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Jimmy Durante
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From All Movie Guide: Known to friends, family and fans as "The Schnozzola" because of his Cyrano-sized nose, American entertainer Jimmy Durante was the youngest child of an immigrant Italian barber. Fed up with his schooling by the second grade, Durante dedicated himself to becoming a piano player, performing in the usual dives, beer halls and public events. He organized a ragtime band, playing for such spots as the Coney Island College Inn and Harlem's Alamo Club. He secured two long-lasting relationships in 1921 when he married Maud Jeanne Olson and formed a professional partnership with dancer Eddie Jackson; two years later Durante and Jackson combined with another dancer, Lou Jackson, to form one of the best-known roughhouse teams of the 1920s. Clayton, Jackson and Durante opened their own speakeasy, the Club Durant (they couldn't afford the "E" on the sign), which quickly became the "in" spot for show-business celebrities and the bane of Prohibition agents. Durante was clearly the star of the proceedings, adopting his lifelong stage character of an aggressive, pugnacious singer, yelling "Stop the music" at the slightest provocation and behaving as though he had to finish his song before the authorities hauled him away for having the nerve to perform.
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One of the most lovable of the eccentric comic actors, Jimmy Durante was paired with Buster Keaton in the early 1930s. This combination would appear to have given Keaton some hope of making a smoother transition to sound pictures; as a team their talents could have been complementary. Durante... had a role in What! No Beer? that pushed the famous silent screen comedian into the background. Urging Keaton to invest in a brewery just as Prohibition is about to be repealed, this lad with the Cyrano de Bergerac profile played the manic character with gusto, shouting the type of malapropism and mixed metaphor that would become typical of his characters: "A hundred-twenty million cracked lips are straining at the leach.
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Before Jimmy Durante became one of the most famous and lovable entertainers of the Twentieth Century, he was a hot piano player and bandleader. Durante was greatly influenced by Scott Joplin and had his first success in show business as a Ragtime piano player starting around 1911. He was billed as "Ragtime Jimmy" and played in New York City and Coney Island. Durante was part of the same wild crowd of early White jazz musicians as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and Johnny Stein. When the New Orleans Jazz style swept New York by storm in 1917 with the arrival of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band Durante was part of the audience at Reisenweber's on Columbus Circle. Durante was very impressed with the band and invited them to play at a club called the Alamo in Harlem where Jimmy played piano.
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The great "Schnozzola," Jimmy Durante's career began as a piano player at parties on the Lower East Side of New York. From there he played in Harlem, co-owned a speakeasy during the 1920's and finally ended up in vaudeville, pretty much an overnight sensation with his partners Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson. Radio, TV and movies were ... outlets for Jimmy's talents, which included singing and telling jokes. "Inka Dinka Doo" and "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey?" remain songs still associated with him, while his trademark closing line, "Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are," still brings a smile to the face of any Jimmy Durante fan.
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After decades of novelty and comedy recordings, film roles and television work, Jimmy Durante was invited into the studio to record a "serious" album of standards and originals. Durante himself was uncertain ...Read full review
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On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 17:12:21 -0500, Stephen Barbone wrote: >Jimmy Durante was a lot more than a celebrity who ... played a little >jazz. He was one of the FIRST JAZZ RECORDING ARTISTS and like many >others of that era, first became a celebrity as a jazz musician. Below >is an excerpt from one of his bios. >"Before Jimmy Durante became one of the most famous and lovable >entertainers of the Twentieth Century, he was a hot piano player and >bandleader. Durante was greatly influenced by Scott Joplin and had his >first success in show business as a Ragtime piano player starting around >1911. He was billed as "Ragtime Jimmy" and played in New York City and >Coney Island." >"Durante was part of the same wild crowd of early White jazz musicians >as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and Johnny Stein.
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Jimmy Durante