Jimmy Durante

Among entertainers, few have established an exclusive domain in comedy that yielded enduring prosperity spanning multiple decades and remained wholly under their control, yet Jimmy Durante achieved precisely this distinction. No school of performers ever emerged in his style, since his persona fused so completely with his public image that it became embedded in the national mind. Anyone attempting to lift even a fragment of his routine risked instant dismissal as a mere copyist forever measured against the authentic Schnozzola and invariably found wanting. Durante’s extraordinary popularity seemed to flout every accepted principle of the entertainment industry. A gravel-voiced singer should never have succeeded so thoroughly, nor should a man of pronounced homeliness have turned that very feature into a lucrative asset that carried him into motion pictures. Few could have worn threadbare suits and a battered fedora over thinning hair, puffed a cheap cigar, and twisted English with greater warmth or laughter than he managed. Still fewer won over crowds simply by embodying an ordinary, working-class everyman from the wrong side of town. He freely admitted his vocal shortcomings, his unappealing appearance, his rumpled wardrobe, and his fractured syntax, yet these very liabilities became sources of his singular appeal. One critic likened him to an audience heckler who had grown impatient enough to seize the spotlight himself, flouting theatrical convention. Nothing about Durante was understated. Whether he demolished a piano and hurled the fragments outward, delivered the number “I Know Darn Well I Can Do Without Broadway (But Can Broadway Do Without Me?),” or briefly revealed a gentler, reflective facet of his character, he reached the audience’s emotions with unrelenting force.

James Francis Durante entered the world on February 10, 1893, inside an Italian enclave on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a short distance from Chinatown. He displayed an early gift for the piano, an accomplishment often overlooked in later accounts. Although his parents envisioned a classical career, the boy already charted his own course: “My perfesser tried to make me play ‘Poet and Peasant.’ I played ‘Maple Leaf,’ ‘Popularity,’ and ‘Wild Cherries.’ I couldn’t do nuttin’ else then, and I can’t do nuttin’ else today.” Listeners who encountered him during his pre-comedy engagements in Harlem nightspots and Coney Island saloons praised the white ragtime pianist known locally as Ragtime Jimmy, whose left hand operated with singular independence while his right hand fused with it to elevate early-century ragtime to the level of American art. At age seventeen he worked inside Diamond Tony’s, gathering tips for singing waiters that included a youthful Eddie Cantor, and earned a reputation for collecting every coin without ever losing the beat; Cantor was remembered as the most generous nickel contributor.

Early in 1916, Durante assembled a six-piece group called Jimmy Durante’s Original Jazz Novelty Band at Harlem’s Club Alamo. The loud ensemble resorted to placards to inform listeners when waltzes or fox trots were underway. During that engagement another act on the bill bestowed the lasting nickname “The Schnozzola.” The band quickly became a fixture in New York speakeasies, with Durante still confining himself to vigorous piano playing. Accounts describe him as initially reluctant to step forward because of childhood ridicule centered on his prominent nose, which had been broken and improperly set by schoolyard tormentors. Eddie Cantor urged him to rise, face the audience, and trade barbs with the drummer. Durante hesitated at first, fearing the laughter would target him, yet soon discovered that audience approval outweighed any discomfort. The act drew notice, though the pay remained modest. After earning only one hundred dollars weekly at the Club Nightingale, he listened to waiter Frank Nolan’s suggestion that ownership of his own venue could bring rapid wealth. Durante secured a loft above a used-car lot in lower Manhattan and recruited partners Nolan, singing waiter Eddie Jackson, and Jackson’s song-and-dance associate Harry Harris. Together they opened the Club Durant, its truncated spelling attributed to insufficient funds for the final letter on the sign.

Despite Durante’s local reputation, the club did not prosper immediately. Vaudeville soft-shoe dancer Lou Clayton became a regular patron and recognized the potential to highlight Durante’s comedic gifts. Clayton purchased Harris’s share, joined the stage trio, and helped create a whirlwind act that transformed the cramped room into a chaotic spectacle. Critic John Fisher later observed that the team’s unrestrained comic vigor, with Durante constantly at its center, established a benchmark for improvised cabaret humor that remains unmatched. The partnership of Clayton, Jackson, and Durante produced a loyalty that endured long after their joint performances ceased. The shows grew legendary, attracting writers Damon Runyon, Ed Sullivan, and Walter Winchell, Broadway figures George Jessel, Al Jolson, and George M. Cohan, as well as figures such as Waxey Gordon and Legs Diamond. When authorities shuttered the premises in the late 1920s, the three men moved successfully to Broadway and the nightclub circuit. Hollywood offered a contract to Durante alone; Clayton became his manager while Jackson remained a “vice president” and continued supplying material.

Durante’s initial MGM assignment paired him with Buster Keaton. Although each reportedly felt the other constrained his approach, they completed several pictures, among them the 1932 release Speak Easily. His role two years later in Palooka introduced the song “Inka Dinka Doo,” which became his signature. Additional screen credits encompass Hollywood Party, Roadhouse Nights, Student Tour, George White’s Scandals, Cuban Love Song, Music for Millions, It Happened in Brooklyn, and The Milkman. His profile also surfaced in numerous Walt Disney and Warner Brothers animated shorts, cementing his status as a widely recognized comic emblem.

By the late 1940s Durante hosted his own radio program, appearing alongside partners that included Alan Young and Garry Moore. Television provided another platform for reinvention. Reviving the Club Durant atmosphere with Eddie Jackson introduced his style to viewers unfamiliar with nightclub performance and proved highly effective. Although structured as a conventional variety hour featuring guests such as Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, and Sophie Tucker, the program was defined by Durante’s relentless energy. Familiar songs and sketches were adapted, yet the finale changed: rather than the customary hat-shaking exit, he walked through a succession of diminishing spotlights before turning to deliver the line “Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.” The 1960s kept him active in further television work and nightclub engagements. Advancing age lent his familiar character an added layer of wistfulness. At seventy he recorded a collection of standards for Warner Bros.; the album September Song unexpectedly reached the Top 40 in 1963. That same year he appeared as Smiler Grogan in Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World, his final screen role culminating in a literal kick of the bucket.

Durante’s health declined through the remainder of the decade. A 1970 stroke left him reliant on a wheelchair and ended live performances, though film clips and archival material continued to circulate. Friends and longtime associates remained close until his death from heart failure on January 20, 1980. Few comedians have earned the description “one of a kind” as fully as Jimmy Durante.