James Darren

Actor James Darren, who helped ignite the browsing wave of the Sixties together with his function as an enthralling seashore boy reverse Sandra Dee within the hit film “Gidget,” died Monday on the age of 88.

His son, Jim Moret, confirmed to CBS Information that Darren died in his sleep at a Los Angeles hospital.

Morritt instructed CBS Information that Darren was admitted to the hospital final week for an aortic valve substitute, however was unable to endure the process resulting from his power on the time. He was then rushed again to the hospital on Sunday.

“It was a shock, truthfully,” Moret instructed CBS Information. “We knew he wasn’t doing properly, however we did not anticipate this.”

Morritt stated Darren was not in ache and was “capable of specific his like to his household.”

Over the course of his lengthy profession, Darren has acted, sung, and constructed a profitable profession behind the scenes as a tv director, directing episodes of in style sequence comparable to “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Melrose Place.” Within the Eighties, he performed Officer Jim Corrigan on the TV present “T.J. Hooker.”

However for younger moviegoers of the late Fifties, he can be greatest remembered as Moondoggie, the dark-haired surfer boy within the 1959 blockbuster “Gidget.” Dee performed the title character, a plucky Southern Californian who goes to the seashore and ultimately falls in love with Moondoggie.

“I fell in love with Sandra,” Darren later recalled. “I believed she was completely excellent as Jiji. She had such allure.”

The movie was primarily based on a novel written by a California man, Frederick Conner, about his teenage daughter and helped spur curiosity in browsing – one thing that influenced pop music, slang and even vogue.

For Deren, his success with teenage followers led to a recording contract, because it did for a lot of younger performers on the time, together with Tab Hunter and Annette Funicello. Two of Deren’s singles, “Goodbye Merciless World” and “Her Royal Majesty,” reached the highest 10 of the Billboard Scorching 100 chart. “Goodbye Merciless World” was additionally featured in Steven Spielberg’s 2022 semi-autobiographical movie, “The Fabelmans.” Different singles included “Gidget” and “Angel Face.”

Darren was the one actor within the solid of “Gidget” to look in its two sequels, “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” (1961) and “Gidget Goes to Rome” (1963). Dee was changed by Deborah Whaley within the second movie and Cindy Carroll within the third. “Gidget” was later tailored right into a tv present, launching Sally Area’s profession.

“They have been holding me beneath contract, and I used to be a prisoner,” Darren instructed Leisure Weekly in 2004. “However with these lovely younger girls, it was the most effective jail I believe I’ll ever be in.”

As a contract actor for Columbia Studios, Darren additionally appeared in grownup movies, together with The Rico Brothers, Operation Meatballs, and The Weapons of Navarone.

By the mid-Sixties, when Darren appeared in For These Who Suppose Younger and The Vigorous Set, his big-screen profession was all however over. He appeared in a handful of movies after the late Sixties, his final look being in 2017’s Fortunate, directed by John Carroll Lynch.

However he remained energetic on tv, showing in a serious function on the science fiction present “Time Tunnel” within the late Sixties, and showing in visitor and small recurring roles on such tv exhibits as “The Love Boat,” “Hawaii 5-O,” and “Fantasy Island.”

Darren was a primary solid member on 4 seasons of the William Shatner-starring TJ Hooker within the Eighties. Whereas showing on the present, he seen that the director’s identify was not listed for an upcoming sequence and requested if he might check out.

“When the film got here out, I acquired so many gives to direct it,” he instructed the New York Every day Information. “And shortly after, I acquired so many gives to direct the film that I ended appearing and singing.”

For about two years, Darren directed episodes of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” “Hunter,” “Melrose Place,” “Beverly Hills 90210,” and others. He returned to appearing within the Nineties with small roles in “Melrose Place” and “Star Trek: Deep Area 9.”

Born James Ercolani in 1936, Darren grew up in South Philadelphia, near stars like Fabian and Frankie Avalon who have been stars of the Fifties and Sixties. Singing got here simply to him, and by the age of 14 he was performing in native nightclubs.

“From the time I used to be 5 or 6, I knew I needed to be an artist, or perhaps well-known,” he stated in a 2003 interview with the Fort Myers, Fla., Information-Press. He famous that celebrities like Eddie Fisher and Al Martino lived in the identical neighborhood as him, “an actual neighborhood. It made you are feeling like you possibly can make it, too.”

In response to a profile printed within the Los Angeles Occasions in 1958, he acquired an opportunity when he went to New York to take some footage and the photographer’s workplace put him in contact with a expertise scout.

He quickly signed a contract with Columbia Footage, and the paper reported that after a number of appearances, his fan mail on the studio was “second solely to Kim Novak’s…and the studio now feels the younger man is able to hit the jackpot.”

Darren married his first spouse Gloria in 1955 and collectively that they had Maurit, a correspondent for Inside Version and former CNN anchor. After the divorce he married Evi Norlund, who got here to the USA as a Danish contestant within the Miss Universe pageant. That they had two sons, Christian and Anthony.

He was additionally godfather to Nancy Sinatra’s daughter, A.J. Lambert.

“Certainly one of my dearest and closest mates on the planet, in my complete life, has handed away. My daughter’s godfather, AJ. I want him a speedy and exquisite journey via the universe and past. I want him properly, pricey Jimmy. My coronary heart is damaged however full of affection for Evie, Christian, Anthony and Jimmy Jr.,” Sinatra wrote on social media.