Jimmy Durante
Birthday: 1893-02-09
Place of Birth: New York City, New York, USA
Biography: Comedian, composer, actor, singer and songwriter ("Inka Dinka Doo") Jimmy Durante was educated in New York public schools. He began his career as a Coney Island pianist, and organized a five-piece band in 1916. He opened the Club Durant with Eddie Jackson and Lou Clayton, with whom he later formed a comedy trio for vaudeville and on television. He appeared in the Broadway musicals "Show Girl", "The New Yorkers", "Strike Me Pink", "Jumbo", "Red Hot and Blue", and "Stars in Your Eyes". By 1936, he had appeared at the Palladium in London. Later he had his own radio and television shows, and was a featured headliner in night clubs. Biographer Gene Fowler wrote his biography, "Schnozzola". Joining ASCAP in 1941, he collaborated musically with Jackie Barnett and Ben Ryan, and his other popular song compositions include "I'm Jimmy That Well-Dressed Man", "I Know Darn Well I Can Do Without Broadway", "I Ups to Him and He Ups to Me", "Daddy Your Mamma Is Lonesome For You", "Umbriago", "Any State In the Forty-Eight", "Chidabee Chidabee Chidabee", and "I'm Jimmy's Girl".
Movies
Blondie of the Follies
New York City tenement dwelling neighbors Blondie and Lottie are longtime best friends. When Lottie ...
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The Movie Orgy
Clips from assorted television programs, B-movies, commercials, music performances, newsreels, bloop...
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It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $...
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Palooka
Joe Palooka is a naive young man whose father Pete was a champion boxer, but his lifestyle caused Jo...
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The Man Who Came to Dinner
An acerbic critic wreaks havoc when a hip injury forces him to move in indefinitely with a Midwester...
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Frosty the Snowman
A discarded silk top-hat becomes the focus of a struggle between a washed-up stage magician and a gr...
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Billy Rose's Jumbo
The daughter of a circus owner fights to save her father from a takeover spearheaded by the man she ...
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On an Island with You
A young navy lieutenant is brought in as technical adviser on a song-dance-and-swim film being made ...
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Little Miss Broadway
An orphan is provisionally adopted by the manager of a hotel populated by show business people. The ...
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The Great Rupert
Shortly before Christmas, a family moves into an apartment where Rupert the squirrel lives in the at...
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It Happened in Brooklyn
Danny has been in the army for 4 years, yet all he thinks about is Brooklyn and how great it is. Whe...
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Showbiz Goes to War
While a few Hollywood celebrities such as James Stewart and Clark Gable saw combat during World War ...
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Roadhouse Nights
Based on the Hammett novel, this ultra-rare film—is nominally taken from the author's classic gang-w...
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Two Girls and a Sailor
A sailor helps two sisters start up a service canteen. The sailor soon becomes taken with gorgeous s...
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What! No Beer?
When Prohibition ends, a barber tries to get in the liquor business only to come up against mobsters...
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The Passionate Plumber
Paris plumber Elmer Tuttle is enlisted by socialite Patricia Alden to help make her lover Tony Lagor...
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Pepe
Mario "Cantinflas" Moreno is a hired hand, Pepe, employed on a ranch. A boozing Hollywood director b...
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Broadway to Hollywood
In this through-the-years saga about a show business family, the fame of husband and wife vaudeville...
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The Cuban Love Song
A guilt-ridden U.S. Marine returns to Cuba to try to find the woman he promised to marry....
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Happy Birthday, Bob: 50 Stars Salute Your 50 Years with NBC
Stars celebrate Bob Hope's 50 years with NBC....
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Start Cheering
After retiring from movies to get an education, a man discovers his ex-staff is trying to have him e...
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The March of Time
Unfinished pre-Code era film consisting of three sections with past performers from the stage and th...
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The Wet Parade
The evils of alcohol before and during prohibition become evident as we see its effects on the rich ...
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George White's Scandals
Reporter Miss Lee is looking for a story and approaches George White as he's assembling the latest e...
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Meet the Baron
A charlatan posing as Baron Munchhausen is invited to be guest speaker at a girls' school....
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The Phantom President
Too bad for presidential hopes of banker T.K. Blair; his party feels he has too little flair for sav...
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Give a Man a Job
A three-minute short made in conjunction with the National Recovery Administration that urges employ...
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Strictly Dynamite
A failed poet ends up becoming a gag writer for a bombastic comedian....
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Hollywood Party
Jimmy Durante is jungle movie star Schnarzan the Conqueror, but the public is tiring of his fake lio...
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Alice Through the Looking Glass
Alice returns to Wonderland through the looking glass in this TV musical....
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Hollywood on Parade No. A-3
Eddie Kane wanders round the studio back-lot, opening various doors to see which stars pop out....
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Land Without Music
Believing real life is an operetta, the citizens of the European country Lucco break into song at ev...
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Melody Ranch
His Arizona hometown of Torpedo invites Gene back to be the honorary sheriff of the Frontier Days Ce...
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Music for Millions
Six-year-old "Mike" goes to live with her pregnant older sister, Babs, who plays string bass in José...
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Hell Below
On leave in Italy, Lt. Tommy Knowlton falls in love with Jean Standish, who's not only married, but ...
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Student Tour
A philosophy professor accompanies his school's rowing team on a worldwide tour....
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Don Knotts: Tied Up with Laughter
The beloved, Emmy-winning comic actor Don Knotts, best-known for his roles as the bumbling deputy Ba...
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Checking Out: Grand Hotel
Until 1932's Grand Hotel, never had there existed an all-star ensemble cast on film. Conceived by MG...
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New Adventures of Get Rich Quick Wallingford
Wallingford is a con-man whose specialty is taking money from suckers. His partners are Schnozzle, a...
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Sally, Irene and Mary
Manicurists Sally, Irene and Mary hope to be Broadway entertainers. When Mary inherits an old ferry ...
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Going Hollywood: The '30s
Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were...
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Two Sisters from Boston
Abigail Chandler has written her stuffy Boston relatives that she's a successful opera singer in New...
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The Christmas Party
In this holiday short, Jackie Cooper wants to throw a Christmas party for his friends on his footbal...
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The New March of Dimes Presents: The Scene Stealers
A TV movie with intertwining music numbers and sketches....
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That's Entertainment!
Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year hi...
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Carnival
"Chick" Thompson is a puppet-master in a traveling carnival whose wife dies in childbirth and leaves...
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You're in the Army Now
Incompetent door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen become enlisted without their knowledge....
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The Last Judgment
In Naples, a voice from the skies announces one morning that the final judgment will be at 6 p.m. on...
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That's Entertainment! III
Some of MGM'S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929...
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Hollywood on Parade No. B-9
Jimmy Durante asks popular song writing team Mack Gordon and Harry Revel to demonstrate some of thei...
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Hollywood Musicals of the 40's
Highlights from the great musicals of the 1940s. Stars featured include Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney,...
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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American ent...
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That's Entertainment, Part II
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time includi...
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Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song
The films, affairs and struggles of the iconic star of The Blue Angel as told by Rosemary Clooney, R...
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Screen Snapshots (Series 16, No. 1)
Viewers are provided a visit to Ken Maynard's private circus; Bette Davis poses for her portrait; Fr...
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The Best of Bob Hope: 50 Years of Laughter — Volume 1
This Bob Hope Special called “Highlights of a Quarter Century” begins his 26th year with NBC in 1975...
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The Frank Sinatra Timex Show
The first Timex Show from Frank Sinatra with friends Dean Martin, Bing Crosby and others....
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JFK: The Lost Inaugural Gala
Documentary about the star-studded pre-inaugural gala that took place on January 19, 1961 to celebra...
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Breakdowns of 1942
Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1942....
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Murder at N.B.C.
A comedy classic whodunit with an amazing comedic ensemble group. An hour comedy special in which Bo...
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Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast
In the late 1990s, iconic photographer Bruce Weber barely managed to convince legendary actor Robert...
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Prohibition Newsreel No. 7
Celebrating the repeal of Prohibition from sea to shining sea. Currently available as part of the T...
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Hidden Hollywood: Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults
Documentary featuring more than one dozen musical outtakes from classic 20th Century-Fox films....
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The All-Star Christmas Show
This 1958 Christmas spectacular was produced by the USO for the entertainment of troops stationed ov...
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