Inky dinky doo jimmy durante biography

•

James Francis Durante, better known as Jimmy Durante or Schnozzle (Snozzle) Durante, (February 10, – January 29, ) was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor, whose distinctive gravel delivery, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose — his frequent jokes about it included a frequent self-reference that became his nickname: "Schnozzola" — helped man him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the s through the s. He was also one of the most beloved people within the entertainment industry: an acquaintance once remarked of Durante, "You could warm your hands on this man."

Durante was born in New York City, the third of four children born to Mitch Durante ( –) and Margaret Durante (–). A product of working-class New York, Durante dropped out of school in the eighth grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist, working the city circuit and earning the nickname "Ragtime Jimmy," before he joined one of

•

Jimmy Durante (New York City, February 10, – Santa Monica, California, January 29, ) was a unique entertainer and reportedly one of the kindest, sweetest people at the top of the entertainment world. He was an accomplished although self-taught ragtime piano player with a singing röst that sounded like a pneumatic drill glossing over sandpaper. He couldn&#;t dance either so he would take off his battered hat and hold it in the air and just shuffle his feet rhythmically one after the other and, for some reason, when he went into this strut the crowd would go wild. There were few real show business icons but The Great Durante was surely one of them.

He was born the youngest of four children, on the Lower East Side to Italian immigrants from Salerno. His father was a barber and young Jimmy was an altar boy at the local Catholic church. He quickly began to learn ragtime piano to such a professional level that he dropped out of school in the seventh grade and began a vaudeville career w

•

Durante was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was the youngest of four children born to Rosa and Bartolomeo Durante, both of whom were immigrants from Salerno, Italy. Young Jimmy served as an altar boy at St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church, known as the Actor's Chapel. He dropped out of school in seventh grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist and began working the city's piano bar circuit and earned the nickname "ragtime Jimmy", before he joined one of the first recognizable jazz bands in New York, the Original 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 the group was renamed Jimmy Durante's Jazz Band.

By the mids, Durante had become a vaudeville star and radio personality in a trio named Clayton, Jackson and Durante. Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson, Durante's closest friends, often reun