Jimmy Durante

James Francis Durante was born on February 10, 1893, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, the youngest of four children of Rosa (née Lentino) and Bartolomeo Durante, both immigrants from Salerno, Campania, Italy. His father worked as a barber. Durante served as an altar boy at St. Malachy Church in Manhattan's Theatre District. He left school in seventh grade to pursue a career as a ragtime pianist, performing in piano bars under the name "Ragtime Jimmy." He later joined the Original New Orleans Jazz Band, one of New York City's first jazz bands and a group in which he was the sole member not originally from New Orleans. During performances, Durante developed a signature technique of interrupting songs to deliver jokes, with the band providing chord punctuation after each line. By 1920, the ensemble had been renamed Jimmy Durante's Jazz Band.

Durante built a reputation as a comedian, actor, singer, and pianist, becoming one of the most recognizable American entertainers from the 1920s through the 1970s. His gravelly voice, Lower East Side accent, comic manipulation of language, jazz-inflected songs, and prominently large nose defined his public persona. He frequently referred to his nose as the "schnozzola," an Italianization of the American Yiddish slang word "schnoz," and the term became his enduring nickname. By the mid-1920s, he had established himself as a vaudeville star and radio personality, performing alongside Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson under the billing Clayton, Jackson, and Durante. The trio appeared at the Palace Theater on Broadway in June 1928, where Betty Felsen's production of Ballet Caprice headlined the bill. Clayton and Jackson remained close friends and frequent collaborators with Durante for the rest of their lives.

Durante's Broadway career spanned from 1929 to 1940 and included a range of musicals and revues. He appeared in Show Girl in 1929 and in Strike Me Pink in 1934. That same year, he recorded "Inka Dinka Doo," a novelty composition with lyrics by Ben Ryan, which became a hit and served as his theme song for the remainder of his life. In 1935, Durante starred in Jumbo, the Billy Rose stage musical, in which a live elephant placed its foot on his head at the close of each performance. He went on to star in Red, Hot and Blue in 1936 and Stars In Your Eyes, and also appeared in Keep Off the Grass. Jackson and Durante additionally appeared together in the Cole Porter musical The New Yorkers, which opened on Broadway on December 8, 1930, with the two playing sidekicks to a bootlegger and nightclub owner.

During the early 1930s, Durante divided his time between Broadway and Hollywood. Among his early films was The Phantom President (1932), a Paramount production starring George M. Cohan, in which Durante played a gregarious sidekick named "Curly Cooney." He subsequently replaced Cliff Edwards as the comic foil opposite Buster Keaton in three Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer comedies: Speak Easily (1932), The Passionate Plumber (1932), and What! No Beer? (1933). MGM ended the series after dismissing Keaton and then cast Durante in lead roles in moderately budgeted comedies, including Meet the Baron (1933), in which he played "Joe McGoo," and Hollywood Party (1934). MGM released Durante from his contract in 1934. He subsequently traveled to England to appear in the Richard Tauber film musical Land Without Music, released in the United States as Forbidden Music. After returning to Hollywood and finding few opportunities, he accepted a role in Columbia Pictures' college musical Start Cheering (1937), earning strong critical notices that revived his film career. He played a sidekick to Gene Autry in the musical Western Melody Ranch (1940), appeared as "Banjo" — a character based on Harpo Marx — in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), and had roles in Ziegfeld Follies (1945), The Milkman (1950), Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962), and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

On radio, Durante appeared on NBC's The Chase and Sanborn Hour beginning September 10, 1933, and took over as host from April 22 to September 30, 1934, after Eddie Cantor's departure. He then hosted The Jumbo Fire Chief Program on NBC from 1935 to 1936. In March 1943, he teamed with comedian Garry Moore for the Durante-Moore Show on NBC, which moved to CBS in October of that year. The pairing brought Durante a broader audience, and his catchphrase "Dat's my boy dat said dat!" later inspired the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy. An April 21, 1948, broadcast of the show featured a reunion of Clayton, Jackson, and Durante. After Moore's departure in mid-1947, the program continued as The Jimmy Durante Show for three additional years. In February 1945, Durante starred alongside Dinah Shore on an episode of Command Performance, broadcast over the Armed Forces Radio Network to American troops worldwide.

Durante made his television debut in 1944 with an unannounced appearance on John Reed King's local audience participation show on WCBW in New York City. From 1950 to 1954, he served as a monthly host on NBC's comedy-variety series Four Star Revue, and from October 2, 1954, to June 23, 1956, he hosted the half-hour variety program The Jimmy Durante Show on NBC. Beginning in the early 1950s, he formed a performing partnership with singer Sonny King that continued until his death. Durante also served multiple times in the 1960s as host of ABC's variety hour The Hollywood Palace. His final regular television series, Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters, aired for one season on ABC from 1969 to 1970.

Durante married his first wife, Jean "Jeanne" Olson, on June 19, 1921. Born in Ohio on August 31, 1896, she died on February 14, 1943, from a heart ailment, while Durante was touring in New York.