James Francis "Jimmy" Durante (February 10, 1893 – March 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.
Childhood
Durante was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was the youngest of four children born to Bartolomeo and Rosa Durante, 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 atSaint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church, known as the Actor's Chapel.
Early career
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'spiano bar circuit and earned the nickname "Ragtime Jimmy," before he joined one of the first recognizable jazz bands in New York, theOriginal 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.
Durante made his television debut on November 1, 1950, though he kept a presence in radio as one of the frequent guests onTallulah Bankhead's two-year, NBC comedy-variety show, The Big Show.
On August 4, 1955, The Jimmy Durante Show on NBC was the venue of the final performance by the famous Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda. Miranda fell to her knees while dancing with Durante, who instinctively told the band, "STOP--da music!" He helped Miranda up to her feet as she laughed, "I'm all out of breath!" "Dat's OK, honey, I'll take yer lines," Durante replied. Miranda laughed again and quickly pulled herself together and finished the show. However, the next morning, August 5, Miranda died at home from heart failure.
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