In memoriam: James Darren (Telegraph 06/09/24)

James Darren, who has died aged 88, was an American actor and singer who became a teen idol in his early twenties; though he struggled to make the leap to fully-fledged leading man status, he nevertheless enjoyed a sixty-year career in showbusiness.

Tanned and toothsome, he won hearts as singing surfer Jeff “Moondoggie” Matthews in Gidget (1959), a beach-set coming-of-age comedy for youngsters who hadn’t seen themselves amid the angsty The Wild One (1953) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Studio Columbia had eyed Elvis Presley for the role, but shooting coincided with Presley’s military service; instead, they settled on Darren.

In many ways, this was unlikely casting: Darren couldn’t surf and was a poor swimmer. But he could carry a tune, which was enough to sway the execs. “They were thinking about having someone do the vocal and I would lip sync,” he recalled. “I told them I could do it, so we went into one of the sound stages and I sang ‘Gidget’. They said, ‘He sings fine’, then I did all the other songs.”

That theme song made #41 on the US Billboard chart, launching a secondary singing career, even if Darren’s subsequent singles – including 1959’s “Teenage Tears” and “Goodbye Cruel World”, a US top three hit in 1961 – sounded less like prime pop than coded cries for help. The attentions of screaming fans provided some consolation, but as Darren once admitted “at times, it was Chinese torture”.

More mature roles followed – a trumpet-playing best pal in The Gene Krupa Story (1959), opposite Sidney Poitier in the Korean War drama All the Young Men (1960), as Grecian scrapper Spyros Pappadimos in The Guns of Navarone (1961) – yet as Darren diplomatically phrased it “the people handling my career at that point didn’t really take advantage”.

Instead, he found himself pitched into Gidget sequels – Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961), Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) – and providing Yogi Bear’s singing voice in the feature-length Hey There, Yogi Bear (1964). “They had me under contract,” Darren shrugged of his Columbia deal. “I was a prisoner. But with those lovely young ladies, it was the best prison I think I’ve ever been in.”

He was born James William Ercolani in Philadelphia on June 8, 1936, one of two sons to Catholic parents. A mildly troublesome child (“a Dennis the Menace sort, not a bad kid”), he dropped out of school aged 16 and began commuting to New York to study acting under the influential Stella Adler. Moving to L.A. in 1954, he was signed by Columbia and underwent a name change inspired by the Kaiser Darrin sports car. 

He was launched in Rumble on the Docks (1956), a knock-off of On the Waterfront (1954) bearing the tagline “Out of Their Teens… Into Big Time Crime!” He proved an instant hit with young cinemagoers, reportedly inspiring 400 to 500 fan letters per month to the studio, second only to Kim Novak.

Once liberated from studio servitude, he scuffed up his clean-cut screen persona with Jess Franco’s Eurosleaze thriller Venus in Furs (1969), then settled into regular, well-paying nightclub gigs and TV work. Playing the adventurous Dr. Tony Newman on Irwin Allen’s fondly remembered The Time Tunnel (1966-67) kept him in the public eye; a Vegas residency with comedian Buddy Hackett exercised the vocal cords.

Guest spots followed on Police Woman (1976), Charlie’s Angels (1977) and Hawaii Five-O (1978-79), and Darren eventually became a series regular on two primetime hits: as the genial Jim Corrigan on William Shatner vehicle TJ Hooker (1982-86) and as the crooning hologram Vic Fontaine on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1998-99). 

Modelled on old pal Frank Sinatra, that role led to a revival of interest in Darren’s singing career. He rerecorded the show’s songs in a big band style for his 1999 album “This One’s from the Heart”; 2001 follow-up “Because of You” featured arrangements Sinatra himself had turned down; while Steven Spielberg used “Goodbye Cruel World” as scene-setting in his autobiographical The Fabelmans (2022).

Interviewed in 1983, Darren revealed the practical mindset behind his longevity: “Every career has its hills and valleys. The most important thing is that you are happy with you. [Nobody]’s career… has always been climbing. It always levels out and you want to make sure you have good investments and financial security and bread on the table.”

He is survived by his second wife Evy Norland, a former Miss Denmark whom he married in 1960, and three sons, two by Norland and one, the CNN anchorman Jim Moret, by an earlier marriage to Gloria Terlitzsky.

James Darren, born June 8, 1936, died September 2, 2024.