: KMH 1/23/64
Jimmy Durante - Frosty The Snowman
The Blanks - The Ballad of Jimmy Durante - Riding the Wave - Lyrics (2004) HQ
Jimmy Durante & Harry James - Inka Dinka Doo - Live
Leibowitz Home movie 1967 Jimmy Durante Make Someone Happy
Jimmy Durante sings "The Glory of Love"
Jimmy Durante - ( If You're ) Young at Heart
Actors: William Forrest (actor), Jimmy Durante (actor), Leonard Bremen (actor), James Flavin (actor), Larry J. Blake (actor), Paul Douglas (actor), Jack Benny (actor), Don Brodie (actor), Ralph Brooks (actor), Eric Alden (actor), Walter Catlett (actor), G. Pat Collins (actor), Willis Bouchey (actor), Russ Bender (actor), Sam Harris (actor),
Plot: The story of Jimmy Walker who became mayor of New York in the '20s. Used by professional politicians and money-grabbers, Walker himself was "stupid but clean", although his open affair with Betty Compton cost him dear.
Keywords: 1920s, 1930s, actress, albany-new-york, audition, banquet, baseball, based-on-book, break-up, broadway-manhattan-new-york-cityActors: Barry Brooks (actor), Jack Gargan (actor), William Forrest (actor), Paul Birch (actor), Arthur Franz (actor), James Flavin (actor), John Anderson (actor), Eddie Cantor (actor), Chick Chandler (actor), Tristram Coffin (actor), James Conaty (actor), James Craven (actor), Douglas Evans (actor), Don Dillaway (actor), Alex Gerry (actor),
Genres: Biography, Drama, Music,Actors: Jack Mercer (actor), Jack Mercer (actor), Jack Mercer (actor), Jack Mercer (actor), Jack Mercer (actor), Mae Questel (actress), Mae Questel (actress), Mae Questel (actress), Cecil Roy (actress), Seymour Kneitel (producer), Izzy Sparber (producer), Isadore Klein (writer), Winston Sharples (composer), Seymour Kneitel (director),
Plot: Little Audrey, an avid reader of pulp-fiction detective stories, falls asleep and dreams she is in animal-land investigating the murder of Cock Robin. She questions the animals, many of which resemble famous show-business people, and finds out that it was her own pet-canary who shot the arrow, that killed Cock Robin, meant as a valentine. She awakens, and finds her canary it its cage romancing a bird that resembles Cock Robin.
Keywords: 1950s, arrow, bird, book, bow-and-arrow, cage, canary, caricature, detective, detective-storyActors: Izzy Sparber (director), Jack Mercer (actor), Jack Mercer (actor), Sid Raymond (actor), Sam Buchwald (producer), Seymour Kneitel (producer), Izzy Sparber (producer), Jackson Beck (actor), Bill Turner (writer), Winston Sharples (composer), Larry Riley (writer),
Plot: A combination cartoon/travelogue set in the Swiss Alps, with a tuneful sight-seeing tour of Switzerland thrown in, before the bounding-ball comes bouncing along and asks the theatre audience to follow it in singing the ever-popular "I Miss My Swiss Miss, My Swiss Miss Misses Me." Some of the theatre singers may have actually thrown in a yodel or two.
Keywords: 1940s, accordion, alpine, audience-participation, axe, chimney, commentary, commentator, community-singing, europeActors: Treg Brown (editor), Mel Blanc (actor), Mel Blanc (actor), Mel Blanc (actor), Mel Blanc (actor), Mel Blanc (actor), Bea Benaderet (actress), Edward Selzer (producer), Michael Maltese (writer), Carl W. Stalling (composer), Friz Freleng (director), Hawley Pratt (director), Richard Bickenbach (actor),
Plot: Seeking fame and fortune in the picture business, the little black duck arrives in Hollywood and makes a bee line for Warmer Brothers studio where he hopes to meet the stars and land a contract. However, the studio has a guard who is determined not to let anyone in.
Keywords: breaking-the-fourth-wall, cartoon-duck, celebrity-caricature, character-name-in-title, jimmy-durante-spoof, merrie-melodies, movie-studio-guard, oscar-statuette, reference-to-bette-davis, reference-to-daffy-duck